CU Medicine Brochure

DANCES WITH A DISEASE: how CUMED takes on COVID-19 5 The Yin and Yang of a Healthy Gut Siew Ng restores gut bacteria balance to help fight COVID-19 COVID-19 is commonly regarded as a respiratory disease but we now know that it is also closely linked to our gut health. The research team led by Prof. Siew Ng , a gastroenterologist and Associate Director of the Centre for Gut Microbiota Research at CUHK, discovered that COVID-19 patients have imbalanced gut microbiota asso- ciated with impaired immunity. Her team studied the gut microorganisms present in over 100 COVID-19 patients and compared them with related data from 1,500 healthy individuals in Hong Kong and the mainland. They found that some commensal symbionts, generally good bacteria, were missing while pathogens were increased in the patients’ gut. They believe that alterations in the gut microbiome are associated with the severity of COVID-19 infection. While probiotics such as lactobacillus may have potential benefits to boost our immunity, the efficacy of bacteria is population-specific. What appears to be useful in the West may not be as beneficial among the Chinese population. Using cutting-edge techniques in metagenomics and big data analysis, the team has derived a probiotic formula which could potentially help restore the balance of microbiota in the gut and boost our immune system to prevent or fight against COVID-19 infection.