[HN Gopher] Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
___________________________________________________________________
Gut microbe linked to depression in large health study
Author : pella
Score : 257 points
Date : 2022-02-06 18:29 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| Gut microbiome researcher here - not involved in this study but
| happy to answer questions or dig in with anyone interested!
| [deleted]
| goodpoint wrote:
| People are sharing anecdata around improving their biome by
| eating sauerkrauts and nobody asked you any question yet...
| this is sad.
| antiterra wrote:
| Is there evidence of gut biome activity directly interacting
| with the mesh of nerves in our digestive tract?
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| Absolutely - the chemicals that microbes make in the gut pass
| into your blood stream and from there access the entire body.
| There are mechanisms the body uses to ensure these chemicals
| are detoxified (phase I and phase II metabolism in the liver)
| and that they are excreted if they reach too high a
| concentration.
|
| More locally, the enteroendocrine cells
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enteroendocrine_cell) that
| line the gut translate much of the internal nutrient state of
| the gut up to the brain to tell you things about if you
| should eat, etc.
|
| There is a lot of research on how we could alter satiety by
| finding the right language that these cells use. There are
| approved drugs on the market that mimic the activity of these
| cells (incretin mimetics) to reduce appetite/weight control.
| ninesnines wrote:
| Hi!
|
| Thanks a ton - super curious research. What determines if
| individuals get Morganella and Kiebdiella bacteria? Is it
| genetic or can it be impacted by the food we eat?
|
| What is the mechanism of how these bacterias interact with the
| brain through the enteric system?
|
| Thank you!
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| Fascinating question - also not totally known.
|
| We know that microbes colonize the gut in a somewhat
| predictable way as a function of age. As a newborn your gut
| is largely dominated by Bifidobacteria, and this slowly
| transitions to a more complex community over the next several
| years of life. Events like early childhood antibiotics,
| malnutrition, other disease, etc. can alter this trajectory.
| Interestingly this kind of ecological succession seems to be
| driven by an interplay of both immune maturation (as your
| immune system matures it starts being more selective about
| who it tries to let in) and by chemical processes. The gut
| becomes more anaerobic as the number of bacteria increase
| (and transition away from the Bifido dominated state) and
| that has a strong selective effect on the microbes that will
| grow well.
|
| For specific commensal bacteria we know some of the
| mechanisms of colonization - there are particular genetic
| programs that bacteria turn on when they sense they are in
| the gut to enhance their ability to be retained and not
| washed out. These programs include physical attachment,
| motility, and chemical signalling to try to dampen the local
| immune response.
|
| Pathogens are extremely good at getting in to the gut despite
| our best attempts at keeping them out. Salmonella typhimurium
| is notoriously adept at colonizing the host - the infectious
| dose you need is maybe 10 microbes taken orally in a
| susceptible host (compare that to 10 billion microbes/capsule
| in a probiotic).
|
| For these specific bugs I don't know that much. I am excited
| to read more.
| happylion0801 wrote:
| At the current pace of research and studies, when do you think
| we could expect to see something come to 'market' that could be
| used - first as a diagnosis and then as a
| treatment/medication/technique.
|
| As someone with IBS - right now I feel like there is no clear
| 'problem' defined for it. You are just categorized by the
| doctor (Rome 3 or whatever) and people go through various
| tests, medications, non-fda approved stuff to see what works.
|
| I am eagerly looking forward to some progress in this area to
| hopefully fully understand whats going on and get a proper
| diagnosis
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| There are a variety of strategies being pursued to make
| pharmaceutical products out of microbiome research. Broadly
| those are: 1: "bugs as drugs" - genetically engineered
| microbes that perform some function. The idea here is that
| having the microbe in situ performing some function will be a
| much better way to administer a particular compound (or set
| of compounds), or remove a compound, than a traditional
| pharmaceutical. Large pharma companies have studied
| phenylketonuria as a metabolic disease for which the bugs as
| drugs approach would be great. Find a microbe that consumes
| phenlyalanine at a high rate and administer it at high levels
| (or get it to stably engraft in the host) and you have a
| treatment that would be vastly better than current dietary
| regimes. 2: "community engineering" - this takes many forms
| from fecal transplant, to trying to engraft a certain small
| cocktail of strains, to altering what the in situ community
| is doing by feeding a probiotic. The idea here is that there
| are tens of thousands of metabolites that microbes are
| producing in the gut, and by balancing or tailoring the set
| of metabolites that are made, you can improve health. Fecal
| transplants have good data for clearing recurrent C. diff in
| phase III clinical trials - this is the best developed of the
| microbial therapeutic strategies currently. Everything else
| is phase I or before. 3: "microbial natural products" - this
| is the world I work in (shameless self-promotion - if you
| want to come work at a very early stage microbiome startup
| email me at will@interface.bio). The idea here is to find the
| particular chemicals/metabolites that microbes make that have
| positive influences on our physiology. Most research here is
| focused on immune conditions, metabolic syndrome/dietary
| stuff, though there is increasing interest in depression and
| other conditions.
