Name: Handel Justus

Date: 3/29/2024
Microbiology
Extra credit option.
Due by 3/30/24, 5 pm.
10 pts.
Read this article about the human microbiome, your immune system, and COVID.

“A healthy microbiome …. defeat COVID.” https://theconversation.com/a-healthy-microbiome-builds-a-strong-

immune-system-that-could-help-defeat-covid-19-145668

Answer the following questions in your own words (don’t just copy and paste sentences) using this worksheet. Include
the questions on this page and your answers. Use the information from the cited articles to answer the questions.

After the worksheet is complete, save the document as an MS Word document (.doc or .docx) or as a .PDF document,
and upload the document to the link in the Assignments folder.

1. How has the human microbiome previously been shown to help prevent or fight infections? Give an example from
the article and explain the benefit of the human microbiome.

The human microbiome has been shown to regulate the immune response against pathogens. Bacteria in the
human microbiome promote an immune response against viruses that infect the gut (such as norovirus and rotavirus) and
lungs. An example showing the importance of gut microbiome against pathogenic viruses is demonstrated in a study with
mice, whose gut microbiome was cleared with antibiotics. The results showed that the mice had compromised immune
systems with low counts of virus-fighting cells, weak antibody- response, and poor production of essential proteins that
are necessary to fight off viral infections. This study therefore shows the benefits of the human microbiome in regulating
the number of immune cells to fight off pathogens and invasions.

2. What types of chronic disease have been shown to be impacted by an altered human microbiome? Give an example
and explain.

The types of chronic diseases that have been shown to be impacted by an altered human microbiome are type 2
diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases. An example of this scenario would be the overly aggressive immune
response against Sars-Cov-2 infection in patients suffering from obesity, type-2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The
researchers found acute respiratory distress syndrome in COVID-19 patients suffering from these chronic illnesses. Due to
the altered gut microbiome, the immune system is not regulated well by the microbiome, causing a cytokine storm
(uncontrolled flood of immune cells into the lungs), which causes severe lung injury and multiorgan failures, causing
death.
Therefore, chronic diseases such as Type-2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases compromise the human
microbiome and cause serious life-threatening conditions like acute respiratory distress syndrome, when exposed to
pathogens such as Sars-Cov-2.

3. A recent article suggests that probiotics can reduce symptoms of COVID-19 when taken post-exposure:

Wischmeyer et al. 2024. Efficacy of probiotic treatment as post-exposure prophylaxis for COVID-19: A double-blind,
Placebo-Controlled Randomized trial. Clinical Nut. 43:259-267 (Download on Blackboard or find source using PubMed).

Summarize the main points of the findings in this article.

The research article is focused on evaluating the role of gut microbiome and its effects on post-exposure COVID-
19 patients. The researchers have used LGG (Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG) as the commercially available probiotics
to treat their subjects. They have hypothesized that the treatment with LGG will decrease the incidence of symptoms and
incidence and time to confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 infection. The subjects of this experiment include individuals
who are living with someone recently diagnosed with COVID-19, and LGG is used to evaluate their prophylaxis post-
exposure to COVID-19.
The main findings of this research include:

 The randomized trials showed subjects exposed to LGG had fewer symptoms and a prolonged time to
develop COVID-19 in comparison to others who received a placebo.
 The microbiome of subjects who received LGG had an abundance of L. rhamnosus, showing that the
microbial community in subjects differed with the treatment of probiotics.
 Therefore, the study found that LGG is well-tolerated and is associated with prolonged time to
development of COVID-19 infection, reduced symptomatic disease, and changes to gut microbiome
structure.

4. How do you evaluate the evidence for the article? Are you convinced that the evidence is sufficient enough to impact
treatment for COVID? Explain.

Though this study shows some promising outcomes after treatment with LGG in post-exposure COVID-19
patients, the evidence for the article both has statistical insignificance and inconsistencies with data. Therefore, the
evidence provided in this article is not sufficient enough to impact treatment for COVID-19. The researchers from this
article state that the subjects of this study were remotely studied, and this possibly introduced errors that corrupted the
final results. Moreover, the symptoms that the participants experienced were also self-reported rather than laboratory-
confirmed. This makes the results from the study less credible and reliable.
Additionally, the relatively small sample size of subjects and the inclusion of smokers and patients with
hypertension reduce the quality of the results even further. Although the researchers report the statistical insignificance of
the smokers in this study, a test group with healthy subjects with no previous exposure to certain respiratory hazards is
necessary to ensure more credible data as COVID-19 is primarily associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Therefore, although this experiment provides hopeful findings and motivation to further pursue investigations
such as the LGG probiotic intervention on larger randomized controlled populations, along with comparing pre and post-
exposure prophylaxis, the study itself is not sufficient to impact treatment for COVID-19.