The Effect of the Intestinal Microbiome on Health and Disease

A balanced gastrointestinal microbiome is essential for optimal health. Thanks to recent technological advances, an understanding of how intraluminal microbes interact with the host enterocytes to maintain not only a healthy mucosa, but also systemic well-being, is emerging. Optimal health can be impaired when populations of beneficial microbes decrease, and their positive metabolic and immunologic effects are disrupted. Replacement by microbes with potentially negative effects may further disrupt this loss of a healthy balance, and in some cases lead to frankly pathologic effects. While a full understanding is still evolving, some of the potential important mechanisms mediating host-microbiome interactions are becoming apparent. These mechanisms, and how their modulation may play a role in prevention and treatment of diseases, are areas of intense current investigation, and will be illustrated in this introductory presentation.