Obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer: soda consumption is implicated in numerous health problems, with effects that are sometimes underestimated. This list could grow longer and now include depression (sidenote: Depression Depressive disorder (also known as depression) is a common mental disorder. It involves a depressed mood or loss of pleasure or interest in activities for long periods of time. A depressive episode is different from regular mood fluctuations. They last most of the day, nearly every day, for at least two weeks. A depressive episode can be categorized as mild, moderate, or severe depending on the number and severity of symptoms, as well as the impact on the individual’s functioning.

Source : https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/depression ) , according to the intriguing results of a new German study ¹. 

When science takes an interest in your soda can

To get to the bottom of this, a team of researchers analyzed data from more than 900 Germans aged 18 to 65, recruited in two large cities (Marburg and Münster).
Among them were 405 people (two-thirds of whom were women) suffering from major depressive disorder and 527 healthy controls of comparable age and gender.
Their goal was to understand whether the amount of soda consumed could predict a diagnosis of depression or the severity of symptoms.

The unexpected role of gut microbiota

The researchers continued to dig deeper, going beyond the simple link between soda and depression. They looked at what was happening in the gut microbiota, the vast microbial ecosystem that influences digestion, immunity, and even mood... and whose composition and balance vary with our diet, including soda.

In particular, they focused on two gut bacteria suspected by previous studies of being involved in major depressive disorders:

• Eggerthella
• and Hungatella.

The result: in the women in this study, soda consumption was indeed associated with an increase in Eggerthella in the microbiota; Hungatella, on the other hand, appeared to be unrelated.
Eggerthella alone could explain 3.8% of the link between soft drinks and depression and 5% of the link between soft drinks and symptom severity. . 

Thus, soft drink consumption appears to be linked to major depressive disorder (MDD), and the gut bacterium Eggerthella may be involved by affecting the balance of the microbiota.

This finding is particularly worrying given that consumption of these drinks is increasing worldwide, especially among children and adolescents. These results also provide further evidence in favor of the gut-brain axis and the link between gut microbiota and mental illness.
But there is some good news. Certain dietary approaches can also support a more balanced microbiota and help regulate mood. 

Find out how certain foods could play a protective role by reading our article: 

Antibiotic resistance is a major challenge, in which the vaginal microbiota could play the role of a reservoir for resistance genes. This is the conclusion of a study that investigated the presence of 14 genes conferring resistance to macrolides, tetracyclines, beta-lactams, or quinolones in the vaginal microbiota of 105 Italian female students aged 19 to 30.

Resistance influenced by lifestyle

The vaginal microbiota of the students mainly belonged to CST (sidenote: Five community state types (CST) - CST I dominated by Lactobacillus crispatus, 
- CST II dominated by L. gasseri,
- CST III dominated by L. iners 
- CST V dominated by L. jensenii
- and the more diverse CST IV, which is not dominated by Lactobacillus but by a group of anaerobic bacteria, including Gardnerella, Atopobium, Prevotella, and Finegoldia. 
  ) I, dominated by L. crispatus (41.9%), and CST III, dominated by L. iners (30.5%). In terms of antibiotic resistance genes, the most frequently detected were linked to tetracyclines and macrolides: tet(M) (present in 74.3% of women), erm(F) (72.2%), erm (B) (68.6%), erm(A) (66.7%) and tet(W) (65.7%). 

The influence of lifestyle, health, and antibiotic consumption was largely confirmed, with the presence of resistance going hand in hand with:

• higher microbial diversity in the vaginal microbiota,
• smoking, which doubles the total number of resistance genes,
• a higher BMI (sidenote: Body Mass Index (BMI) Body Mass Index (BMI) assesses the corpulence of an individual by estimating the body fat mass calculated by a ratio between weight ((kg) and height squared (m2). https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/nutrition/a-healthy-lifestyle/body-mass-index-bmi ) ,
• low use of oral contraceptives,
• poor diet quality,
• the presence of Candida spp.,
• antibiotic use in the previous year, while better past adherence to antibiotic treatment and greater awareness of resistance were associated with fewer resistance genes.

