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When “commensal” gut bacteria were first linked to obesity, it seemed to be just a curiosity (NEJM JW Gen Med Jan 15 2007 and Nature 2006; 444:1027). Since then, evidence has accumulated on how gut bacteria might influence development of many human diseases, because some of their genes produce proteins that circulate and affect human physiology. Indeed, our microbiome effectively gives us a second genome and an additional endocrine organ.
What about the viruses (bacteriophages) that infect the bacteria that live on or within us? Might those viruses also be linked to human diseases? Studying this question is technically harder, but in a new report, researchers claim to have overcome some of those technical limitations. The investigators studi…