A human intervention study using Human Milk Oligosaccharides to improve Irritable Bowel Syndromesymptoms through targeting of the gut microbiota

肠易激综合征(IBS)是英国最常见的胃肠道疾病，也是一个主要的公共卫生和经济问题。它与一系列精神和身体症状和不适有关，然而，尽管进行了广泛的研究，但导致IBS病因学的心理和生理因素仍然知之甚少。人类肠道中栖息着数以万亿计的共生细菌，这些细菌已知会影响人类的健康和疾病。益生菌和益生菌补充剂已被证明在改善IBS患者的心理健康、肠道问题和生活质量方面有效，这表明肠道微生物区系靶向饮食干预在改善健康结果方面的影响。人乳低聚糖(HMOS)是一种复杂的碳水化合物，存在于人类母乳中，专门刺激双歧杆菌(一种健康阳性属)。鉴于其促进健康的潜力，保健组织越来越受到研究界的关注，特别是在成人发病的情况下，如IBS，那里的其他治疗方法一直是多种多样的。我们最近进行的研究表明，HMO是高效的益生元，我们假设HMO等饮食干预措施有可能改善IBS患者的症状。这个博士项目需要跨学科的方法来更好地了解HMO干预对IBS患者的影响。它将涉及体外和体内两种方法，以评估饮食干预对肠道微生物区系的影响，以及随后对人类健康的影响。它将应用尖端技术(代谢和微生物图谱)，然后进行多变量统计分析，以表征HMO干预后微生物和代谢图谱的变化，并提高对微生物以及涉及健康状况变化的生物标志物/分子途径的知识。

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is the most common gastrointestinal disorder in the UK and a major public health/economic concern. It is associated with a range of mental and physical symptoms and discomforts, however despite extensive research, the psychological and physiological factors that contribute to the aetiology of IBS remain poorly understood. The human gut is inhabited by trillions of commensal bacteria that are known to impact on human health and disease. Prebiotic and probiotic supplementations have been shown to be effective in improving mental health, gut issues and quality of life in IBS, which demonstrate the impact of gut microbiota targeted dietary interventions in improving health outcomes. Human Milk Oligosaccharides (HMOs) are complex carbohydrates found in human breast milk that specifically stimulate bifidobacteria (a health positive genus). Given their health promoting potential, HMOs are of growing interest to the research community particularly in adult-onset conditions such as IBS, where other therapeutic approaches have been variable. We have conducted recent research showing that HMOs are highly efficacious prebiotics, and we hypothesise that dietary interventions such as HMOs have the potential to improve symptoms in IBS patients.This PhD project entails a cross-disciplinary approach to better understand the impact of HMO intervention in IBS patients. It will involve both in vitro and in vivo approaches to assess the influence of the dietary intervention on the gut microbiota, and subsequent impact on human health. It will apply cutting edge technologies (metabolic and microbial profiling) followed by multivariate statistical analysis to characterise the change in microbial and metabolic profile following HMO intervention, and improve knowledge of microbes as well as biomarkers/molecular pathways involved in changes to health status.