Links between bacterial taxa and antibiotic resistance

The Lactobacillus genus appeared to be protective: the more L. crispatus/jenesenii/gasseri were present, the fewer resistance genes were observed, particularly tet(M) and tet(Q). However, there were a few exceptions to this rule, with positive associations between L. gasseri and erm(A), or between L. iners and tet(Q).

Conversely, the more Gardnerella-Prevotella bacteria were present, the more macrolide and tetracycline resistance genes were observed. Similarly, several taxa associated with bacterial vaginosis (Prevotella, Dialister, Finegoldia, Porphyromonas, Anaerococcus) were linked to a higher number of resistance genes.

A reservoir of resistance

The vaginal microbiota therefore appears to represent a dynamic reservoir of antibiotic resistance genes, which are transferred to vaginal bacteria via mobile genetic elements such as plasmids (sidenote: Plasmide Petites molécules d’ADN mobiles qui peuvent passer d’une bactérie à une autre (au sein de la même espèce mais aussi entre espèces différentes). Source : https://www.pasteur.fr/fr/accueil/journal-recherche/actualites/mecanisme-defense-bacterie-escherichia-coli-fixe-resistance-antibiotique ) and transposons (sidenote: Transposons Séquence d'ADN qui présente la particularité de pouvoir se déplacer du chromosome bactérien vers un plasmide et d'un plasmide à un autre. Porteurs de gènes de résistance, les transposons jouent un rôle majeur dans la dissémination de gènes de résistances entre bactéries d'espèces éloignées. Source : https://www.vetofish.com/definition/transposon ) , making the vagina a critical site for the spread of antibiotic resistance. Since some vaginal bacteria are typical of the gut microbiota, bacterial translocation from the gastrointestinal tract to the vagina is considered a possibility. 

Basil extracts have powerful antimicrobial effects that could be used to restore imbalances in the vaginal flora responsible for bacterial vaginosis and vulvovaginal candidiasis (vaginal yeast infection). These were the findings of a study recently carried out in Korea. ¹

Fragile but precious vaginal lactobacilli

The vagina is home to a microbiota composed of several hundred bacterial species and a small number of fungi, including yeasts of the genus Candida. All of them contribute to maintaining a healthy environment. For example, lactobacilli secrete lactic acid, which acidifies the vaginal environment (maintaining a pH between 3.8 and 4.5), thereby helping to keep many pathogenic microorganisms at bay.

When the natural acidity of the vagina is disrupted or lactobacilli become depleted, an imbalance (dysbiosis) can develop, promoting proliferation of microorganisms associated with bacterial vaginosis (BV) and vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), i.e. vaginal yeast infections (see box).

Search for alternative treatments

These infections are often still treated with antimicrobials, such as antibiotics or antifungals. However, the overuse of these treatments promotes the emergence of resistant bacteria and fungi and can affect populations of vaginal lactic acid bacteria, thereby weakening the vaginal microbiota.

Are there any effective and microbiota-friendly therapeutic alternatives to treat and prevent vaginal infections? A team of Korean researchers sought to answer this question by studying basil.

Basil, a traditional remedy for infections

Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) is a medicinal plant traditionally used as a folk remedy in many cultures to treat respiratory infections, and has been shown to have powerful antibacterial effects due to its high content of bioactive compounds.

To assess its impact on vaginal microorganisms, the scientists tested the effect of various fractions of basil essential oil on in vitro cultures of the microorganisms involved in vaginitis: Gardnerella vaginalis, Fannyhessea vaginae, Chryseobacterium gleum, and Candida albicans.

Their results show that basil essential oil, even at low concentrations, has powerful antimicrobial effects against the four pathogens tested, without showing any toxicity to beneficial lactobacilli (Lactobacillus crispatus) or skin cells (dermal fibroblasts). 
 

Synergistic effect

A particular compound, called methyl trans-cinnamate, appears to explain some of these effects, but the researchers suspect a synergy exists between different molecules present in basil essential oil.

