From Regular Catharsis with Castor Oil to Recognizing the Importance of the Intestinal Microbiota

The need to shed light on the unknown aspects of pathophysiology of common disorders, such as gastrointestinal ones, has led researchers through last decades to study and define the role of microorganisms within the human intestine and their interactions with the host. The progress of technology has permitted the overcoming of culture-based methods to study microbes and paved the way to molecular techniques, which allow the analysis of microbial genome, microbial functions, and metabolism. These progresses opened a window on the world of microbiology and permitted to deepen into the key role played by gut microbiota and dysbiosis in health status and diseases, both gastrointestinal and extraintestinal. So, scientists focused their attention in developing new strategies to restore eubiosis and to manipulate gut microbes by modifying dietary habits, administrating antibiotics, probiotics, and prebiotics and using fecal microbiota transplantation as treatment of gastrointestinal, infectious, cardiovascular, metabolic, immune-mediated, neuro-psychiatric, and oncological disorders. The next challenges will be to elaborate standard protocols with definite outcomes predictors in disease-specific settings.