From the Editors

Journal Club| Keeping it regular

Fibre, the gut, and its bugs - new paper out this week in Nature
Published in Microbiology
Go to the profile of Heidi Burdett
Heidi Burdett
Editor, Nature Microbiology
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I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with high-fibre breakfast cereals – they don’t taste great, but I’ve had it so engrained in me that a high fibre diet is good for you that they are hard to ignore when I'm perusing the breakfast aisle in my local supermarket. Haven't we all been told how fibre ‘keeps you regular’ at some point?

Published this week in Nature, Sonnenburg and colleagues suggest that fibre is so good for our health because of its ability to help maintain a healthy microbial community within the gut (is there anything that the gut microbiome can’t do?!). Perhaps more importantly, restoration of a high-fibre diet does not fully restore the health benefits and this deficiency may even persist across generations. So perhaps when your kids are asking why they have to eat the boring breakfast cereal, make sure they really take on board what you say!

Go to the profile of Heidi Burdett
Heidi Burdett
Editor, Nature Microbiology

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