Performance-Enhancing Bacteria Has a Symbiotic Relationship With Athletes (joslin.org) 33
Long-time Slashdot reader tomhath shares some big bacteria news from Harvard Medical School:
Researchers from Joslin Diabetes Center determined Veillonella metabolizes lactic acid produced by exercise and converts it into propionate, a short chain fatty acid. The human body then utilizes that propionate to improve exercise capacity...
"It creates this positive feedback loop. The host is producing something that this particular microbe favors. Then in return, the microbe is creating something that benefits the host," Aleksandar D. Kostic Ph.D. says. "This is a really important example of how the microbiome has evolved ways to become this symbiotic presence in the human host."
By Friday, CNBC was reporting their research "could lead to a probiotic-like supplement that 'regular joes' could use to enhance their performance in a few years." "The future of fitness is here and it's something that we're rapidly developing," Jonathan Scheiman, former Harvard postdoctoral fellow and CEO and co-founder of FitBiomics, tells CNBC Make It. "We want to translate this into consumer products to promote health and wellness [to the masses]..." [The researchers] found the mice given Veillonella ran 13% longer on a treadmill compared to mice who were not given the bacteria. "It might not seem like a huge number, but I definitely think its biologically significant and certainly if you ask a marathon runner, if they could increase their running ability by 13% -- I think that they will be generally interested," Aleksandar Kostic, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of microbiology at the Joslin Diabetes Center tells CNBC Make It.
"It creates this positive feedback loop. The host is producing something that this particular microbe favors. Then in return, the microbe is creating something that benefits the host," Aleksandar D. Kostic Ph.D. says. "This is a really important example of how the microbiome has evolved ways to become this symbiotic presence in the human host."
By Friday, CNBC was reporting their research "could lead to a probiotic-like supplement that 'regular joes' could use to enhance their performance in a few years." "The future of fitness is here and it's something that we're rapidly developing," Jonathan Scheiman, former Harvard postdoctoral fellow and CEO and co-founder of FitBiomics, tells CNBC Make It. "We want to translate this into consumer products to promote health and wellness [to the masses]..." [The researchers] found the mice given Veillonella ran 13% longer on a treadmill compared to mice who were not given the bacteria. "It might not seem like a huge number, but I definitely think its biologically significant and certainly if you ask a marathon runner, if they could increase their running ability by 13% -- I think that they will be generally interested," Aleksandar Kostic, co-author of the study and an assistant professor of microbiology at the Joslin Diabetes Center tells CNBC Make It.
Re: Intelligent design? (Score:2, Funny)
There is no difference.
Re: (Score:1)
When you look at how the human body is designed, it's clear that the Intelligent Designer was drunk when laying out certain body parts.
Re: (Score:1)
Which is exactly what is told in the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster [venganza.org]: unintelligent design due to the creator (sauce be upon him) being drunk when he created the universe. Also, His extraordinary sense of humor has a lot to do with it.
what they didn't tell you (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Smithers, Release the robotic Richard Simmons!
This weeks 'Elementary'... (Score:2)
...generally had something like this. Freaky.
Biology is never this simple (Score:2)
There are probably other support bacteria in the gut that also need to be there or certain bacteria can't or the athlete has to eat certain foods and their digestion has to work in certain ways or the bacteria need to be coaxed somehow into doing it and won't just do it on demand etc etc. The chances of just being able to swallow a pill containing these microbes and suddenly having 13% more performance I suspect is close to nil.
Is it multi-antibiotic resistant? (Score:1)
Otherwise, the doping boards will just insist that athletes take a large dose of penicillin a couple of days before competing. Those who only compete on Strada, of course, won't care until they get a sinus infection and suddenly drop back 13% in their performance.
One wonders how other forms of performance are affected? The next blue pill?
Looking forward to synthetic biology! (Score:2)
It's discoveries like this that make me very interested in the development of synthetic biology. While we toil away looking to find ways to improve our performance over a lifetime, a simple capsule of microbes engineered for maximum efficiency could suddenly boost you to the performance of an Olympian.
Making exercising highly efficient is extremely desirable especially for your average Joe who is overweight and out of shape. Doing so would enable easy weight-loss and thusly promote cardiovascular health.
Re: (Score:2)
But most of those "average joes" could avoid the cardiovascular problems (until their 80s anyway) by proper diet and normal exercise.
We don't really need a miracle pill. We need the miracle where people turn up their nose at processed crap food and get off their asses and do some exercise.
Heard on NPR (Score:3)
Ira Flatow has a ten minute segment [sciencefriday.com] on this. One thing to be aware, you cannot eat or drink this bacteria. It must be done rectally.
No, really. Listen to the segment. That's why the blurb talks about a probiotic form. Right now, there is only one way, and it's through the exit.
Biofilm (Score:3)
Too bad probiotics by themselves are mostly ineffective, unless you wipe out your gut flora first. Living bacteria produce a biofilm in the gut which prevents other, new bacteria from colonizing the gut, which incidentally also prevents probiotics from having much effect.
Re: (Score:2)
But if the bacteria have already been wiped out, then it can work really, really well. I have three suddenly (as is almost overnight) reflux-free anecdotes (not data) about the power of fermented cabbage, courtesy of myself and two other people who thought our days of pizza, beer and too much coffee were bygones.
Only if stupid (Score:2)
...if you ask a marathon runner, if they could increase their running ability by 13% -- I think that they will be generally interested.
People who run marathons already carry this bacteria, and it's already operating in this mode. Because they run marathons. They're not going to gain anything at all.
research (Score:1)