午夜剧场

There is a saying by Sun Tzu: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." This means that if you have a thorough understanding of both your enemy and your own side, you will not lose a war. I believe this saying can also be applied to human relationships. By inferring and respecting the feelings of others, while also looking at and reflecting on oneself objectively, one can build a good relationship of trust. Furthermore, I believe the same can be said for gut bacteria, which is my current research subject. In other words, through my actual research, I strongly feel that deeply understanding not only our physiological functions but also our internal symbiotic organisms—gut bacteria—is crucial for maintaining health and preventing disease.

Over the past 10 to 15 years, advances in analytical technologies (such as next-generation sequencers and omics analysis) have gradually revealed the full picture of the composition and metabolites of the gut microbiota. As a result, it has been suggested that gut bacteria deeply influence our physiological functions and various diseases. This is thought to be because the gut microbiota, which possesses more than a hundred times as many genes as humans, produces substances that we cannot create ourselves, and these act on the host's metabolic, immune, and nervous systems. I have also clarified that Clostridiales play a central role in inhibiting the colonization of intestinal pathogenic bacteria, that prostaglandin E2 produced by intestinal fungi is involved in the worsening of allergic airway inflammation, and that immune stimulation by components derived from resident bacteria is necessary for mucosal adjuvants to be effective. I am currently working hard on research aimed at searching for gut bacteria and metabolites that act suppressively against various diseases and elucidating their mechanisms of action.

The symbiotic relationship between humans and gut bacteria, which began with the history of mankind, is expected to have evolved with a sense of purpose. Therefore, these gut microbes likely provide us with benefits beyond our imagination. However, the composition and metabolism of gut bacteria depend heavily on our lifestyle habits (such as diet), and in some cases, gut bacteria can become a double-edged sword that harms our health. Why not start paying attention to your gut bacteria as well as your own body (organs) from today? If you do, you will surely find that "you need not fear disease."