The January 29, 2020 edition of Nature Outlook is an entire issue summarizing the latest science of the microbiome. A must-read (and free online!)

Here are some of my takeaways:

Peter Turnbaugh thinks it’s too hard to look for simple dietary interventions to “fix” a broken microbiome. We know that foods have specific effects, but for now how about we give up on trying to figure out what they are. Instead, experiments should tease out which microbes do what.

In the future, researchers might instead use diet as a discovery platform in humans and animal models to uncover specific species, genes or enzymes that could be targeted using conventional small molecule drugs, biologics or cell-based therapies. If so, rather than ‘what should people eat?’ maybe the question should be ‘how can we design the microbiome-based medicines of the future?’.

more updates as I read the issue