{"id":1195,"date":"2022-08-12T14:41:52","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T18:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2022-08-12T14:41:52","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T18:41:52","slug":"bacteriophages-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1195","title":{"rendered":"Bacteriophages"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria.&nbsp; Phage is a Greek word meaning \u201cto eat\u201d.&nbsp; Bacteriophages invade bacteria, replicate themselves and then destroy the host cell.&nbsp; There are many types of viruses in the world.&nbsp; Some infect only certain animals.&nbsp; Some infect only humans.&nbsp; But bacteriophages are by far and away the most numerous viruses.&nbsp; They number 10 to the 31<sup>st<\/sup> power on the planet and this number is greater than all of the other organisms on earth added together (including bacteria).&nbsp; Despite being earths most populous organism science is just starting to understand their niche.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a previous newsletter we alluded to bacteriophages when discussing the immune mechanisms that bacteria have adapted to fight these viruses.&nbsp; Now two new areas of research have looked at bacteriophages.&nbsp; One has to do with gut bacteria, the phages they support, and cognitive health.&nbsp; It seems that people whose gut microbiome supports the bacteriophages Caudovirales have better executive function and memory than people whose microbiome supports Microviridae.&nbsp; When feces from humans with Caudovirales was transplanted into mice their performance on cognitive tests improved.&nbsp; Examination of their brains revealed an up-regulation of the genes known to be associated with superior cognitive skills.&nbsp; The potential application of this knowledge to humans with dementia is compelling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other area of research is harnessing bacteriophages to treat human bacterial infections.&nbsp; The idea is to select phages whose prime host is the bacteria causing a certain illness. &nbsp;Early efforts in this regard have been safe and effective.&nbsp; If this continues to be the case, it may provide a safe answer to the rising problem of multidrug resistant infections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria.&nbsp; Phage is a Greek word meaning \u201cto eat\u201d.&nbsp; Bacteriophages invade bacteria, replicate themselves and then destroy the host cell.&nbsp; There are many types of viruses in the world.&nbsp; Some infect only certain animals.&nbsp; Some infect only humans.&nbsp; But bacteriophages are by far and away the most numerous viruses.&nbsp; They number 10 to the 31st power on the planet and this number is greater than all of the other organisms on earth added together (including&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1195\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[554],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bacteriophages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}