Since 2016, I have also been studying the role of the intestinal microbiome in the onset of cardiometabolic diseases. The intestinal microbiome is the set of bacteria, fungi and viruses that are in our digestive system, and are essential for the digestion of food, transforming useful substances into energy for the body and identifying those to be eliminated. Changes in the intestinal microbiome can lead to metabolic imbalances, and therefore be involved in the onset of cardiometabolic diseases, such as diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis. Several evidence suggests that intestinal microbiiome disbiosis can play a role in many other diseases, such autoimmune disease, neurogenerative diseases, depression, but also in response to treatment such as cancer medications.
To better understand the role of the intestinal microbiome, in the past years I have studied over 7,000 individuals of Dutch origin.
These researches, in collaboration with the University of Groningen (Holland), aim to understand which are the specific bacteria that regulate human metabolism. Their identification would lead to a new approach to medicine, where the therapy could consist in a simple alteration of the diet or intake of supplements.
Some of the works on this topic:
Lopera et al Nat Gen 2022; Sanna et al Nat Gen 2022 – gut microbiome composition and function associations with human genome
Kulirshikov Nat Gen 2021 – gut microbiome composition associations with human genome
Sanna et al Nat Gen 2019 – rrole of gut microbiome in metabolic diseases and traits
I am now starting new projects to study the role of microbiome in females. One of this project, funded by an European Community, will take advantage of a unique cohort of women that I have set up with a collaboration of Prof. Giorgia Girotto and her group at the Burlo Garofolo Hospital in Trieste. This cohort is named Women4Health — you can look up on Facebook page of Women4Health or Instagram for our social page!