November 16, 2016
Before we start, here’s a quick refresher:
Information in this article was presented as a Poster Session and an Oral Presentation at the International Human Microbiome Consortium, 6th Congress, on November 11, 2016, Houston, TX.
Volgin A.Y. MD PhD Volguin K.A. BS Volguina A.A. BA
Modern Understanding of the Microbiome
Modern research has shown that the microorganisms found in the human large and small intestine area key component to uphold the health and well-being of humans.
Microorganisms in the human body establish a society that ties humans to processes happening in the biosphere. Microorganisms in the small intestine helps digest, absorb, and utilize nutrition from food, while the large intestine has microorganisms that ties people into food chains, affects fat metabolism, helps the immune system, is responsible for detoxification of the body, and forming feces. The microbiome is like the “judge” or “ambassador” of the biosphere; actions done by the host human effect the microbiome, and the microbiome can effect the actions done by the host human. Beneficial microorganisms selected through evolution uphold human health, prevent the development of new diseases, and shields an organism from unfriendly or pathogenic microorganisms. At the same time a microbiome made up of unfriendly or pathogenic microorganisms promote sobesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiac diseases, and other chronic diseases. It’s becoming very clear that it’s not possible to fully heal from any disease without an appropriate beneficial microbiome.
Every type of food has its own “microbiome” native to it that we’d ingest with our food. In recent times, just eating any food would give people the microorganisms that they need.
However, modern technology widely uses sterilization, which removes microorganisms selected through evolution from our food, and allows for the colonization of new microorganisms that just happened to be around, which typically are pathogenic.
This new food made with modern technology has universal availability, and is distributed worldwide.
Practically everyone living in technologically advanced societies is suffering from diseases caused by improper microorganisms that make up their microbiome.
It was interesting for us to see if people are trying to correct their diets in order to acquire beneficial microorganisms.
In order to analyze global processes with consumption of food that could affect the microbiome, we needed a tool that also had worldwide reach.
Globalization has affected all aspects of technology, financial, information all over the world.
Google is one of the more widely available informational systems that has spread worldwide.
Recently, (2007)Google released a service called Google Trends which allows anyone to look uphow interest has changed in a topic or search term in any region in whichGoogle is available.
In order to proceed with the study, we had to make some key assumptions. We assumed that populations, as whole, use a combination of instinctive wisdom and formal knowledge to exhibit behavior that leads them to the solutions of their problems. So it should follow, that if search interest increases over time for foods potentially containing beneficial microorganisms, that it is a potential solution to the problems with our modern food.
Before we move on, here’s a quick note on Google Trends data.
Google sources its data from every search made world wide, cleans up the data, and gives access to it through the Google Trends service
Data through the Google Trends website is not presented or provided in raw search volume .Instead, Google takes the highest search volume, gives it a value of 100, and all other search volumes are assigned a value of 0-100 relative to the highest value.
Google Trends also provides data on which countries the queried search term or topic was the most popular in. The country whose percentage of their population searched for the queried search term the highest is given a value of 100, while all other countries are assigned a number 0-100 relative to it.
Google offers several options for any given search query, all of which will affect the final data. They are as follows:
1. Region
2. Date Range
3. Category
4. Google Service
5. Whether a query is a “Search Term” or a “Topic”
Below is moreinformation about each option:
Region: Selects thepart of the world in which the query is made. Google Trend’s breadth goes aswide as worldwide, and as narrow as a city-region.
Date range: Rangesfrom 2004-2016. We used this maximum range in our data set and analysis.
Category: Allowsone to filter the results of their search query to different categories, suchas food and drink, health, technology, etc.
Google Service: onecan use different Google services as the source of data, such as Web Search,Shopping, Youtube, and others.
“Search Term” or “Topic”: This is a “hidden”option, but is very important when selecting results. When typing in a searchquery, it is by default a “Search Term”, which is only in one language.Sometimes, the option to look up the query as a “Topic” can appear whichbroadens your search to multiple languages.
Fig 1: Main results for a Google Trends query. Shown is the control “Food” in the top 9 languages used on the internet.
The purpose of our study was to determine whether there has been a worldwide increase in the search interest of foods that could potentially improve or maintain a healthy microbiome by using Google Trends data.
Materials and Methods
To conduct a repeatable, well documented Google Trends study, we followed the “Checklist for the Documentation of Google Trends Use” set by Nuti S.V. et al. (Sudhakar V.Nuti, 2014, PLOS ONE)
In order to focusthe relevance of our search terms, we created 3 main groups of food that wesuspected could contain beneficial microorganisms:
I. Foodthat has been fermented by adding microorganisms.
II. Foodthat is grown with traditional processes where healthy plant and animalmicrobiomes are more likely to develop.
III. Foodthat doesn’t destroy any microorganisms through its preparation.
Group I had a totalof 43 terms, Group II had 18 terms, and Group III had 17 terms.
As a control, weused the word “food” in the top 9 languages used on the internet, all of whichmake up at least >1% of what’s written on the internet. This comes to atotal of 91.4%, which means that, if someone is looking something up, it’slikely to be in these languages. (See fig. 1)
To assess the growth of each search query, we took the raw data for each search query available from each Google Trends results page, and performed analysis on it. First, we calculated the difference between the average of the 2004/2005 values and the average of the 2015/2016values to estimate how much the trend grew. Then, we used Repeated Measures ANOVA to evaluate the significance of the trends in interest.
Figure 2 shows our statistical data of the overall search interest per group.
