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cover of episode What Your Gut Knows About Your Diet: The Science Of Food DNA With Dr. Sean Gibbons

What Your Gut Knows About Your Diet: The Science Of Food DNA With Dr. Sean Gibbons

2025/6/23
logo of podcast Finding Genius Podcast

Finding Genius Podcast

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Sean Gibbons: 作为一名微生物生态学者,我主要研究人类肠道微生物群如何受到饮食的影响。我们知道饮食是影响肠道微生物群组成的最强驱动因素,但传统的饮食数据收集方法存在偏差,例如人们倾向于报告健康的食物,而隐瞒不健康的食物。为了解决这个问题,我们开发了一种通过DNA检测食物的方法,这种方法最初用于研究野生动物的饮食。通过随机测序粪便中的所有DNA,然后筛选,我们可以提取饮食DNA。粪便中的DNA主要来自细菌,其次是人类DNA,饮食来源的DNA占比非常小。我们构建了一个包含动植物和真菌基因组的数据库,用于将宏基因组序列映射到人类饮食中的物种。通过计算来自不同食物的序列数量,我们可以粗略估计饮食中这些食物的含量。例如,在一项对照喂养研究中,我们的方法能够准确区分食用鳄梨的组别和未食用的组别。我们的方法能够半定量地估计人们在两到三天前所吃的食物。总的来说,我们的研究旨在了解饮食如何影响微生物群的组成,从而帮助我们通过饮食来调控微生物群,以实现特定的健康目标。

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Chapters
This chapter explores the concept of food DNA and its impact on human health. Dr. Gibbons discusses how food DNA is analyzed in fecal metagenomes, and the challenges of accurately measuring dietary intake. The discussion covers the use of meta-barcoding for tracking diet and the challenges of analyzing food DNA in stool samples.
  • Food DNA is a tiny fraction of the DNA in stool samples.
  • Meta-barcoding is used to track diet in animals and humans.
  • Most food DNA is degraded and used as nutrients by bacteria.

Shownotes Transcript

How does food DNA impact the human body? In what ways do ecological communities in the gut change and adapt to individual people over time? Join us in this episode as Dr. Sean Gibbons discusses a breakthrough method that analyzes food-derived DNA in fecal metagenomes – and what this means for human health…

Dr. Gibbon leads the Gibbons Lab at the Institute for Systems Biology, where he works to better understand and improve how the gut microbiome affects our health, utilizing a range of approaches, from hands-on experimentation to computer tools. His goal is to help create more personalized medical treatments. How? By accurately tracking dietary intake from gut microbiome samples and ultimately fostering better nutrition research and overall precision health.

Click play to find out:

How the human microbiome influences our responses to diet, drugs, and more. What food DNA is, and where this idea comes from.  The strongest driver of microbiome composition.   How accurate dietary data is collected.

Dr. Sean Gibbons earned his Ph.D. in Biophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2015. He then completed postdoctoral training in Eric Alm’s lab in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT (2015–2018), where he developed techniques to measure how the human gut microbiome changes and evolves in individual people. He is now a full-time microbiome researcher and an Associate Professor at the Institute for Systems Biology.

Want to follow along with Dr. Gibbons’s work with Gibbons Lab? Click here) now!

Episode also available on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9)

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