I am studying gut flora and had a few questions. Can you discribe a few gut flora and their function in the human body? Then can you describe what would happen if they were removed, had altered metabolic activity, or had an increase/decrease in population size in the human gut. also could you list a few human diseases caused by gut flora or caused from a increased/decreased gut flora number Solution E coli, Lactobacillus, bacteroids, streptococcus mutans, saccharomyces, enterobacter are few examples of gut flora... They grow as commensals in the body and by utilising the available media they prevent that pathogenic bacteria to grow within by competition ..Thus their presence is needed for normal body function. Even they help in synthesis of vitamins like cyanocobalamin, vitamin k.,etc.. If their number Is altered it would usually result in infections to set in..Like gastroenteritis, chronic diarrhoea..Etc. They can also lead to diseases if there is contamination with gut flora ,eg urinary tract infections in females by Ecoli.