New publication: The gut microbiome modulates body temperature both in sepsis and health
A team from our lab, led by Kale Bongers, has published a new study in the Blue Journal demonstrating that the gut microbiome plays a major role in the body’s calibration of temperature both in sepsis and in health. This translational study leveraged clinical data from 13,000 hospitalized patients, rectal swabs from 118 hospitalized patients, and a series of murine experiments using antibiotic-treated, germ-free, and gnotobiotic mice. We found that the same bacterial family (Lachnospiraceae) explains variation in the temperature response of both humans and mice. These findings may help explain both why temperature trajectory is so variable (and prognostically important) in sepsis, as well as why human body temperature has been steadily declining since the 1860s.
This study has been featured in more than 50 news sites, including Newsweek.
Kale Bongers MD PhD