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©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Feb 7, 2017; 23(5): 885-890
Published online Feb 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i5.885
Published online Feb 7, 2017. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v23.i5.885
Impact of humic acids on the colonic microbiome in healthy volunteers
Alexander Swidsinski, Vera Loening-Baucke, Christoph Gille, Anne Reißhauer, Onder Göktas, Laboratory for Molecular Genetics, Polymicrobial Infections and Biofilms, Department of Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10098 Berlin, Germany
Yvonne Dörffel, Outpatient Clinic, Luisenstr. 11-13, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Monika Krüger, Jürgen Neuhaus, Wieland Schrödl, entre for Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
Author contributions: Swidsinski A, Krüger M and Schrödl W designed the study; Dörffel Y, Neuhaus J conducted the study; Loening-Baucke V and Göktas O critically revised and wrote the manuscript; Reißhauer A performed FISH, and Gille C analyzed the data staistically.
Institutional review board statement: The investigations were approved by the ethical review board of the Charite Hospital and Institut für Bakteriologie und Mykologie An den Tierkliniken Leipzig.
Informed consent statement: All study participants were healthy volunteers working in the laboratory provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Alexander Swidsinski, Laboratory for Molecular Genetics, Polymicrobial Infections and Biofilms, Department of Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10098 Berlin, Germany. alexander.swidsinski@charite.de
Telephone: +49-30-450514003 Fax: +49-30-450514933
Received: October 4, 2015
Peer-review started: October 7, 2015
First decision: October 28, 2015
Revised: November 13, 2016
Accepted: January 3, 2017
Article in press: January 3, 2017
Published online: February 7, 2017
Processing time: 110 Days and 10.2 Hours
Peer-review started: October 7, 2015
First decision: October 28, 2015
Revised: November 13, 2016
Accepted: January 3, 2017
Article in press: January 3, 2017
Published online: February 7, 2017
Processing time: 110 Days and 10.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Modern patients are increasingly interested in natural medicinal products, which are often not scientifically evaluated. Humins arise from organic microbial degradation and are an important mediator of microbial interactions in nature. Although used for medical indications since ancient times, no data exist on the impact of humins on the human microbiome. Our investigations in healthy volunteers show that orally applied humic acids increase the sum concentrations of preexisting colonic microbiota from 20% to 30% without changes in the bacterial diversity of the individual microbiome and may be a serious amendment/alternative to fecal transplantation or probiotics.