Thursday, October 15, 2009

Worst new omics word award #5: fermentome

I do not have access to the article but the abstract is all I need to give out my fifth "Worst New Omics Word Award"
Fermentation of undigested foods in the colon by its resident bacteria affects not only colonic health (protection against inflammation and tumour formation) but also influences metabolic health. Studying fermentation directly is difficult for lack of access. We hypothesise that the anatomical structure of the colon is suited to act as a fermenting chamber with the gaseous molecules (VOCs) emitted having direct effects on the colonocytes as well as gut neural and metabolic effects. We refer to this complex system as the ‘fermentome’, and further hypothesise that alteration in the ‘fermentome’ through dietary modification will have a direct impact on colonic as well as metabolic health and disease. The VOCs emitted may play a role in bacterial chemical signalling within the colon but importantly could also function as a ‘gas’ biomarker. Measurement of such VOCs through non-invasive methods would have important application as a hypothesis-generating tool with subsequent clinical application.

From an article titled "Colonic fermentation – More than meets the nose" in Medical Hypotheses, Volume 73, Issue 5, Pages 753-756 by R.P. Arasaradnama, M.W. Pharaoh, G.J. Williams, C.U. Nwokolo, K.D. Bardhana, S. Kumar

Not really much to say other than, this one is a stinker.
Hat tip to @steinsky for tweeting to me about this.

4 comments:

  1. Ok, but that's not a real journal, so they should get a worst new omics award bonus.

    Meanwhile, I am still holding out for "colonomics".

    ReplyDelete
  2. I nominate "Serpentinomics”:
    http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1656/045.016.0521?cookieSet=1

    ReplyDelete
  3. I may be late on this one, but 'omics' hating has been in my blood for many years. Here's my current top of the list:

    "material degradomics"

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8355888.stm

    ReplyDelete
  4. How about "Figurome"?

    http://iossifovlab.cshl.edu/figurome

    http://bioinformatics.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/25/16/2082

    ReplyDelete

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