Alessio Fasano and Susie Flaherty
The Microbiome And Our Health
Why the microbiome--our rich inner ecosystem of microorganisms--may hold the keys to human health. Recent advances in understanding the microbiome and its role in human health dovetail with the development of personalized or "œprecision" medicine to create treatments and prevention programs targeted to the molecular imprint of an individual. Fasano and Flaherty explore the microbiome's part in such diseases as gut inflammatory disorders, obesity, neurological conditions, and cancer, and they explain new research in prebiotics, probiotics, synbiotics, and psychobiotics. They also discuss the microbiome and immune function, including a possible role in COVID-19 treatment. By simultaneously expanding our perspective to encompass large datasets and multiple factors in human health, and narrowing our focus to identify the individual communities in the human microbiome, we will enlarge and perhaps reinvent our understanding of how to combat disease and maintain health.