Researchers out of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet) believe that pets could be a source of good gut health for their humans and plan to research the effects of pets in their owners\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n
The research is being funded by the Human Animal Bond Research Institute (HABRI) and will look at pet owners who are 60 years or older and are taking antibiotics.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t discriminate between good and bad bacteria in a gut; they just go after it all so that infection and disease can be killed. And while that\u2019s important for killing the infection and disease, it also kills the good bacteria in a gut that can bring everything from\u00a0diarrhea\u00a0<\/a>to severe Clostridioides Difficile (C.Diff) infection.\u00a0(An important sidenote about antibiotics in dogs\u2013they DO disrupt a dog\u2019s gut health, so if your dog is given a course of antibiotics from your vet, it\u2019s important to build his gut back up.\u00a0Bernie\u2019s Perfect Poop\u00a0<\/a>is the best and easiest way to do this!)<\/strong><\/p>\n The researchers hypothesize that pets may be a source of microbiota that can help bring balance to their owner\u2019s gut microbiome, and therefore help improve their human\u2019s gut health!<\/p>\n They believe that the gut microbiomes of humans and their pets look similar to each other before the course of the antibiotics and then break during the phase the human is taking the antibiotics, but steadily come back in sync after the antibiotics are completed.<\/p>\nThe ability of animal contact to impact the human microbiome<\/h2>\n