Harnessing The Microbiome With Metabolomics For Clinical Benefit

The scientific literature showing the importance of the microbiome’s influence on health and disease continues to mount but leveraging this association for directing human health and disease is a substantial obstacle. Due to the fundamentals of microbiology, metabolomics is an ideal science for extracting mechanistic clues related to how the microbiota impact our physiology.

Our gut microbiota has co-evolved with our physiology as indicated by a growing list of associations with health and disease states (Table 1). That it contributes significantly to health and disease is rarely questioned.  The question that does arise is, “how are we to harness it to impact human health and disease?”