|
| At a broad scale, I would say it will be 1-2 years before
| fecal transplants receive approval as a therapy for recurrent
| C. diff infection, at least 5 years before a bug-as-drug will
| be available, and at least 7 years before a microbe-derived
| natural product is on the market as a pharmaceutical. It
| takes an incredible amount of work to get from these
| associational studies to a pharma-grade product.
|
| In the interim, I think there will continue to be a bunch of
| diagnostics and probiotics companies that (IMO) are bordering
| on absolute nonsense. There is very little predictive value
| to the tests supplied by most of these companies, and the
| data on probiotic efficacy is bad in humans. There is good
| evidence of probiotic and prebiotic effectiveness in animal
| husbandry (e.g. fish and livestock) but the data just aren't
| there in humans.
| happylion0801 wrote:
| Thank you, appreciate the breakdown. With so much focus on
| the gut research recently I feel like we are on the cusp of
| bringing together lots of things and new understandings and
| that hopefully happens soon
| james-skemp wrote:
| Also have an IBS diagnosis.
|
| Had a great doctor that helped me get started, after many
| that did a shoddy job, and this has been my experience as
| well.
|
| Very much a 'seems like IBS, try low FODMAP, see what works
| and doesn't via experience,' which was pretty
| amazing/alarming how little is understood about our guts.
|
| I'd love to know when the science is going to start catching
| up. Especially since I think it'll be interesting to find out
| if something has been added to our diets that's causing an
| increase in intolerance over the last decade+.
| happylion0801 wrote:
| > Very much a 'seems like IBS, try low FODMAP, see what
| works and doesn't via experience,' which was pretty
| amazing/alarming how little is understood about our guts.
|
| Yes exactly this.
|
| > Especially since I think it'll be interesting to find out
| if something has been added to our diets that's causing an
| increase in intolerance over the last decade+.
|
| One thing I read is that western diets severely lack in
| fiber which usually leads to loss of microbiome diversity
| [1]. But studies like this are still early stages, we need
| targeted results based on all this to really have any
| effect.
|
| [1] https://nautil.us/how-the-western-diet-has-derailed-
| our-evol...
| fodmap wrote:
| I'm in the same boat as you. After some clueless doctors,
| I'm in the 'try low FODMAP' phase currently, and for the
| first time I'm improving.
|
| I mean, we know there isn't a cure for now but it's good to
| have something similar to a 'normal life' again.
|
| I also have my fingers crossed waiting for science to do
| its job.
|
| I share your suspicion about current Western diets.
| steelstraw wrote:
| Is there a good way to test one's own gut microbiome? To
| determine how healthy it is or isn't, and to track how it
| changes over time. Basically I want to be able to tell how my
| diet and things like antibiotics affect it.
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| I think it's really hard - we don't know what a healthy state
| of the microbiome is. There is likely a lot of individuality,
| what is healthy for me is maybe not healthy for you. This
| probably has to do with early life immune system development
| and what we were exposed to as kids.
|
| At a high level we know that diversity of microbial species
| in the gut (but for instance, not in the vagina) is linked to
| better overall health state. Is this because of the microbes?
| Probably not, it's probably that the microbes are a
| sensor/responding to an overall healthy diet/ecosystem.
|
| In general, there are commercial services to track your
| microbiome and they are interesting from a data perspective,
| but I am not sure you will get much health information out of
| them.
|
| We know the answer to a healthy diet - there are no microbial
| talismans - but it's just not sexy. Eat lots of plants, less
| sugar, and exercise. I wish it was as easy to follow this
| advice as it is to write haha.
| Jare wrote:
| Wonder what evolutionary mechanisms made us (in general)
| enjoy food that's bad for us a lot more than the one that's
| good.
| sprkwd wrote:
| What are your thoughts on Biomel, Symprove, etc in helping the
| gut biome?
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Regarding your advice on eating plants, do you know if it
| matters wheter they are cooked or eaten raw? I mean, is one
| preferable over the other, from a gut biome perspective. By the
| way, thanks a lot for your answers!
| sddat wrote:
| What supplements do you take based on your scientific
| background?
| abootstrapper wrote:
| What is the "gut?" Colon, small intestines, stomach, all of the
| above? If gut microbiome affects mood, what happens if someone
| has a total colectomy?
| pknight wrote:
| Weird question perhaps, some research suggests that bacteria
| source nutrients from the cell lining in the gut if there is an
| absence of sufficient nutrients from the food coming into the
| digestive system. (example:
| https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(16)31464-7)
|
| That made me wonder what the triggers might be, since the
| studies see the corroding effect appear in diets deficient in
| polyphenols/insoluble fibres. At what interval do microbes need
| nutrients and is simply eating a highly-processed snack that
| has nothing much to offer bacteria in the gut a possible
| trigger in itself?
