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A variety of microbial communities and their genes (the microbiome) exist throughout the human body, with fundamental roles in human health and disease. The National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Human Microbiome Project Consortium has established a population-scale framework to develop metagenomic protocols, resulting in a broad range of quality-controlled resources and data including standardized methods for creating, processing and interpreting distinct types of high-throughput metagenomic data available to the scientific community. An ambitious article found in another article I enjoyed reading. Was incredibly interested to find out that the vaginal microbiota of pregnant women was significantly different from non-pregnant and to find that these microbiota are preparing the soon to be born baby with it's own microbiota!! (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?ref=microbiology)

The recent papers from the Cleveland Clinic on the role of microbiome in heart disease jogged my memory of Paul Ewald's work on this subject. In a way, he predicted the papers that appeared this week over 15 years ago. Put succinctly, "big, old, diseases are infectious." If they weren't, natural selection would have reduced their incidence. Fascinating theory, worth a read.

NYTimes report on Nathan's post about carnitine and it's conversion to TMAO by gut bacteria.

First carnitine and meat, now lecithin and eggs! Darn it! All things in moderation, I guess.