This episode: Figuring out how gut communities change with changes in diet! Download Episode (6.1 MB, 8.8 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Hepacivirus A News item Takeaways Diet can play a big role in our health. It's not a magic pill that can cure or prevent anything, but a good diet can significantly reduce many health risks for the average person, compared with a bad diet. Diet also has a big effect on the community of microbes in our gut, and this may play a role in the health effects we see from diet, so understanding how food and microbes interact is important. This study looked at the diet quality of participants in several food categories, and correlated this with various kinds of microbes found inside them. Journal Paper: Liu Y, Ajami NJ, El-Serag HB, Hair C, Graham DY, White DL, Chen L, Wang Z, Plew S, Kramer J, Cole R, Hernaez R, Hou J, Husain N, Jarbrink-Sehgal ME, Kanwal F, Ketwaroo G, Natarajan Y, Shah R, Velez M, Mallepally N, Petrosino JF, Jiao L. 2019. Dietary quality and the colonic mucosa–associated gut microbiome in humans. Am J Clin Nutr 110:701–712. Other interesting stories: Sea slug uses defensive toxins that bacteria make for algae it eats Good bacteria help bats survive deadly fungus   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.