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| Fascinating question - and not one whose answer is known.
|
| Fiber is good for microbes merely by the virtue that humans
| lack the glycan-degrading enzymes that are necessary to break
| it down, so it reaches the colon intact where the microbes
| can eat it. Humans can digest starch (though it can be
| physically and chemically modified to be harder to digest)
| but not the hundreds of other types of fibers that are found
| in a traditional diet.
|
| I think there is good research that shows that higher fiber
| diets are associated with lower risk of developing a range of
| metabolic and immune pathologies, but the particular
| mechanistic linkages are so subtle that it will require
| absolutely massive studies to identify them. In general, we
| know that humans used to eat a much higher fiber diet (e.g.
| the Hadza people eat 70-150 grams of fiber a day), and we
| believe that produces a much healthier microbial composition.
|
| The paper you cited is really interesting! I haven't read it
| - but the overall idea that the mucus lining of the gut can
| be degraded by microbes who are sourcing carbon, energy, and
| nitrogen from it is well established.
|
| I think there is consensus that some amount of gut barrier
| integrity is due to microbial signals. This occurs in two
| ways - 1) our epithelial cells sense microbial products
| (proteins, carbohydrates, etc.) and respond by tightening the
| junctions between them. The overall idea being that you want
| to keep the bacteria in the colon, but you must balance some
| level of nutrient flow. 2) The goblet cells which produce
| mucus in the gut, respond to microbial signals to increase or
| decrease their mucus production.
|
| There is a lot of research going on trying to understand how
| certain diets cause defective mucus production and in turn
| how that can allow microbes to get to close to the epithelial
| lining (usually the mucus is ~100 microns thick) which
| results in inflammation.
|
| Recent evidence of another function of microbial activity in
| the gut of hibernating animals. In short, it appears that
| they help the host supply enough nitrogen for maintaining
| muscle mass during hibernation:
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh2950
| pknight wrote:
| Very interesting, thank you for answering!
| Herodotus38 wrote:
| In your opinion, what is the best study that shows direct
| evidence that changes in gut flora can change health outcomes
| (preferably something that is a randomized control study). The
| only area I feel comfortable that good data exists is in the
| setting of fecal transplants for refractory clostridioides
| difficile infection. Thanks.
| wdwvt1 wrote:
| I think you hit it on the head - the C. diff stuff is good
| and will meet FDA criteria soon (the phase III data from
| ECOSPOR was good:
| https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03183128).
|
| In general we only have mouse or other animal data for other
| indications.
|
| There are retrospective analyses of patient cohorts receiving
| anti-PD1 or anti-CTLA4 therapies which have identified
| certain microbiome states as supportive of those therapies. I
| believe that these are probably real effects, though I don't
| think the particular microbes matter - instead I think it's
| the metabolites they produce and how those influence resting
| immune state
| (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf3363 - but
| you can find many more).
|
| A paper I really like shows that a specific protein from a
| common gut microbe (Akkermansia muciniphila) confers
| resistance to diet induced weight gain, insulin
| insensitivity, etc.
| (https://www.nature.com/articles/nm.4236).
|
| In general, I think the majority of microbiome work has been
| associational and demonstrative of the kind of hypothesis-
| free science that is prone to all sorts of statistical
| artifacts and misaligend incentives between truth-finding and
| paper publishing (garden of forking paths, file-drawer
| effect, etc. etc.)
| antiterra wrote:
| If you're like me and somehow missed out that there's an
| significant mesh of neurons in your guts that's capable of
| independent neurotransmitter release, you should look up the
| enteric nervous system.
|
| Intuitively, at least, it seems to make sense of all the 'gut'
| connections to mood.
| musingsole wrote:
| It's been described as a "cat's brain" equivalent of neurons.
| Largely seems attached to regulating various rhythms of the
| gut, but who knows what computations it could be influencing.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Considering how often my cat manages to outsmart me I'd say
| that is a significant amount of neurons.
| vletal wrote:
| Is this really the causality. Could it be the other way around?
| Depressed people might in time develop bowl disorders?
| hirako2000 wrote:
| or depression causes this bacteria to proliferate more easily? I
| see nothing in that research showing causation. It doesn't
| invalidate their correlation though.
| msrenee wrote:
| Do they claim causation anywhere? All I see is them saying
| there appears to be a link.
| charisma123 wrote:
| "One of them, Morganella, was significantly increased in a
| microbial survey of the 181 people in the study who _later_
| developed depression."
|
| they would have been diagnosed with depression first leading to
| increase in morganella, if it was the other way around? agree
| this could be correlation, but I guess thats why they say that
| the field is still in its infancy.
