J Gastrointest Surg. 2021 Jul;25(7):1885-1895. doi: 10.1007/s11605-020-04551-4.

Miquell O Miller ¹, Purna C Kashyap ², Sarah L Becker ², Ryan M Thomas ³, Richard A Hodin ⁴, George Miller ⁵, Mautin Hundeyin ⁵, Smruti Pushalkar ⁶, Deirdre Cohen ⁷, Deepak Saxena ⁷, Benjamin D Shogan ⁸, Gareth J Morris-Stiff ⁹

Author information

¹Department of General Surgery, Stanford University, 300 Pasteur Dr, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA. miquellm@stanford.edu.

²Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, 55905, USA.

³Departments of Surgery, Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32610, USA.

⁴Department of Surgery, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, 02114, USA.

⁵Departments of Surgery and Cell Biology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA.

⁶Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, 10016, USA.

⁷Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology, New York University College of Dentistry, New York, NY, 10010, USA.

⁸Department of Surgery, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA.

⁹Department of General Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH, 44195, USA.

Abstract

The microbiome plays a major role in human physiology by influencing obesity, inducing inflammation, and impacting cancer therapies. During the 60th Annual Meeting of the Society of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT) at the State-of-the-Art Conference, experts in the field discussed the influence of the microbiome. This paper is a summary of the influence of the microbiome on obesity, inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatic cancer, cancer therapies, and gastrointestinal optimization. This review shows how the microbiome plays an important role in the development of diseases and surgical complications. Future studies are needed in targeting the gut microbiome to develop individualized therapies.