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"An Amazonian Tribe May Hold The Secret To Better Gut Health"

CrohnsChicago

Super Moderator
Very interesting read about geography and it's influence on gut health.

A team of researchers are studying a remote hunter-gatherer community in the Peruvian Amazon with the express purpose of answering a single question: What did our digestive systems look like before antibiotics and fast food?

They now have some insight into how diverse ancient human gut bacteria was thousands of years ago -- and how our modern intestinal colonies have changed as a result of our industrialized lifestyles.


Compared to a traditional agricultural community living in the Andean Highlands (also in Peru) and an urban-industrialized community in Norman, Oklahoma, the hunter-gatherers -- a sovereign tribe, the Matses -- boasted stunning bacterial diversity in their guts, including the presence of the genus, Treponema. This type of gut bacteria diversity, as well as the specific genus Treponema, has been found only in non-human primates and other hunter-gatherer communities in Burkina-Faso and Tanzania. The discovery provides scientists with a theoretical baseline for how human gut bacteria flourishes away from the influences of urbanization and industrialization.

Treponema is related to other bacteria that help metabolize our food. In doing so, it also releases chemicals that are anti-inflammatory and aid in the health of the colon. While Lewis has yet to prove any beneficial link between Treponema and the health of the Matses, he speculates that this type of bacteria are likely bestowing benefits to their hosts....

..."By studying the bacteria that was lost during industrialization, we have an opportunity to discover paths to restore those bacteria, assuming that’s a good idea, or at least improve our body’s immune system,” said the study's lead researcher, Cecil Lewis of the University of Oklahom. "It’s too early to say that Treponema will have role in that restoration, but they are definitely one of the stronger candidates worth exploring."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/...ria_n_6994310.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000030
 
I posted a link to this in the fecal transplant thread a few weeks ago, it's a pretty Important finding. I sometimes wonder if some negative aspects of the western mind is due to loss in bacterial diversity. I wonder if our desire for "better" lives through too much technological advances might be eliminated through making "real life" more pleasureable. For instance we might prefer to walk to work rather then drive, or hunt our food, rather then it being so convenient, or prefer hard physical labor over making things "easier". or live closer to one another rather then isolated, or even wear less clothing, such as less developed countries do. I wonder if our anxiety levels would decrease, and we would not be so driven to accumulate vast amounts of wealth only to hoard it all for ourselves, and possibly become more generous.
 
II wonder if our desire for "better" lives...
This is a BIG topic and not a uniquely "Western" desire -- look at some of the emerging economies, they are on the same path. You can probably trace these changes in the West back to the Bronze Age, it didn't happen overnight.

Our best hope for restoring some of the health benefits of the past is to advance our scientific knowledge and see how we can re-create and promote the same beneficial factors.

I think this is a fascinating topic.
 
This is a BIG topic and not a uniquely "Western" desire -- look at some of the emerging economies, they are on the same path. You can probably trace these changes in the West back to the Bronze Age, it didn't happen overnight.

Our best hope for restoring some of the health benefits of the past is to advance our scientific knowledge and see how we can re-create and promote the same beneficial factors.

I think this is a fascinating topic.
I don't think there is anything wrong with being smart and technical, but being greedy and narcissitic seems to permeate western society, and I think this is a pathology on human beings that need sot be scientifically explained. Even when greed combines with intellect it's possibly the cause of our ill's like corporations not interested in the safety of substances and being more concerned with profits then the well being of society as a whole. It's the lack of compassion for one another, that sense of community that's fading away which would otherwise balance things out naturally rather then the government coming in after the fact to have to regulate. I wonder if cultural exposure to lead and mercury not only as medicine but in makeup somehow eliminated Treponema bacteria influencing these characteristics. I think refined sugar and excessive alcohol may also be part of the equation for these pathologies of modern humans. The slave trade had sugar and alcohol in a strong association with each other. Probably all of the above. western society had alot of things right though, we are doing something right but I'm trying to find out why we still have so many things wrong that other cultures don't seem to have.
 
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