| mateo1 wrote:
| That's my thinking as well. Depression leads to lifestyle
| changes which includes dietary changes which can cause certain
| bacteria to grow faster, as your gut bacterial makeup changes
| constantly based on what kind of food you consume and which
| microorganisms are specialized for it.
|
| I think there will be some breakthroughs by studying the human
| microbiome, for example there could be reasons that a
| moderately harmful microorganism or strain becomes dominant in
| your gut for whatever reason and causes problems, but from my
| personal anecdotal experience with gut health and diet, I
| believe most issues will still be solved with dietary changes
| and perhaps some targeted antibiotics or antimicrobial
| treatments in general.
|
| I'm also willing to bet we'll discover a lot of immune
| involvement in the regulation of various bacterial population
| in the gut. There must be an adaptive system that minimizes or
| eliminates most harmful organisms in the gut, otherwise we'd
| all be dead.
| fnord77 wrote:
| as the article states, this was suspected or known for at least
| 15 years.
|
| Has anything actionable (treatment-wise) come of it?
| testemailfordg2 wrote:
| Strange coincidence, just last night drank milk kefir and woke up
| feeling much more lighter in my head...Guess I know the reason
| now...
| grp000 wrote:
| I've found kefir to be useful myself, but only after a few
| weeks of daily consumption.
| exdsq wrote:
| I assume Tom Brady retired to make an income from the spice
| malange on the back of this news
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Since diet can affect the microbiome of the gut and I can't
| imagine how gut bacteria affect moods (although I'm open to the
| idea I suppose) I'd wager it is actually diet and nutritional
| input that affects mood as well as the gut bacteria. Makes more
| sense to me that your mood can be affected by your diet, and what
| we are measuring is the altered microbiome of the gut because of
| the diet.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| As mentioned in the article, there is already a causal
| hypotheses for why the biome itself is the cause, certain
| people have strong immune responses to the products of these
| bacteria which causes a chronic inflammatory response.
| tejtm wrote:
| ..." I can't imagine how gut bacteria affect moods"...
|
| But you can imagine looking at a picture and feeling hungry.
|
| In addition to our fast new electrical nervous system for rapid
| response there is the older slower endocrine system from when
| we were just bags of chemicals coordinating with concentration
| gradients (still are, but were).
|
| visual -> brain -> signals gut -> gut makes molecules to get
| ready -> molecules detected report to brain -> you drool
|
| Moods depend on the chemical balance of small molecules
| bacteria eat sleep and poop small small molecules.
|
| To consider that after billions of years of coexisting we, both
| multi cell & single cell, have not adapted to responding each
| others's small molecules is unthinkable
| roywiggins wrote:
| You wouldn't expect a fecal transplant to help if the bacteria
| were entirely incidental though.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Two patients and no control group is virtually useless for
| drawing any conclusions:
|
| > Indeed, researchers recently reported in Frontiers in
| Psychiatry that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two
| depressed patients.
|
| Depression research is challenging because even placebo
| groups tend to have dramatic improvements.
| robocat wrote:
| > Two patients and no control group is virtually useless
| for drawing any conclusions
|
| That is a frequentist argument.
|
| If the response to treatment is significant enough, then
| that is a worthwhile signal (cliche: parachutes save lives
| without a control group).
|
| Placebo is an obvious contender. However presuming the
| patients had a chronic condition with plenty of previous
| interventions, then the placebo effect has had plenty of
| chances in the past. If it were due to placebo then there
| would be something to learn about why the placebo effect
| were so effective in that situation!
| sushid wrote:
| So... you can imagine how gut bacteria affect mood after all?
| winrid wrote:
| I wonder which gut bacteria make me crave cheap Mac and
| Cheese...
| galangalalgol wrote:
| It seems like you are joking, but many of the fecal
| transplant patients report their food preferences changing,
| sometimes dramatically.
| winrid wrote:
| Half joking. I do wonder about how the bacteria
| influences cravings, and if sometimes a craving means I'm
| missing some kind of vitamin/mineral.
| taeric wrote:
| To be fair, I think the parent is that they expect that both
| are affected in similar ways. That is, gut biome is an
| effect, not an affect with regard to mood.
|
| The sibling point that treatments targeting the biome would
| be expected to fail, if that were the case, is complication.
| manmal wrote:
| If you believe that nutritional input has an effect on mood,
| then, by proxy, you also believe that the microbiome has an
| effect. We have outsourced a lot of food preprocessing to gut
| microbes, and if they are wiped out, then you'll suffer from
| malnutrition.
| antiterra wrote:
| There has been scientific recognition of the gut affecting
| brain function for well over 100 years. This might help it make
| more sense:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/
| mrfusion wrote:
| But could the causation be in the opposite direction?
| fulafel wrote:
| This is a bacterium that is killed by antibiotics, right?
| Interesting that the effect wasn't noticed before.
| yoyar wrote:
| I think the causal nature of this relationship is way
| overestimated.
| antiterra wrote:
| I'm curious, why do you think that?
