Klaudijus Baranauskas1, Ieva Balčiūnaitė1
1Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Medical academy, Faculty of Medicine, Kaunas, Lithuania
Abstract
Background: the microbiome is a unique microorganism habitat encompassing all microorganism variations in respect of composition and diversity within a human organism. In today’s world of science, there is an increasing focus on determining microbiome’s importance to human health and its relation to pathogenesis of various diseases.
Aim: to evaluate the relationship between the microbiome and human physiological functions, to determine the effect of the most common environmental factors on the composition and diversity of intestinal microorganisms and their application in clinical practice.
Methods: literature review was carried out using “PubMed” database. The literature research was conducted using predetermined keywords. More than 30 publications were analyzed on the subject of microbiome.
Results: the microbiome is a vital part of human metabolic function and the formation of the immune system. However, common environmental factors such as stress, diet and antibiotics cause an imbalance in the composition and diversity of microorganisms, leading to a higher risk of developing various diseases. As a result, the field is becoming more relevant and more widely used in clinical practice, with the treatment of Clostridium difficile in fecal transplantation being a successful example.
Conclusions: there is an increasing awareness of the importance of the composition and diversity of the microbiome and its links to various human physiological functions. It is hoped that in the future this knowledge will be applicable in the treatment and prevention of various infectious, autoimmune and oncological diseases, using the microbiome as a biomarker for risk assessment.
Keywords: gut microbiome, microrganism, dysbiosis.