Foreword - The importance of a healthy microbiota in the era of COVID-19

Koen Venema*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalEditorialAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

At the start of 2020 we were thrilled to have reached 10 years of Beneficial Microbes! Little did we know that soon after Europe and the rest of the world (with Asia already earlier) would be in lock-down due to COVID-19. It has been a strange year. And now, at the start of 2021, the excitement of having a vaccine is tempered by the fact that everywhere mutants of the virus pop up. Although this was likely to occur, as also the influenza virus keeps mutating, it means that at the moment it is unclear as to whether the current situation of lock-downs and social distancing will remain for a longer period than we had anticipated and hoped for at the end of 2020 when it became clear that several vaccines were efficacious. Some studies have shown a role of the gut microbiota composition in disease severity, together with vitamin D, cholesterol and other factors. It was a hype to write a 'review' on gut microbiota and the effect on COVID-19, and also the board of Beneficial Microbes has received several submissions of so-called reviews on the topic. However, all of them were rejected, as they were mere speculations about how the gut microbiota might affect virus infection and disease severity, without any data whatsoever. However, there are some good studies out there that have shown that a proper gut microbiota may indeed influence disease severity, such as recently reviewed by Kim (2021). All in all, this may not be too surprising for the knowledgeable reader, as they would know that the microbiota plays a role in everything that can be wrong with us!

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-3
Number of pages3
JournalBeneficial Microbes
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Feb 2021

Keywords

  • COVID-19/epidemiology
  • Communicable Disease Control
  • Computational Biology
  • Diet
  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome
  • Humans
  • Immunity
  • Periodicals as Topic
  • SARS-CoV-2

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