Submitted by Eric Brown
Malnutrition is a significant worldwide issue, and is attributed to one-fifth of all deaths in children under 5 years old. What’s interesting is that nutritional interventions fail to restore health in two-thirds of malnutrition patients. This indicates the importance of understanding the underlying defects in intestinal function contributing to malnourishment. Detrimental shifts in our intestinal microbes could exacerbate malnutrition. Thus, we are developing a novel model to study how intestinal microbes impact malnutrition and using it to screen for novel therapeutic interventions. This could lead to a future where we fight malnutrition with not only diet, but microbes as well.