The American Gut Project
In 2012, the University of California at San Diego’s internal review board approved a crowd funded microbiome project that has now collected 100,000 fecal samples from individuals. “Samples from each participant were analyzed using a variety of techniques to generate a broad picture of what bacteria was present in each unique microbiome. Metabolomics, shotgun metagenomics and the tracking of specific genetic markers all contributed to the comprehensive study of each sample. All subsequent microbiome data is de-identified and then placed onto an open source database for any researcher to utilize.” Two findings, so far, have been that the more varied a diet, the greater the microbiome diversity. And, the more varied the diet, the less antibiotic resistance in the microbiome. Click on the link to the “American Gut Project.” MORE
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