While these findings are encouraging, they relate solely to laboratory tests. Effectiveness as a treatment—and above all safety—still needs to be confirmed by clinical studies in women. In the meantime, avoid self-medication and seek advice from your doctor or pharmacist. While plants continue to be an interesting avenue of research, they are not a substitute for recommended treatments.

Immunotherapy is rewriting oncology, but in most solid tumours, PD-1 inhibitors (sidenote: PD-1 inhibitors Drugs that release the “brakes” on T cells by blocking the PD-1 receptor, allowing the immune system to attack tumours more effectively. ) still fail the majority of patients. Our story starts in a place every clinician knows matters but few can yet “dose”: the gut microbiome. Oncologists have seen that some patients ride a wave of durable response to treatment, while others, seemingly similar on paper, barely respond at all. A new study published in Nature ¹ asks a simple but profound question: a single gut microbe that can reprogram dendritic cells, send them on a “road trip” from the intestine to the tumour, and make checkpoint inhibitors work better? And the answer appears to be yes.

A hidden player in PD-1 response

Researchers from National Cancer Center Research Institute, Tokyo followed patients with lung and gastric cancer receiving PD-1 blockade and looked at their stool microbiome just before treatment. Responders consistently had richer bacterial diversity and, more specifically, more members of the Ruminococcaceae (sidenote: Ruminococcaceae A family of gut bacteria often linked to a healthier, more diverse microbiome and better immune activation.
  ) family. From this group they isolated an unassuming anaerobe, a strain of Hominenteromicrobium mulieris they call YB328.

Patients with higher levels of YB328 had longer progression-free survival across several cohorts and cancer types. In contrast, those enriched with a common Bacteroidaceae member, Parabacteroides vulgatus, tended to do worse. When these microbes were moved into mice, the story held: YB328 turned PD-1 therapy into a much more potent anti-tumour tool, while P. vulgatus left tumours largely unbothered.

Microbial competition and therapeutic imitation

Equally striking is what happens when ecology works against us. In mice colonized with a “non-responder” microbiome, adding YB328 can rescue PD-1 efficacy, but only if competing strains like P. vulgatus don’t block its engraftment (sidenote: Engraftment The successful establishment and persistence of a microbial strain in the gut after it is introduced.
  ) . One microbe can cancel out another’s benefit, a sobering reminder for any future live biotherapeutic strategy.

Finally, the authors show that a defined cocktail of TLR agonists (sidenote: TLR agonists Molecules that activate Toll-like receptors, stimulating innate immune pathways and boosting immune cell activation. ) can mimic much of YB328’s effect on cDC1 programming and PD-1 synergy. This work reframes the gut not just as a biomarker source, but as a tunable upstream regulator of dendritic cell biology and checkpoint response, opening the door to microbiome-guided or TLR-based adjuvants that might turn more of our “non-responders” into durable responders.

What if health was more than genetics? What if it was everything we’re exposed to? The exposome represents the sum of all environmental, behavioral, and social factors that influence our biology from conception to death. In this playlist, experts explore how the exposome connects our microbiota, environment, lifestyle, and emotions; offering a new way to understand and prevent chronic diseases. From endocrine disruptors and stress to nutrition, integrative medicine, and early-life exposures, discover how these factors interact to shape health across a lifetime.

Dive into this series to better understand the science behind the exposome and how small, informed changes can make a big difference for global health

How can we avoid harmful exposures to our health?

Modern life is convenient but not always healthy. In this video, discover how everyday choices around food, lifestyle, and environment shape our long-term well-being and the health of future generations.

Through the lens of the exposome, this talk reminds us that true prevention starts with common sense habits: eating real, minimally processed food; moving daily; protecting mental health; and living more consciously for ourselves and for the planet.

You’ll learn:

• How modern habits and ultra-processed food impact health and inflammation
• Why balance, simplicity, and mindful consumption matter
• How early childhood and parenting shape lifelong resilience

Environmental & integrative medicine: a new way of healing?

Modern healthcare is evolving, moving beyond symptoms to explore how our environment, lifestyle, and mind-body balance influence chronic diseases.

This video explains how environmental medicine (understanding our exposures) and integrative medicine (combining evidence-based non-drug approaches) work together to improve prevention and patient outcomes.

