Though invisible to the naked eye, the microbiome makes up around 0.3% of our total body mass and is equivalent to the number of cells in our human body. The complex relationship between the human body and the microbiome can be observed in processes as drastic as the manifestation of diseases and as simple as...

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Defined as the consumption and craving of nonfood items over a period longer than a month, pica is a disorder that many may find overly bizarre and unrelatable. This disorder may also be best known to the public from its heavy coverage on the TLC show, My Strange Addiction, which follows individuals with com­pulsive and...

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Depending on your tastes, you may find that many of your favourite foods are products of fermenta­tion. Wine, cheese, bread, beer, and chocolate are just a few of these products that humans have enjoyed for thousands of years thanks to this simple chemical pro­cess. What started as a food preservation technique has now become a...

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Why do we eat what we eat? People enjoy eating foods that are not just appealing to their taste buds, but more importantly, that are not unappealing to them. Whether it’s disgust over the taste of cilantro or intolerance to a food group altogether, the science behind food preferences is complex. Factors including allergies, genetics,...

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I hope you are hungry. I know I am. This issue of IMMpress Magazine provides a full serving of nutritional microbiome-rich information that should satisfy anyone seeking to learn about the interface of immunity and metabolism. The IMMpress team has set a de­licious table of articles featuring key aspects of nutrition, diets and dietary supplements,...

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The vastness of our universe was put into the spotlight with the first images of the James Webb Space Telescope. These beautiful images, showing only a small fraction of the sky—a grain of sand held at arm’s length—has allowed humanity to delve into the unknown, to better understand our creation, and to see that we...

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After a two-year hiatus of in-per­son conferences, the 34th annual Canadian Society for Immunol­ogy (CSI) meeting reunited immunol­ogists in the port city of the Canadian Atlantic, Halifax, Nova Scotia, on June 1720th. Situated at the beautiful Mar­riott Harbourfront Hotel, the three-day conference was packed full with dis­cussions of exciting and novel research, workshops, and a...

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Nutrient-limited, hypoxic, and acid­ic – the microenvironment of solid tumors is like a battlefield for effector T cells. What can be done to allow T cells to survive such a hostile climate and ex­ert their antitumor functions? I caught up with a recent alumnus of the de­partment, Dr. Michael St. Paul, to talk about T...

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The post From Plant to Poop: The Power of Dietary Fibre first appeared on IMMpress Magazine.

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“FMT differs from other IBD therapeutics as the intended outcome for treatment is to ultimately cure IBD.” Everyone has heard of kidney, heart, or other organ transplantations but many people may be surprised to discover that transplanting intestinal microbes is emerging as a promising new treatment option for sever­al gastrointestinal, metabolic, and neurological disorders. Microbes...

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