As shown in Fig. 2, all three groups that could potentially contain beneficial microorganisms grew significantly more than the control. The growth of these groups ranged between 45 to almost 60 interest points, as compared to the control, which grew by only 5.6 interest points. This indicates that the groups that we defined may have a significant benefit to the human population.
When categorized into separate groups, we noticed that some foods or topics could technically fit into more than just one group. We found that those foods that could be in 2or all 3 groups had a higher growth in interest than the average of the group it was in. For instance, craft beer grew by the highest of all search terms, 86points, while the other three shown here in overlapping regions also grew significantly. (Fig. 3)
Discrete examples of search interest in each food group are shown in Figures 4, 5, and 6.
Shown in Fig. 4 are three of the best growingfoods from the first group. Quark is a dairy product similar to farmer’scheese, but instead of using just enzymes and salt, it is made through theaction of a specific set microorganisms used for making just this food. Shrimppaste is ground shrimp which is then allowed to ferment and air-dry over aperiod of time.
What is interesting to note from these examples, is that although each food is fermented with microorganisms, their popularity is isolated mostly to one region of the globe. Greek Yogurt is popular in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, Quark is popular mostly in the former Soviet Union, and Shrimp Paste is popular in Southeast Asia. What this shows is that no matter which culture or set of traditions are available, or what foods are available, there will be some sort of fermented food that is popular in every region on earth. This means that fermented foods may play a key role in the health of human populations. Lastly, if a fermented food popular in one region is properly re-framed to match the cultural preferences of a region in which it is not popular, it has potential to see great success, and possibly bestow health benefits of this food to a new population.
What is interesting to see here is that most of the foods in this category, besides the ones here, are popular mainly in the United States. We’re not sure what this means, but it may stem from the United States heavily relying on food technologies as a food source, causing people to seek food made “the old way” because it tastes better and is more nutritious. Meanwhile, in other countries, either food technology hasn’t reached the levels seen in the US yet, or there is enough traditional food still being made that this type of food is easily available.
Fig 6 shows foods which don’t destroy any microorganisms through its preparation. Seen here again are major English-Speaking countries favoring Small Batch, Cold Pressed Juice. This group’s other search terms were popular with English speaking countries as well. Certain search terms, however, like Sashimi, show popularity worldwide, despite being culturally centered in Japan. It shows that certain foods may gain popularity outside of their “home” country and that they may do so from a combination of factors, one of them maybe being that a food with high popularity has some sort of health benefit.
In addition to our main findings, we also found some unexpected, yet interesting phenomena that are worth noting.
Fig 7 shows that in certain foods, there were spikes of increase in activity, followed by a change in the trend of interest. It may be that Google is an adequate tool to monitor the results of marketing activities. Possibly, if a trend significantly increases in popularity after a possible marketing push, then the product was just unknown and may have health benefits. If a trend does not increase significantly after a marketing push, it could be that there is nothing to this food that is worth pursuing, as the crowds have “voted” with their disinterest.
Google Trends may be an adequate tool for monitoring public ideas about food.
Shown in Fig 8, several ideas that were thought to be positive, healthy trends in terms of how to source your food have actually been decreasing over time. This may point out that these methods are ineffective for getting the product the people were looking for.
We have confirmed our hypothesis that modern food technologies negatively affect the constituents of the human microbiome. According to our data, there is an increased interest in foods that increase the quality of the microbiome. Interest is higher in foods that are made with the assistance of microorganisms, and in which those microorganisms are still alive. Also popular are foods grown in conditions that allow the growing organism to create its own healthy microbiome. We have demonstrated that Google Trends is a powerful research tool, which can analyze the processes happening in human populations. Google Trends also allows one to see possible effects of marketing on search interest. Google Trends can also allow one to see trends in search interest to theories or ideas.
Throughout this article, we have stated the above conclusions about our data. However, there is a bigger philosophical takeaway from all this.
In Fig. 9, you can see how humans as a whole, in the middle, have conflicting interests with the biosphere and technosphere. The biosphere is the system in which humans were created and molded in, and are intricately inseparable from. However, with their unique intellect, humans have been able to make themselves a technosphere, an artificial environment that shields and protects them from the unexpected whims and caprices of nature. Since we don’t yet understand enough about our bodies to create an ideal technosphere, every further separation we make from the biosphere by building up the technosphere results in health problems. In the 20th century, industrial food manufacturing processes took out vitamins from our food, and we realized that we needed to add them back in order to stay healthy. The same thing is happening now in the 21st century, except with microorganisms. To stay healthy, our next step is to add these missing microorganisms back into our diets.
- Wehave found a worldwide increase in the interest level of foods that potentiallyimprove or maintain a healthy microbiome.
- Thethree groups we have defined have continuous growing interest in differentcountries; Group I, food that has been fermented by adding microorganisms,Group II, food that is grown with traditional processes where healthy plant andanimal microbiomes are more likely to develop, and Group III, food that doesn’tdestroy any microorganisms through its preparation.
- Wedetected higher growth in interest level in foods that are simultaneouslyincluded in 2 or all 3 groups.
- Weshowed that certain foods have uneven geographical distribution. This may bebased off of cultural and traditional values and marketing.
- Usingour methodological approach, we were also able to determine that marketingstrategies may affect interest in a product.
- GoogleTrends demonstrates that certain promising ideas in improving one’s food havedecreasing search interest and may not be as effective as first thought.
- Foods that show consistent, strong growth in one country or region may have a high potential to be successful in other countries.
- Usage of Google trends is an adequate methodology for estimating worldwide interest to microbiome-corrective foods.