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Playing devil's advocate, do we have any reason to believe
| that people who are genetically more succeptible to
| depression aren't also more likely to have this sort of gut
| via genetics? That would result in this correlation.
|
| Perhaps improving your gut biome wouldn't actually help with
| depression?
| antiterra wrote:
| If people with depression have this sort of gut, that still
| doesn't establish directional cause or mechanism.
|
| The semi-autonomous nervous system in our guts, the
| microbes in our guts, and our central nervous system have
| complex chemical signaling interactions. Neurotransmitters
| linked to effects on mood are generated by the gut.
| Therefore, the brain can signal to the gut that it should
| release neurotransmitters, and the gut can release those
| neurotransmitters itself.
|
| Because of this interaction, it's possible the 'culprit'
| for depression is behavior by the brain, microbes on the
| gut, the gut itself, or the brain-gut interaction (Or any
| combination of the four.)
|
| A good summary of our understanding of these mechanisms is
| at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5772764/
| yoyar wrote:
| Agreed. No one knows.
| EasyTiger_ wrote:
| I thought this had been known for a while?
| eightysixfour wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Morganella has already been implicated in depression. As far
| back as 2008, researchers investigating a possible link between
| depression and inflammation found depressed people had stronger
| immune responses to chemicals produced by Morganella and other
| gram-negative bacteria in the gut. Thus, the newest study seems
| to be "further proof" that inflammation caused by gut microbes
| can influence mood, Gilbert says.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Then there is this: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
| shots/2022/02/06/1074719...
|
| Zap your head or a fecal transplant? Choices, choices.
| bell-cot wrote:
| > ... When it came to depression, two bacteria [...],
| _Morganella_ and _Kiebdiella_ , seemed to play a causal role,
| [...] _Morganella_ has already been implicated in depression. As
| far back as 2008 ...
|
| This situation looks _relatively_ simple to me - start searching
| for bactiophages which are specific to _Morganella_. Briefly test
| those in animals, then try them on a few volunteers who both are
| suffering from profound depression and seem to have very high
| _Morganella_ levels in their guts. (While giving 'em fecal
| transplants from depression-free relatives and monitoring them
| intensively and such.)
|
| If that shows promise, then you might really have something
| (minus a _whole_ lot more testing & refinement & such). If
| not...maybe back to the drawing board.
| phantom_oracle wrote:
| Perhaps Westerners view all non-western science as pseudoscience
| or made up, but it is a well-known fact in many Eastern cultures
| (and their medicinal practices) that the stomach is a primary
| source of disease (and not just depression, but all kinds) when
| abused through bad eating habits.
|
| Then the wheel is re-invented with intermittent fasting, a diet
| with less processed foods, more veg/fruit, less meat, etc.
|
| Whenever I see articles about health on HN, I no longer take them
| too seriously because the reductionist approach to medicine is
| why people get mistreated for symptoms instead of the disease.
|
| Even the ancient Greeks (the so-called birthplace of "western
| knowledge") took a more holistic approach than what the sketchy
| for-profit medical/pharmaceutical cabal does.
|
| But of course, we need to take it seriously because "the
| scientists say so", even though their own research system is so
| badly broken that a for-profit cabal runs the publishing arm of
| research.
|
| Strange times we live in.
| CapitalistCartr wrote:
| "Western Science"'s insistence on procedure, double-blind
| studies with control groups, finding provable reasons why, etc.
| have debunked most of pre-modern medicine. That some elements
| have withstood the test of close examination is not a criticism
| of our methods, more a validation. As are stunning improvements
| in life.
| belltaco wrote:
| What if depression was causing the gut microbe changes? Like it
| was recently found with autism and gut changes.
|
| https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/body-and-mind/autism-gut-m...
| thih9 wrote:
| Note that the original article mentions:
|
| > "researchers recently reported in Frontiers in Psychiatry
| that fecal transplants improved symptoms in two depressed
| patients"
| smt88 wrote:
| That doesn't disprove that depression caused the microbial
| imbalance in the first place.
|
| It's very reasonable to think that a lot of these systems are
| bidirectional, and for any individual, you may not know which
| part of the body was dysfunctional first.
| kibwen wrote:
| From the beginning of the article:
|
| _" Whether those microbial deficits actually help cause the
| disorders is unclear, [...]"_
|
| For the time being it appears to be careful in only suggesting
| correlation, not causation.
| zabzonk wrote:
| > Thus, the newest study seems to be "further proof" that
| inflammation caused by gut microbes can influence mood
|
| Of course it bloody can - if you have IBS or any number of other
| gut-related problems, believe me you are very likely to be
| depressed, because the symptoms of these are very nasty and
| humiliating. This does not mean that the bacteria are directly
| affecting the CNS.
