Cranberry Balances the Population of Gut Microbiota

Gut microbiota or gastrointestinal microbiota, the complex community of microorganisms in our digestive tracts plays a critical role in a variety of metabolic functions, including produced vitamins, synthesized all essential and nonessential amino acids, and carried out biotransformation of bile.

The gut microbiota also maintains the key processes of nutrition-enhancing the digestive functioning, lipid, and energy metabolism by inducing the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), phenolics, and other molecules, and pathogen resistance by promoting the immune function.

In a healthy individual, the levels of gut microbiota are balanced that allow the body to function in an optimal way.

Overexpression of certain harmful bacteria in the gut such as E. coli can utilize a complex arsenal of virulence factors to colonize and persist in the intestine, leading to gut microbiota imbalance that facilitates the early onset of gastrointestinal diseases.

Balanced gut microbiota protects the intestinal structures and functions by attaching to the gut wall against the entry of pathogenic, enteroinvasive bacteria into the epithelial cells.

In the immune perspective, gut microbiota protects the intestines by alerting the immune response against foreign invasion through specific receptors, leading to an immune system in inducing the proinflammatory cytokines.

However, the imbalance of digestive gut microbiota has been found to induce a number of diseases, syndromes, and functional aberrations, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and wider systemic manifestations of disease such as obesity, and type 2 diabetes.

Imbalanced gut microbiota is found in obese patients, compared to healthy weight individuals.

Alterations in gut microbiota composition have been found in patients with a low-grade inflammatory state, leading to an increased risk of several diseases, including type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease.

Cranberry is an evergreen dwarf shrub, genus Vaccinium, belongings to the family Ericaceae, native to Northern America and Southern Asia. Because of its health benefits, cranberry has been cultivated in some parts of the world for commercial profit and used in traditional and herbal medicine to treat wounds, urinary disorders, diarrhea, diabetes, stomach ailments, and liver problems.

On finding a potential compound for the protection of the digestive functioning, researchers investigated the effects of cranberry extract (CE) in high fat/high sucrose (HFHS)-fed mice on the gut microbiota.

Selected C57BL/6J mice were fed either a chow or an HFHS diet. HFHS-fed mice were gavaged daily either with vehicle (water) or CE (200 mg/kg) for 8 weeks.

According to the results from differentiation,* CE treatment decreased liver weight and triglyceride accumulation in association with blunted hepatic oxidative stress and inflammation.

* More importantly, CE treatment lowered intestinal triglyceride content and alleviated intestinal inflammation and oxidative stress, similar to those in the liver.

* Interestingly, CE treatment markedly enhanced the ratio of gut microbiota by increasing the proportion of the mucin-degrading bacterium Akkermansia in the tested subjects.

Taken altogether, cranberry may be considered a remedy for balancing the ratio of the gut microbiota, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Natural Medicine for Fatty Liver And Obesity Reversal - The Revolutionary Findings To Achieve Optimal Health And Lose Weight

How To Get Rid Of Eye Floaters
Contrary To Professionals Prediction, Floaters Can Be Cured Naturally

Ovarian Cysts And PCOS Elimination
Holistic System In Existence That Will Show You How-To
Permanently Eliminate All Types of Ovarian Cysts Within 2 Months

Back to Kyle J. Norton Homepage http://kylejnorton.blogspot.ca


Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) A polyphenol-rich cranberry extract protects from diet-induced obesity, insulin resistance and intestinal inflammation in association with increased Akkermansia spp. population in the gut microbiota of mice by Anhê FF1, Roy D2, Pilon G1, Dudonné S2, Matamoros S2, Varin TV2, Garofalo C3, Moine Q3, Desjardins Y2, Levy E4, Marette A. (PubMed)