Microbes living in our guts help us digest food by reshaping the bile acids that our livers produce for breaking down fats.

In a paper in Nature, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Xiamen University report that they have identified one such caloric restriction mimetic—a bile acid called lithocholic ...

As well as having a role in lipid absorption, bile acids can act as endocrine-signaling molecules. With previous studies suggesting that bile acids operate as metabolic integrators, Watanabe et al.

The dichotomous roles of microbial-modified bile acids 7-oxo-DCA and isoDCA in intestinal tumorigenesis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 2024; 121 (47) DOI: 10.1073/pnas ...