{"id":92029,"date":"2019-06-13T20:42:22","date_gmt":"2019-06-14T03:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/gut-microbes-eat-our-medication"},"modified":"2019-06-13T20:42:22","modified_gmt":"2019-06-14T03:42:22","slug":"gut-microbes-eat-our-medication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/gut-microbes-eat-our-medication","title":{"rendered":"Gut microbes eat our medication"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/gut-microbes-eat-our-medication.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The first time Vayu Maini Rekdal manipulated microbes, he made a decent sourdough bread. At the time, young Maini Rekdal, and most people who head to the kitchen to whip up a salad dressing, pop popcorn, ferment vegetables, or caramelize onions, did not consider the crucial chemical reactions behind these concoctions.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Even more crucial are the reactions that happen after the plates are clean. When a slice of sourdough travels through the digestive system, the trillions of microbes that live in our gut help the body break down that bread to absorb the nutrients. Since the human body cannot digest certain substances \u2014 all-important fiber, for example \u2014 microbes step up to perform chemistry no human can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut this kind of microbial metabolism can also be detrimental,\u201d said Maini Rekdal, a graduate student in the lab of Professor Emily Balskus and first-author on their new study published in <em>Science<\/em>. According to Maini Rekdal, gut microbes can chew up medications, too, often with hazardous side effects. \u201cMaybe the drug is not going to reach its target in the body, maybe it\u2019s going to be toxic all of a sudden, maybe it\u2019s going to be less helpful,\u201d Maini Rekdal said.<\/p>\n<p>In their study, Balskus, Maini Rekdal, and their collaborators at the University of California San Francisco, describe one of the first concrete examples of how the microbiome can interfere with a drug\u2019s intended path through the body. Focusing on levodopa (L-dopa), the primary treatment for Parkinson\u2019s disease, they identified which bacteria are responsible for degrading the drug and how to stop this microbial interference.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2019\/06\/190613143629.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><\/p>\n<div style=\"clear:both;\">Read more<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The first time Vayu Maini Rekdal manipulated microbes, he made a decent sourdough bread. At the time, young Maini Rekdal, and most people who head to the kitchen to whip up a salad dressing, pop popcorn, ferment vegetables, or caramelize onions, did not consider the crucial chemical reactions behind these concoctions. Even more crucial are [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,1506],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}