Just like the intestine, microbes are necessary for a wholesome vaginal ecosystem.
Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Picture Library
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Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Picture Library
Just like the intestine, microbes are necessary for a wholesome vaginal ecosystem.
Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Picture Library
Microbes are necessary within the intestine, pores and skin, mouth — and within the vagina.
Postdoctoral analysis scientist Fatima Aysha Hussain says that not like our intestine, a wholesome vaginal microbiome is probably going one with a low range of microbes. “Within the intestine, the extra range you’ve gotten, the extra completely different micro organism are there to interrupt down completely different meals you are consuming. However within the vaginal microbiome, we would like a decrease range state,” she says, which helps decrease irritation.
Analysis on the vaginal microbiome has proven that folks with a excessive range of microbes are extra vulnerable to dangerous well being outcomes, like sexual transmitted infections, cervical most cancers, pre-term start and bacterial vaginosis, a standard, uncomfortable situation the place sure microbes develop greater than others. Bacterial vaginosis will be laborious to deal with — as much as 50 p.c of circumstances come again in a matter of months and antibiotics are sometimes ineffective long run.
Hussain is making an attempt to vary that with a vaginal microbiome transplant research. She and her workforce are recruiting each donors and recipients to check whether or not fluid from a “wholesome” vaginal microbiome transferred to somebody dwelling with recurrent bacterial vaginosis can stop the an infection from coming again.
She just lately accomplished a small security research with promising outcomes. Two of the 4 individuals who obtained a transplant not solely switched from a excessive to a low range “wholesome” microbiome, however “it stayed that manner for as much as six months,” says Hussain.
She hopes {that a} bigger research will assist scientists perceive the vaginal ecosystem higher with a purpose to in the future design more practical therapies for bacterial vaginosis.
Be taught extra concerning the research right here.
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This episode was produced by Berly McCoy, edited by Gisele Grayson and our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez and truth checked by Margaret Cirino. The audio engineers had been Gilly Moon and KoTakasugi-Czernowin.
