Gut Microbiome and Host Defense Interactions during Critical Illness

For many years it has been hypothesized that the gut has an important detrimental role in promoting systemic inflammation and infection in the critically ill. During stress and mucosal hypoxia, the mucosa is damaged and host defenses break down causing translocation of bacteria and bacterial toxins which are thought to contribute to the overwhelming inflammation associated with sepsis and multiorgan failure [1, 2]. New emerging data on the role of the microbiome have forced us to reassess the old ‘gut as motor of sepsis’ hypothesis. The gut microbiome consists of a diverse and vast population of microbes that has an