Bacteria, explained honestly
Microbiome Friendly News is written by a microbiologist for people who never thought about the bacteria inside them. Every number carries a named source. Every piece passes a readability check with eight fixed readers before it is published.
AkkermansiaThe gut microbe that raised GLP‑1 — and missed its targetLatest news
The gut microbe that raised GLP‑1 — and missed its target
2026 Gut Microbes trial, 142 adults: heat-killed Akkermansia missed its main goal, insulin sensitivity — yet raised the body's own GLP‑1 after a glucose drink.
The carcinogen your own mouth makes out of ordinary sugar
Mouth microbes from cancer patients turned sugar and alcohol into acetaldehyde — a carcinogen ranked with tobacco. Plaque hid the rest until enzymes opened it.
Long covid may be driven from the gut, not from the lungs
A 2026 study in Gut traces inflammation far from the gut to flagellin, the protein of the bacterial swimming tail, via TLR5, IL‑15 and arachidonic acid.
Air should kill a baby's first microbe. It breathes instead
A Cell study reports one membrane fat lets Bacteroides fragilis — a microbe air should kill — outlast the oxygen of a newborn gut, and tunes immune cells.
Same capsule, opposite result: what makes a probiotic work
120 overweight adults, 12 weeks: heat-killed L. plantarum did nothing on average. Only the least varied guts lost weight. Why that is a lead, not proof.
Bad breath isn’t dirt. It’s one bacterial gene doing its job
A 2026 lab-dish and rat study turned down the bacterial gene behind bad breath. Here is the mechanism, the numbers, and everything the study did not show.
Bacteria encyclopedia
Actinomycetota: the phylum that guards infants and causes TB
Actinomycetota, formerly Actinobacteria: the phylum of Bifidobacterium and of tuberculosis. Where it lives in your body, what it does for and against you.
Akkermansia muciniphila: the microbe that eats your mucus
A gut bacterium that feeds on your own mucus lining — and may protect your metabolism. What the named studies show, and where they stop.
Bacillota (once Firmicutes): the 'fat bacteria' that aren't
Bacillota (once Firmicutes) feeds your gut butyrate and houses C. difficile. What the studies show, and why the 'fat ratio' on a stool test can't diagnose you.
Bacillus coagulans: a spore passing through, not a resident
Bacillus coagulans (also Heyndrickxia coagulans — one bug, two names): what this spore-forming probiotic does for mouth and gut, and where the evidence stops.
Bacteroidota: starve it of fibre and it eats your gut lining
Bacteroidota, formerly Bacteroidetes: what this huge gut bacterial group digests for you, when it turns dangerous, and what the named studies found.
Bifidobacterium is not automatically a good bacterium
Bifidobacterium rules the gut of a breastfed baby. What it does for us, what it does against us, and exactly where the evidence stops.