BAARK blog.
Long-form pieces on what the published evidence actually shows about the pet microbiome. Written by Dr Matthew Latif.
How We Actually Measure Your Pet's Gut Microbiome
Start here. Bacterial culture, 16S rRNA sequencing, qPCR dysbiosis indices and shotgun metagenomic NGS compared: what each method can resolve, and where each one fails.
Diet and the Gut Microbiome in Dogs and Cats
What fibre and protein actually change, why butyrate does not require carbohydrate, and what 46 raw-fed and commercially fed dogs showed.
Antibiotics and the Recovery of the Gut in Dogs
Twenty-two dogs, seven days of metronidazole, six months of follow-up. Diversity came back in a week. The community took six.
Probiotics for Dogs and Cats: Science Versus Marketing
Strain specificity, the trials that worked and the ones that found nothing, and why the label cannot tell you what the evidence can.
Dysbiosis in Digestive Disease: What the Index Actually Measures
Eight qPCR assays reduced to one number. It clears 95 per cent of healthy dogs and misses about a quarter of sick ones.
Faecal Microbiota Transplantation in Dogs: What the Evidence Supports
A single transplant beat a week of metronidazole in acute diarrhoea, failed in two randomised trials, and the donor screen carries the risk.
The Microbiome and Cancer Immunotherapy: Where Dogs Fit
Three Science cohorts, two transplant trials, and a 312-sample cross-cohort analysis that found the signature does not reproduce. Plus the two canine lymphoma studies that point the other way.
The Gut Microbiome, Ageing and Longevity in Dogs and Cats
How the ageing gut changes, what the causal longevity evidence actually supports, and what it does not.
The Oral Microbiome in Dogs and Cats
How the healthy mouth is built, what shifts in periodontal disease, and why the oral community is a different ecosystem from the gut.
The Skin Microbiome and Dermatitis in Dogs and Cats
How the healthy skin community is built, what overgrows in skin and ear disease, and what the published evidence supports.
Osteoarthritis and the Gut Microbiome in Dogs
What the published canine and human evidence shows about gut bacteria and osteoarthritis. Why diversity is not a reliable marker.
The Gut-Kidney Axis in Dogs and Cats
Why kidney disease in dogs and cats has a gut microbiome story. Indoxyl sulfate, p-cresyl sulfate, and the proteolytic-saccharolytic shift.
Obesity, inflammation, and the gut-joint connection
How obesity rewires gut permeability and the inflammatory signals that reach the joints.
Raw feeding and the canine microbiome
BARF, raw diets, and what shotgun sequencing finds in their stool.