Martin J. Blaser, MD, is director of the Human Microbiome Program at NYU and author of the book, Missing Microbes. He sat down and spoke with us about how the microbiome plays a role in disease pathogenesis, including autoimmunity, and he also answered the question of whether all of our patients should be on probiotics!  

• Intro :11
• Background on Dr. Blaser :35
• The interview 1:20
  • What is the microbiome? 1:25
  • How unique are individual microbiomes? 1:49
  • How does an individual’s microbiome change over time? 2:13
  • Microbial diversity in different populations 3:12
  • What’s your concern with the loss of microbiome diversity? 4:20
  • A bit on Blaser’s research on obesity and antibiotic use 5:21
  • Is the timing of antibiotic administration important, in terms of the side effects it can produce? 6:43
  • Worldwide antibiotic prescribing rates 7:54
  • The microbiome and autoimmunity 9:02
  • The microbiome and type 1 diabetes, IBD 10:45
  • Research with IL-17 12:23
  • Microbiota transplants 13:09
  • For how long is the microbiome perturbed after giving antibiotics? 13:57
  • Diet and microbiome findings 14:54
  • Probiotics, prebiotics and symbiotics 15:33
  • In 10 years, how will people be investigating/manipulating the microbiome? 18:18
  • Have we shown with research that introducing certain types of bacteria can be sustainable in the gut? 19:47
• Thank you, Dr. Blaser 20:26
• Summary 20:33

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