The next time you pop a pill, know that the microbes in your gut might get to it before you do. Some people harbor a strain of bacteria that inactivates a common cardiac drug, a finding that could explain why people have different reactions to some medications.
“Microbes have long been known to ‘steal’ drugs by converting them into inactive forms,” says Peter Turnbaugh of Harvard University, who led the study. But picking out the specific culprits among the gut’s throngs of bacterial suspects has been a challenge for scientists, he says.