Gut microbiota modulation to improve bowel health

Background

Having trouble going to the toilet is something everybody experiences but we rarely talk about. For some people this is daily life and detrimentally impacts their well-being. We know that the gut microbiota can impact gut health and we know that we can modulate the gut microbiota using fibre.

Aim

In this human intervention trial we want to test whether different dosages of a novel, complex fibre product changes the composition and activity of the gut microbiota in subjects with bowel function issues.

Tasks and Learning Outcome

• You will experience how a human intervention trial is conducted, which includes contacting and guiding participants, overseeing study logistics and preparing samples and data for analysis.
• You will gather knowledge on gut microbiota and gut health and translate this into infographics, weekly newsletter and other educational material for the participants.
• You will dive deeper into understanding how bowel health relates to gut microbiota composition. Depending on your interest you can perform labwork by preparing samples for gut microbiota analysis, and/or better understand changes in subjects’ well-being and bowel function during the trial and/or analyse (just arrived) metabolomics data by relating them to the gut microbiota composition using R.

Contact

Would you like to contribute to this research? Please contact Marie-Luise Puhlmann (marie-luise.puhlmann@wur.nl).