For decades, scientists have puzzled over why smoking makes Crohn’s disease worse but seems to protect people from ulcerative colitis. Now, researchers at RIKEN have discovered that smoking creates ...

Diagram showing the mechanism discovered in the study. Inflammation of the intestines in ulcerative colitis results from an excessive helper Th2 immune response. Smoking leads to aromatic compounds ...

The resilience of life has once again amazed the scientific community. Recent research has confirmed that bacteria, specifically Streptococcus mitis, survived an astonishing 15 years on the Moon. This ...

Published in the journal Gut, the study shows that smoking produces metabolites that encourage bacteria from the mouth to grow in the large intestines where they trigger an immune response. These ...