Fertility and microbiome

The intestinal microbiota is the set of all the microorganisms that colonize our entire digestive tract and perform three essential functions: 

• Barrier function: protects against pathogens;
• Metabolic function: regulates the metabolic rate, i.e. the intake of nutrients;
• Immunological function: regulates the functioning of our immune system.

The microbiota and our body act in symbiosis from the earliest years of life. For this reason, it is very important to take care of your microbiota from gestation, as the mother's microbiota influences what the fetus' immune system will be. If there are alterations, the risk of long-term autoimmune and cardiometabolic diseases increases.

It is possible to modulate the microbiota therapeutically for example with diet, with specific antibiotics, with prebiotics and possibly with the transplantation of the microbiota from a healthy subject to a sick one. All these ways are potentially applicable to improve the condition of the microbiota in these early stages of life.