Intestinal Microbiome

Neonates delivered by scheduled Cesarean Section will be randomized to receive vaginal seeding (exposing the infant to Mother's vaginal flora) or sham. Infants will be followed for three years to examine health outcomes including microbiome development, immune development, metabolic outcomes, and any adverse events.

Patients with unexplained atherosclerosis (severe atherosclerosis not explained by traditional risk factors) will receive fecal microbial transplants (FMT) from patients with a Protected phenotype (patients who have high levels of risk factors but little or no carotid atherosclerosis). The objective is to determine what changes in the intestinal microbiome are associated with a decline in plasma levels of toxic metabolites of the itnestinal microbiome such as trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) and p-cresylsulfate. The intention is to develop an ecosystem therapeutic of cultured bacteria to treat atherosclerosis.

The goal of this clinical trial is to investigate the therapeutic potential of A. soehngenii and pasteurized A. muciniphila combined with B. animalis subsp. lactis and fructo-oligosaccharides with and without conditioned vegan lyophilized fecal microbiota transplantation capsules to reduce NASH in patients with fibrotic NASH. The main questions to answer are: 1. Can NASH be treated by altering the gut microbiota using LFMT capsules? 2. Can NASH be treated using a syntrophic cocktail of synbiotics and will these strains strengthen the effect of FMT? 3. What are the underlying mechanism by which the aforementioned treatments attenuate NASH? Participants will be treated with FMT-capsules or placebo, and all participants will receive a cocktail of 3 strains of probiotics and one type of prebiotic.

Childhood obesity is a strong predictor of adult obesity with health and economic consequences for the individual and society. Adiposity rebound (AR) is a rise in the Body Mass Index occurring between 3-7 years. Early adiposity rebound (EAR) occurs at a median age of 2 years and is a risk factor for later obesity. Events happening in "the first 1,000 days" play a role in obesity development. One of the key elements in this crucial time window is the gut microbiome, a highly dynamic organ that is sensitive to environmental exposure being linked to obesity development. Prenatal (dietary/lifestyle maternal factors and environmental exposure) and postnatal determinants (the type of feeding, sleep patterns, speed of growth) and environmental obesogenic pollutants may influence the infant microbial colonization, thus increasing the risk of EAR onset. LIMIT will holistically identify the longitudinal interplay between the intestinal microbiome and infant/maternal nutritional and lifestyle habits, environmental factors exposure and anthropometric measurements, in children with AR vs EAR, driving new mechanistic insights to create an EAR predictive model. The study will evaluate a group of 150 mother-infant pairs, during the first four years of life at different follow-up.