|
| Also:
|
| > Kiebdiella
|
| It's Klebsiella
| wutbrodo wrote:
| It seems pretty obvious from reading the article in its
| entirety that the claim is that the inflammation is affecting
| mood directly, not via nasty and humiliating gastro symptoms.
| zabzonk wrote:
| How would you differentate between the two?
| asdfman123 wrote:
| zabzonk wrote:
| No. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klebsiella
| zackmorris wrote:
| Just another data point, but my journey through digestive issues
| and recovery was kicked off by the worst depression and burnout I
| ever experienced, which started in 2019 and lasted 3 years.
|
| My best guess for what happened is that work stress, excessive
| celebration and coping with the cognitive dissonance of the pre-
| COVID era and subsequent pandemic, combined with overtraining and
| the misuse of protein shakes in place of food, left me in a
| chronically dehydrated state. The body tries to collect moisture
| from the gut, which opens an opportunity for bacteria to get into
| the body cavity and blood, which is colloquially called leaky
| gut. This sets off food sensitivities and eventually an
| autoimmune condition/response to lectins, gluten, etc, which have
| proteins similar to linings in the body, joints and thyroid. Then
| a cascade happens where everything goes out of whack quickly. In
| my case, I went from being in the best shape of my life, the
| strongest I had ever been in the gym, to barely able to get out
| of bed in the morning. In other people, it might present as
| chronic fatigue, arthritis, etc.
|
| I didn't really believe any of this in 2018, and my meal plan
| then consisted entirely of everything that I can't eat today. So
| I consider what people say politely, but for the most part, they
| have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. This
| experience has made stuff like GMO foods sound absolutely insane
| to me. Like, why would we ever taint our food supply to make food
| 5 cents cheaper or "feed the world" when we've been operating
| under artificial scarcity since the end of the second world war?
| It's all a crock.
|
| Every time you eat inflammatory food, the risk is similar to
| smoking a cigarette. Probably nothing will happen, but if it sets
| off your immune system, you may wake up one morning chronically
| depressed and/or unable to eat something that you rely upon. It
| got me after I turned 40, YMMV.
| mahathu wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, but can you (or anyone else) elaborate what
| he means by "the cognitive dissonance of the pre-COVID era"?
| Permit wrote:
| > I didn't really believe any of this in 2018, and my meal plan
| then consisted entirely of everything that I can't eat today.
|
| I suspect you had the same degree of confidence in your
| understanding of these issue then as you do now. It's
| interesting that you can reflect on your overconfidence in the
| past, but don't seem to express any skepticism regarding your
| current beliefs surrounding nutrition.
|
| By the way, I'm not saying that you're wrong! GMOs may be bad,
| but I think you would do well to level some degree of
| skepticism over your current understanding of nutrition as you
| do toward your past understanding. Consider that perhaps you
| will be here in 2026 telling us about how you got it wrong
| today.
| omreaderhn wrote:
| There's an asymmetry in the risks associated with choosing
| either a) to restrict or b) not to restrict the set of foods
| you eat.
|
| Overconfidence in (b) carries more risk than overconfidence
| in (a). The set of chemicals that are toxic is much larger
| (as in >>>) than the set of chemicals that are necessary for
| sustaining life.
| treeman79 wrote:
| Autoimmune protocol diet exits for this.
|
| Spent a month eating sweet potatoes. Best I ever felt.
| baxtr wrote:
| So, what are you actually eating now that has helped?
| rkalla wrote:
| This was a _fascinating_ read and I thank you for writing that
| all up - I'm in your "3 year" dip and in the past made attempts
| at tackling the gut biome issue with cycling probiotics, fresh
| vegetable fibers, organic/local yogurts, staying away from fake
| sugars and other dietary things that blow out the biome and
| even after a few weeks of doing this I never felt any better -
| would shrug my shoulders and go back to not really caring.
|
| Was there 1 inflammatory food item that is like kryptonite to
| you now? Fake sugars? Wheats?
| technosamay20 wrote:
| Insightful journey. Can you please share your discoveries and
| what do you eat now!
| jwuphysics wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear about your experiences and it sounds like you
| learned a lot from firsthand knowledge. But, respectfully
| asking, what does inflammatory foods or poor eating habits have
| to do with GMO foods?
| sdze wrote:
| Also why would GMO be bad? The criticism comes mostly from
| people that also believe in osteopathic / homeopathic
| medicine in my social circle.
|
| I find it a terrific chance for humanity to engineer plants
| in such a way that they are more robust against disease and
| bad weather (with CRISPR/CAS and such methods).