You’ll learn:

• What environmental and integrative medicine mean in today’s healthcare
• The science behind validated non-drug practices: nutrition, activity, hypnosis, meditation, and acupuncture
• How these approaches support cancer, diabetes, obesity, and other chronic conditions

Exposome & health: does gender make a difference?

From hormone disruptors to occupational exposures, gender shapes how we interact with our environment and how it impacts our health.

In this video, discover how endocrine disruptors can influence the development of hormone-dependent cancers, early puberty, and reproductive disorders, and why understanding gender-specific exposures is key to protecting future generations.

You’ll learn:

• How endocrine disruptors impact men, women, and children differently
• Real-world examples: cosmetics, construction, farming, and beyond
• Why the exposome must include gender to advance precision prevention

Genome, epigenetics, exposome: how are they different?

Your genes are not your destiny. This video breaks down how genome (your DNA), epigenetics (how gene expression is switched on/off), and the exposome (the totality of life-long exposures) interact to shape health.

From DNA methylation and histones to endocrine disruptors, the microbiota, and windows of vulnerability (like the first 1,000 days), discover how environment and lifestyle orchestrate biology—and why prevention starts with understanding exposures.

You’ll learn:

• Clear definitions: genome vs. epigenetics vs. exposome
• How exposures modulate genes and drive low-grade inflammation
• Practical takeaways to reduce harmful exposures

How to introduce the exposome in consultation?

What if the key to understanding chronic diseases lies in everything we’re exposed to, from stress and diet to pollution and lifestyle?

In this video, Dr. Véronique Mondain, an infectious disease specialist, explains how studying the exposome — the sum of all environmental and behavioral exposures — transforms the way we approach prevention and integrative medicine.

Roughly one in six Chinese adults over 60 experience mild cognitive impairment (MCI) (sidenote: Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) MCI is a clinical stage between the expected cognitive decline of normal aging and the more severe decline of dementia. Individuals with MCI have noticeable memory or thinking problems but can still perform most daily activities, representing a critical window for intervention and study. ) , with an annual risk of progression to dementia of 6 to 15% (10 times higher than in people without MCI). How can we act at this stage? Through diet, according to a study that assessed how the inflammatory potential of the diet affects the diversity and composition of the oral and gut microbiota, as well as cognitive performance, in 54 Chinese adults over 60 (36 with MCI and 18 controls without).

Diet affects oral diversity

Oral microbiota diversity varies according to the dietary inflammatory score (measured by the E-DII (sidenote: E-DII score (Energy-adjusted Dietary Inflammatory Index) An epidemiological tool designed to assess an individual’s overall dietary inflammatory potential by adjusting this score according to total caloric intake, allowing standardized comparison between individuals regardless of energy consumption. ) ); oral microbial richness (measured by the Shannon index) decreases as the inflammatory potential of the diet increases.
However, the inflammatory score does not seem to significantly affect gut microbiota diversity.

Altered microbiota

Microbiota composition also changes. In individuals with an anti-inflammatory diet (tertile T1), the oral abundance of certain bacteria increases ¹. Among those following pro-inflammatory diets (T3), the most enriched taxa belong to the genus Lacticaseibacillus.
As for the gut microbiota, two taxa (the family Porphyromonadaceae and its genus Porphyromonas) were more abundant with a pro-inflammatory diet, while some bacteria (including the genera Haemophilus, Holdemanella, and norank.RF39) show reduced abundance.

Predicting cognitive decline?

Distinct oral and gut microbiota profiles could indicate the onset of disorders. Artificial intelligence models can predict mild cognitive impairment based solely on these microbiota, with moderate accuracy for the oral microbiota (AUC (sidenote: AUC (Area Under the Curve) A measure of a model’s ability to correctly distinguish between two classes (for example, “diseased” vs “healthy,” “positive” vs “negative”). It represents the area under a curve that plots the true positive rate (sensitivity) on the y-axis against the false positive rate on the x-axis. If the AUC equals 1, the model performs perfectly; above 0.80 it is generally considered very good, and above 0.90, excellent; at 0.5, it performs no better than random chance.
  ) = 0.75) and high accuracy for the gut microbiota (AUC = 0.87).

