Blog
The metal–microbiome–disease axis.
How metal exposure can change the microbiome, and when those changes may matter for disease. Explore the hypothesis, the supporting evidence, and the gaps.
Tampon Metals and the Vaginal Microbiome: The Blind Spot in the Risk Assessment
A toxicological risk assessment found tampon metals pose negligible systemic risk. But bioavailable there means absorbed into the blood, and the vaginal microbial community on the tampon surface was never assessed.
Read commentaryThe Metal–Microbiome–Disease Axis: Who Gets the Metal?
Metals change microbial ecology; microbes change metal chemistry; inflammation changes local metal access. Follow the mechanisms connecting exposure, nutritional immunity, and disease.
Read →Arsenic and the Gut Microbiome: A Two-Way Street
Arsenic reshapes the gut microbiome, and gut bacteria shape arsenic's toxicity in return. See the bidirectional evidence linking metals, microbes, and disease.
Read →Cadmium and the Gut Microbiome: A Hidden Route to Metabolic Disease
Cadmium reshapes the gut microbiome, depletes Lachnospiraceae, weakens the gut barrier, and is linked to hepatic and metabolic dysfunction. An evidence review.
Read →Feeding the Enemy: How Dietary Iron Reshapes the Gut Microbiome and Raises Enteric Infection Risk
Unabsorbed iron can alter the gut microbiome and intestinal inflammation. Human trials show that effects on diarrhea vary by setting and formulation.
Read →Does Lead Harm the Developing Brain Through the Gut Microbiome?
Animal and human cohort studies link lead exposure to gut microbiome dysbiosis, a candidate mediator of lead's neurodevelopmental harm via the gut-brain axis.
Read →Mercury, Methylmercury, and the Microbiome: How Gut Microbes Shape Neurotoxic Risk
How gut microbes methylate and demethylate mercury via hgcAB and merB, how mercury reshapes the microbiome, and why this shapes methylmercury neurotoxic risk.
Read →How Low-Dose Heavy Metals May Reshape the Gut Microbiome to Drive Obesity
Low-dose arsenic, cadmium, and lead may reshape the gut microbiome, depleting SCFA producers and promoting obesity and metabolic syndrome. Evidence examined.
Read →Metals, the Microbiome, and Parkinson's: A Gut-First Pathway to Neurodegeneration
How heavy-metal exposure may reshape the gut microbiome and feed gut-first alpha-synuclein pathology in Parkinson's disease - a metallomic-microbiome view.
Read →How Dietary Nickel Arms Gut Bacteria — and May Fuel Gut Disease
Dietary nickel activates nickel-dependent virulence enzymes in gut Enterobacteriaceae — a mechanistic pathway that may link nickel exposure to NEC and IBD.
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