Recent advances and remaining gaps in our knowledge of associations between gut microbiota and human health

The complex gut microbial flora harbored by individuals(microbiota) has long been proposed to contribute tointestinal health as well as disease. Pre-and probioticproducts aimed at improving health by modifyingmicrobiota composition have already become widelyavailable and acceptance of these products appearsto be on the rise. However, although required forthe development of effective microbiota basedinterventions, our basic understanding of microbiotavariation on a population level and its dynamics withinindividuals is still rudimentary. Powerful new parallelsequence technologies combined with other efficientmolecular microbiota analysis methods now allow forcomprehensive analysis of microbiota composition inlarge human populations. Recent fi ndings in the fi eldstrongly suggest that microbiota contributes to thedevelopment of obesity, atopic diseases, inflammatorybowel diseases and intestinal cancers. Through theongoing National Institutes of Health Roadmap 'HumanMicrobiome Project' and similar projects in other partsof the world, a large coordinated effort is currentlyunderway to study how microbiota can impact humanhealth. Translating findings from these studies intoeffective interventions that can improve health,possibly personalized based on an individuals existingmicrobiota, will be the task for the next decade(s).