Vegetables, fruits, nuts, olive oil, fish... the Mediterranean diet, known for its many benefits, could have one more advantage: slowing cognitive decline.
That is what a study ¹ of 54 Chinese seniors with or without mild cognitive impairment (sidenote: Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) MCI is a clinical stage between the expected cognitive decline of normal aging and the more severe decline of dementia. Individuals with MCI have noticeable memory or thinking problems but can still perform most daily activities, representing a critical window for intervention and study. ) suggests. The study explored the effect of anti-inflammatory diets (sidenote: Anti-inflammatory diets Diets characterized by high consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, fatty fish, nuts, olive oil and phytochemicals, while limiting the intake of foods with potentially pro-inflammatory properties such as red meat, refined carbohydrates and alcohol. The rationale for anti-inflammatory diets (including but not limited to the Mediterranean diet) lies in their capacity to decrease inflammation.

Source: Yu X, Pu H, Voss M. Overview of anti-inflammatory diets and their promising effects on non-communicable diseases. Br J Nutr. 2024 Oct 14;132(7):898-918. doi: 10.1017/S0007114524001405.  ) , in particular the Mediterranean diet.

When your plate calms inflammation and boosts cognition

The researchers observed that people who follow an anti-inflammatory diet have a more diverse population of oral bacteria, including a higher number of certain “good bacteria” such as Corynebacterium or Eubacterium yurii.
In return for the shelter and food we provide, these bacteria offer major benefits: they produce butyrate, for example, a compound that calms inflammation, protects the brain and supports memory. The same applies to the gut: the microbiota of people consuming anti-inflammatory diets hosts specific bacteria. 
Result of this mouth–gut–brain interconnection: higher cognitive scores on memory, attention and language tests among people who follow anti-inflammatory diets!

When your plate sparks inflammation, your brain takes the hit

In contrast, fans of diets high in saturated fat and low in fruits and vegetables (in short, pro-inflammatory diets) showed a decrease in oral bacterial diversity.

Less friendly bacteria such as Lacticaseibacillus took over. The problem: some of them are known to produce acids that cause cavities and trigger systemic inflammation, a factor linked to cognitive decline.
The same goes for gut microbiota: inflammatory diets promote bacteria associated with lower cognitive performance and weaken the microorganisms that could have boosted it.

Result: unimpressive cognitive scores for lovers of junk food!

Doctors treating endometrial cancer often focus on surgery, hormones, and tumor grade. But what if the microbes living in a patient’s body are quietly shaping how she feels, her stress levels, digestion, and even sexual interest? A new study from researchers at the University of Oklahoma turns that question into data ¹. They followed 140 women scheduled for hysterectomy, some with endometrial cancer (EC, n=47), others with benign gynecologic conditions such as fibroids or endometriosis (n=93).

Before surgery, each woman completed validated surveys assessing mental and physical health, GI symptoms, stress, sexual function, and vaginal comfort. At the same time, scientists collected vaginal and rectal swabs for microbiome sequencing. The goal: connect quality-of-life metrics to microbial fingerprints across two key body sites.

The microbial paradox of endometrial cancer

Here’s where things got surprising. In most healthy women, low vaginal diversity, dominated by protective Lactobacillus crispatus species, is considered a sign of balance. But in this study, endometrial cancer patients showed the opposite pattern: they had higher vaginal microbial diversity (sidenote: Vaginal microbial diversity Refers to the variety and balance of bacterial species living in the vagina. Changes in this diversity can influence symptoms like dryness, irritation, and infection risk.
  ) , and the more diverse their microbiome, the worse their vaginal dryness and irritation. Even more unexpected, Lactobacillus iners (sidenote: Lactobacillus iners A less protective vaginal bacterium that produces only L-lactic acid, often associated with microbial imbalances and vulnerability to opportunistic infections ) , often thought of as not very “friendly”, was enriched in women reporting worse symptoms, alongside Lactobacillus gasseri, and Streptococcus agalactiae, a rather “friendly” vaginal bacteria. In short, microbes that normally spell health appeared to coincide with discomfort in this cancer population, suggesting that the rules of vaginal ecology may shift under oncologic conditions.

Rethinking the role of microbes in cancer care

What makes this study stand out is its integration of patient experience with molecular biology, a rare bridge between the clinic and the lab. Rather than viewing the microbiome as a passive bystander, the data suggest it may be an active participant in symptom expression and recovery. In the future, mapping these microbial patterns could help predict which patients are most likely to struggle with vaginal or gastrointestinal side effects during cancer treatment, or whose emotional well-being might be at risk.

It also opens the door to precision microbiome interventions, from targeted probiotics to dietary strategies, designed not just to fight disease, but to restore comfort, intimacy, and resilience in women navigating endometrial cancer and its aftermath. As the lead authors put it, the microbes of the vagina and gut may soon become “vital signs” of how a woman feels, not just what disease she carries.

For decades, multiple sclerosis (MS) has been understood as a disease of the immune and nervous systems, a chronic battle of inflammation and neurodegeneration. But in recent years, evidence has been mounting that the gut microbiome may be a silent third player, influencing how patients respond to therapy, experience fatigue, and ultimately, how their disease evolves. Still, one question has remained unanswered: can gut microbes actually predict who will worsen?

A new longitudinal study from Laura Cox and Howard Weiner at Harvard Medical School, published in Cell Reports Medicine¹, brings us closer to that answer. Using the Comprehensive Longitudinal Investigation of Multiple Sclerosis (CLIMB) cohort, the team followed 192 people with MS over two years, pairing stool and serum metabolomics with MRI scans, cognitive tests, and quality-of-life data. Their goal was to find the microbial and metabolic fingerprints that appear just before patients transition from relapsing to progressive MS.

The missing microbes of stability

Among those whose disability worsened, several beneficial microbes had quietly disappeared. Eubacterium hallii, Butyricicoccus, and Blautia, all key producers of anti-inflammatory metabolites, were markedly reduced. In contrast, Alistipes onderdonkii and Bacteroides vulgatus expanded, tracking with higher MRI-detected brain atrophy and cognitive decline. Although these beneficial microbes are known to produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) (sidenote: Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) Short chain fatty acids (SCFA) are a source of energy (fuel) for an individual’s cells. They interact with the immune system and are involved in communication between the intestine and the brain. Silva YP, Bernardi A, Frozza RL. The Role of Short-Chain Fatty Acids From Gut Microbiota in Gut-Brain Communication. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2020;11:25. ) like butyrate, the study found no change in SCFA levels. This implies that their role extends well beyond fiber fermentation. These species may shape immune and neural signaling through bile acid conversion, lipid modulation, and vitamin biosynthesis, a more complex and far-reaching mechanism than previously appreciated.

A clinical application?

Imagine adding microbiome screening to annual checkups for patients with relapsing-remitting MS - tracking the abundance of protective species or the loss of bile-acid producers as an early alert that the disease is changing course. This kind of “gut signature monitoring” could one day guide treatment intensity, rehabilitation planning, or nutritional interventions.
The therapeutic implications are equally compelling. If specific microbial metabolites, like vitamin B3, B6 derivatives, or secondary bile acids, act as neuroprotective agents, dietary supplementation or next-generation probiotics could restore that lost metabolic communication. The goal wouldn’t be to replace immunotherapy but to add a gut-targeted layer of neuroprotection (sidenote: Neuroprotection The preservation of neuronal structure and function against injury or degeneration. In the context of MS, neuroprotective strategies aim to prevent the loss of axons and myelin. The study suggests that certain microbial metabolites, such as vitamin B3, B6 derivatives, and bile acids, may exert neuroprotective effects, positioning the gut as a potential therapeutic target to slow disease progression. ) , helping patients preserve function longer.

In the coming years, as microbiome assays become cheaper and more standardized, it’s not hard to imagine a clinical future where neurologists, dietitians, and microbiome specialists work side by side, using microbial data to keep MS quiet, one gut metabolite at a time.