Gut Microbiota in Aging and Chronic Diseases

This edited volume studies gut microbiota peculiarities in elderly, in senescence-related and environmental-related alterations of gut microbiota in chronic diseases. Aging, as a physiological process mediated through several regulatory pathways and transcription factors, is generally speaking associated to a relentless functional decline and increasing risk of chronic diseases. Growing data on gut microbiota quali-quantitative changes in aging gut, and the opportunity to study by advanced NGS and metabolomic technologies, now offers novel horizons to link such changes to disease risks and to theoretically the weapons for gut microbiota intervention as an effective therapeutic tool. Chapters are divided into clear sections, starting with the aging perspective, then moving from chronic diseases to neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The final parts focusses on interventions. Contributors are well-reputed and dedicated scientists in clinics and experimental medicine from 4 different continents who have provided their contribution keeping the polar star on aging as a guide while investigating their gut microbiota in occurrence and progression of disease together with proposed preventing, monitoring and therapeutic interventions. In the wide offer of books on gut microbiota, this age-thematic volume will be a valuable source of updated information for a wide group of readership including gerontologists, geriatricians, medical specialists of several fields, PhDs, basic scientists and public/private research entities focused on potential intervention in and through gut ecosystem. This book will stimulate a large number of basic scientists and clinicians to review their once organ (or cellular line)-specific knowledge and widen either their pathophysiological mechanisms understanding while providing novel ways to prevent, monitor and treat diseases from eyes to bones.