Health challenges of the Pacific Region: insights from history, geography, social determinants, genetics, and the microbiome

Horwood, Paul F., Tarantola, Arnaud, Goarant, Cyrille, Matsui, Mariko, Klement, Elise, Umezaki, Masahiro, Navarro, Severine, and Greenhill, Andrew R. (2019) Health challenges of the Pacific Region: insights from history, geography, social determinants, genetics, and the microbiome. Frontiers in Immunology, 10. 2184.

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Abstract

The Pacific region, also referred to as Oceania, is a geographically widespread region populated by people of diverse cultures and ethnicities. Indigenous people in the region (Melanesians, Polynesians, Micronesians, Papuans, and Indigenous Australians) are over-represented on national, regional, and global scales for the burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases. Although social and environmental factors such as poverty, education, and access to health-care are assumed to be major drivers of this disease burden, there is also developing evidence that genetic and microbiotic factors should also be considered. To date, studies investigating genetic and/or microbiotic links with vulnerabilities to infectious and non-communicable diseases have mostly focused on populations in Europe, Asia, and USA, with uncertain associations for other populations such as indigenous communities in Oceania. Recent developments in personalized medicine have shown that identifying ethnicity-linked genetic vulnerabilities can be important for medical management. Although our understanding of the impacts of the gut microbiome on health is still in the early stages, it is likely that equivalent vulnerabilities will also be identified through the interaction between gut microbiome composition and function with pathogens and the host immune system. As rapid economic, dietary, and cultural changes occur throughout Oceania it becomes increasingly important that further research is conducted within indigenous populations to address the double burden of high rates of infectious diseases and rapidly rising non-communicable diseases so that comprehensive development goals can be planned. In this article, we review the current knowledge on the impact of nutrition, genetics, and the gut microbiome on infectious diseases in indigenous people of the Pacific region.

Item ID: 60371
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1664-3224
Keywords: Pacific, Oceania, microbiome, nutrition, genetics, infectious disease, non-communicable disease
Copyright Information: Copyright © 2019 Horwood, Tarantola, Goarant, Matsui, Klement, Umezaki, Navarro and Greenhill. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Funders: Woolworth Centre for Childhood Nutrition Research, Children's Hospital Foundation (CHF), Government of New Caledonia
Projects and Grants: CHF #50197, CHF #WIS0092018
Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2019 00:33
FoR Codes: 32 BIOMEDICAL AND CLINICAL SCIENCES > 3202 Clinical sciences > 320211 Infectious diseases @ 100%
SEO Codes: 92 HEALTH > 9201 Clinical Health (Organs, Diseases and Abnormal Conditions) > 920109 Infectious Diseases @ 100%
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