Children Living near a Sanitary Landfill Have Increased Breath Methane andMethanobrevibacter smithiiin Their Intestinal Microbiota

Abstract

This study evaluated the breath CH4 excretion and concentration of M. smithii in intestinal microbiota of schoolchildren from 2 slums. One hundred and eleven children from a slum near a sanitary landfill, 35 children of a slum located away from the sanitary landfill, and 32 children from a high socioeconomic level school were included in the study. Real-time PCR was performed to quantify the M. smithii nifH gene and it was present in the microbiota of all the participating children, with higher (P < 0.05) concentrations in those who lived in the slum near the landfill (3.16 × 107 CFU/g of feces), comparing with the children from the slum away from the landfill (2.05 × 106 CFU/g of feces) and those from the high socioeconomic level group (3.93 × 105 CFU/g of feces). The prevalence of children who present breath methane was 53% in the slum near the landfill, 31% in the slum further away from the landfill and, 22% in the high socioeconomic level group. To live near a landfill is associated with higher concentrations of M. smithii in intestinal microbiota, comparing with those who live away from the landfill, regardless of their socioeconomics conditions.

The Pathology of Methanogenic Archaea in Human Gastrointestinal Tract Disease

“…Environmental effects may also play a role, as children living near landfills, which had higher atmospheric methane than areas away from landfills, had a higher breath methane output and higher Mbr. smithii cell density than control children, regardless of their socioeconomic level [34]. Previous to that study, it was shown that the bacterial and fungal counts dispersed from landfills into air were up to 20 times higher than microbial counts from other areas [98].…”

“…This allows methane production to be indirectly and noninvasively measured, since breath methane concentration is correlated with methanogen cell density in the intestines [1]. An undetectable concentration of breath methane does not equate to the absence of archaea, and therefore false-negative interpretations of breath gas analysis may result when breath methane is at undetectably low levels [33,34]. Reported estimations suggest that between 30 and 62% of healthy humans produce detectable methane [31,35].…”

Natural environments, nature relatedness and the ecological theater: connecting satellites and sequencing to shinrin-yoku

“…Although diet has been the primary research focus concerning intestinal microbial diversity, we take this opportunity to highlight that other external environmental factors also seem to play a role in how intestinal microbial communities take their shape [ 66 – 70 ]. In other words, it is entirely possible that natural environments can impact upon all human-associated microbial communities, which in turn could influence nerve cell communication.…”

Transforming Life: A Broad View of the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease Concept from an Ecological Justice Perspective

“…Antibiotic exposure is often higher in disadvantaged populations [260,261,262]. The microbes carried by mammals are also a product of the ecosystems in which they reside [263,264,265,266]; given that the Earth is home to upward of 1 trillion microbial species [267], human contact with many of these microbes in natural environments (the ecosystem in which we once spent the majority of our time) may have evolutionary-rooted, health-protective properties.…”