Just like the intestine, microbes are necessary for a wholesome vaginal ecosystem.
Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Photograph Library
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Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Photograph Library
Just like the intestine, microbes are necessary for a wholesome vaginal ecosystem.
Getty Pictures/Kateryna Kon/Science Photograph Library
Microbes are necessary within the intestine, pores and skin, mouth — and within the vagina.
Postdoctoral analysis scientist Fatima Aysha Hussain says that in contrast to our intestine, a wholesome vaginal microbiome is probably going one with a low variety of microbes. “Within the intestine, the extra variety you have got, the extra completely different micro organism are there to interrupt down completely different meals you are consuming. However within the vaginal microbiome, we wish a decrease variety state,” she says, which helps decrease irritation.
Analysis on the vaginal microbiome has proven that folks with a excessive variety of microbes are extra prone to dangerous well being outcomes, like sexual transmitted infections, cervical most cancers, pre-term delivery and bacterial vaginosis, a standard, uncomfortable situation the place sure microbes develop greater than others. Bacterial vaginosis could be exhausting to deal with — as much as 50 p.c of instances come again in a matter of months and antibiotics are sometimes ineffective long run.
Hussain is making an attempt to alter that with a vaginal microbiome transplant research. She and her group 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 forestall the an infection from coming again.
She not too long ago 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 variety “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 to be able to someday design simpler therapies for bacterial vaginosis.
Be taught extra concerning the research right here.
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