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Anti - GMO crowd is definetly very similar to anti vaxxers
| and other science deniers spreading dangerous propaganda
| while eating oranges and bananas.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Are you implying oranges and bananas were made with
| modern GMO methods?
|
| I agree that the anti gmo/vaxx etc. crowd is quite
| irrational in many regards, but I can see a difference
| between traditional breeding plants - and directly
| editing DNA.
| sdze wrote:
| Don't forget the 5G radiation...
| rogers18445 wrote:
| Currently there doesn't appear to be any evidence that GMO
| is bad for your health and most GMO is just transplanting
| genes from other edible organisms.
|
| Hopefully regulators aren't going to allow insertion of
| engineered genes producing novel molecules without going
| through actual medical grade trials for those molecules. Or
| it may torpedo the entire industry.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| In every case of GMO food I have encountered, the
| compounds are not novel. Rather, they're an adaptation or
| resistance found in one species and transferred to
| another.
| rjsw wrote:
| As someone else with immune system reactions to food, it
| doesn't seem a great idea to modify food even more than we
| have done already.
| freshpots wrote:
| That's not a good argument at all. What 'modification' do
| you think is a risk and how would it cause the concerns
| your worried about?
| ipaddr wrote:
| To put the question back what benefit does it provide
| aside from cost?
| csnover wrote:
| As just one example, if you live in an area where it is
| difficult to get dietary Vitamin A, you might enjoy the
| benefits of not going blind due to Vitamin A deficiency
| by eating Golden Rice[0].
|
| Have you ever eaten a SweeTango apple? It is one of
| dozens of varieties that have been created in the last
| hundred years using genetic engineering via cross
| breeding[1]. Do you know why commercial tomatoes are so
| bland? Genetic engineering via selective breeding[2].
|
| The fact of the matter is that all of the crops and
| livestock that we cultivate today are genetically
| engineered. The main distinction now is that we are
| technologically advanced enough to introduce beneficial
| modifications deliberately, rather than relying on random
| mutations and gene recombinations that occur in nature at
| random over hundreds or thousands of generations.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rice
|
| [1] https://mnhardy.umn.edu/varieties/fruit/apples/all-
| apple-var...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Modern_commercia
| l_varie...
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Here is my criticism of GMO foods; or at least, the reason
| I'm wary of them. I don't believe in any "woo" at all.
|
| Why would the massive corporations that have driven the
| food in our supermarkets ever cheaper, ever thinner in
| nutrients, ever higher in fat and sweeteners and fillers,
| ever more laden with pesticides and antibiotics, ever more
| processed--why would they use a technology like GMO crops
| for good? Why wouldn't they just splice pesticide and sugar
| genes into them directly and juice the yield even harder so
| that the soil is stripped and ruined even faster? I think
| they will be used to boost profits, not make our food more
| nutritious, or even cheaper in any way except per calorie.
|
| I understand there are potentially benefits, e.g. growing
| crops resistant to pests so that spray pesticides can be
| reduced. I just have no faith whatsoever that these kinds
| of considered actions will be taken, based on the last 100
| years of technology. It's just going to be wheat and corn,
| wheat and corn, wheat and corn until caloric yields
| approach insolation and the soil is as gray and lifeless as
| the moon.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| The risks from unknown unknowns are even worse with
| genetic engineering in crops, due to the inevitability of
| hypothetical "harmful to humans genes" propagating from
| one population to others by pollination.
|
| _The Precautionary Principle (with Application to the
| Genetic Modification of Organisms)_
| https://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/pp2.pdf
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| I'm not into osteopathy or homeopathy but my concerned
| about GMO are because I don't trust that the scientist
| really know what they are doing, or can fully understand
| the impact any changes they might make, not only on humans,
| but on the environment at large. Nor do I trust our
| government to be able to police and regulate the industry.
| Nor do I trust big farma to put health before profits.
| sdze wrote:
| I think humans always genetically "engineered" plants by
| selection process. Our current cultivated plants are the
| result of thousands of years of breeding.
|
| Who knows what accidental genetic damage from breeding
| will cause problems in humans?
| broptimist wrote:
| Harmful crop breeds would have been selected against over
| the course of many generations, right? Now we're doing it
| on a larger scale, so the risks and rewards are greater.
| What is our knowledge of the risks and rewards? Are the
| rewards aligned with general human wellbeing, or just a
| profit motive? I don't know.
| manmal wrote:
| Not OP. In many cases, the genetic modifications are either
| performed to either let the plant produce (more) lectins that
| kill insects, or make the plant immune to certain herbicides
| like glyphosate. The human gut and microbiome might be able
| to deal with lectins they have evolved to deal with, and in
| "normal" quantities. But those additional GMO lectins are
| suspected to be hard on the intestinal barrier. If that
| barrier is compromised, autoimmunity might be the result, as
| OP indicated.
| zackmorris wrote:
| Two main things:
|
| 1. Genetically modified (GMO) foods can cause non-food
| compounds to get synthesized in the food that our bodies have
| never seen before, which can trigger autoimmune issues. I
| consider this the lower risk.
