Abstract
The gut is an organ that absorbs nutrition and water, and it also plays a critical role as an immunoregulatory organ. Recent basic and clinical research studies have reported the relationships among the gut microbiota, intestinal immunoregulatory, and the incidence of several diseases. Especially, recent papers have reported the significance of gut bacterial flora in the pathogenesis of obesity and metabolic diseases including diabetes mellitus. Similarly, several papers have reported the significance of gut microbiota and the intestinal immune system in atherogenesis. In this article, we introduce and summarize the state of the art of this research area and discuss future perspectives.
