In 2008, the United States National Institute of Health (NIH) initiated the Human Microbiome Project (PMH), a five-year project that aimed to characterize the human microbiota in the different cavities and spaces of the body and analyze its implications for health and diseases. The study began in 2008 and ended in 2013. This project, which used genome sequencing techniques, has generated a great deal of information about the normal microbial composition of healthy humans, and HMP researchers have created a reference database and have studied the limits between which the human microbiome varies

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Some of the findings resulting from this study relate to the supply of genes from these microbes responsible for human survival, their metabolic activities and that the components of the human microbiome change over time, with diseases, pharmacological treatments and other environmental factors. All the information collected has served to create a database with very important implications for clinical and pharmaceutical applications and has served as a basis for research and new studies.

Gut bacteria, functions and role in health

Below you can watch an interesting illustrative video, which in a very visual and entertaining way, illustrates the functions and role in the health of intestinal bacteria: