Prescribing the best medication may require going with a patient’s gut — or at least, the bacteria that live there.
Anecdotal reports have revealed that some gut-dwelling microbes chemically alter oral medications, affecting how well those drugs work (SN Online: 7/19/13). But the scope of this problem has remained unclear. Now, a sweeping survey of these interactions suggests that gut bacteria can modify many drugs and that the genetic makeup of a patient’s microbiota may predict that person’s response to medications, researchers report online June 3 in Nature.