|
| 2. GMO foods are designed specifically to allow more use of
| pesticides and herbicides. These get incorporated into the
| food and can stay around after washing, especially in
| processed food. Pesticides are low-level neurotoxin and
| disrupt gut nerves, while herbicides disrupt gut flora.
| Loosely, what happens is that the body is sensitive to most
| plant husks, since they are designed to keep bugs out that
| feed on them. GMO copies that defense mechanism, often
| amplifying it hugely, resulting in amplified food
| sensitivities. I consider this the higher risk, so high in
| fact that the consequences of it can be life-altering.
|
| Edit: These effects combined turn ordinary food into
| inflammatory food
| PeterisP wrote:
| My impression is quite the opposite - GMO insect-resistant
| plants enable using much _less_ pesticides (the savings
| from reduced frequency and quantity of pesticides being the
| economic reason for choosing such crops) than non-modified
| equivalents.
| wfme wrote:
| This article [0] points towards the reality being
| somewhere in the middle - more herbicides but less
| insecticides.
|
| > GMOs have been changing the way that pesticides are
| used in agriculture. Herbicide-tolerant genetically
| modified (GM) crops have led to an increase in herbicide
| usage while insecticide-producing GM crops have led to a
| decrease in insecticides.
|
| [0] https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2015/gmos-and-
| pesticides/
| more_corn wrote:
| GMO roundup resistance allows us to use a bunch of
| herbicide without killing the food crop. This seems to
| indicate that we'd be using a lot more roundup on those
| crops than otherwise.
| avdlinde wrote:
| Sorry if I didn't understand correctly, but how did you make
| the alcohol (celebration), work stress, pandemic stress > GMO
| link?
| zackmorris wrote:
| I only made it very recently. I had tried absolutely
| everything and gotten almost nowhere. I finally stumbled onto
| everlywell.com tests, took the comprehensive test of 200+
| foods, and discovered almonds and dairy were the main
| culprits. I would ave been very unlikely to eliminate almonds
| as part of an elimination diet.
|
| Anyway, once I was able to feel better again, even for a day
| or two, I then was able to try other changes along the
| decision tree in the problem space. It soon became obvious
| what caused what. Everlywell says that 18 months of avoidance
| can often allow us to eat foods we're sensitive to again.
| I've blabbered about it at length in my previous comments,
| probably too much haha.
| Goety wrote:
| an army runs on their stomach and not anything else
| maybeOneDay wrote:
| Tangential: Is there any evidence that pro biotic foods or
| supplements can increase gut health? Given the evident importance
| of gut health, I wonder whether it's worth using something like
| this, to grab a random example:
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Restored-Bio-Cultures/dp/B082SZXBF2...
| everybodyknows wrote:
| Anecdata: Tried various probiotics, no help. _Pre-biotics_
| however, have been huge. Search for "resistant starch".
| pknight wrote:
| What was your diet like when you were taking them? It's been
| observed in some studies that delivered mixed results that
| responders had better diets (i.e. more bacteria friendly
| components in the diet such as indigestible carbs from
| vegetables/legumes/fruit etc) whereas non-responders had
| weaker diets in terms of providing the gut microbes
| nutrients.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| The best treatment for my own ADHD, depression and anxiety is
| living a healthy lifestyle, across the board, full stop.
|
| It means regular exercise, 6 hours of cardio a week, eating
| healthy, meditating, spending time in the sun, etc. etc. (And
| anti-depressants/therapy, which play an important role too.)
|
| Of course, it's too much to tell someone struggling to do all
| those things, but if you can work towards that, I strongly
| recommend it. I've had to declare war on my depression and
| ADHD because I can't afford to have it in my life anymore.
|
| At some point perhaps the science will catch up and explain
| precisely how these things help, but until then, I feel like
| you have to take the ancient approach of observing people who
| have things figured out and emulating them. (And I say this
| as someone who is very much pro-science.)
| happylion0801 wrote:
| As a fellow comment says - its all over the place and kind of
| hard to say, see [1] saying they are useless but lots of
| studies saying they are useful .
|
| Personally as someone with IBS, I have tried many probiotics
| over the years and have mixed results - most of them were
| useless but for some time I found one or 2 that worked but I
| couldnt say for sure if they worked due to other factors (for
| e.g generally healthier food, lifestyle, mindset etc). You
| would have to try it out for weeks to see their effect
| (according to studies that say it work).
|
| The doctors I spoke to though gave me strong probiotics (>100
| billion CFU, for e.g something like [2]). I found anything that
| had 1 or 10 billion CFU to be pretty much useless.
|
| I think you should work on your diet before taking probiotics.
| I dont think I am lactose intolerant, milk gives me bad
| bloating but yogurt doesnt. Yogurt worked for me over the
| course of weeks, kefir and sauerkrat gave me mega-bloating.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-45434753 [2]
| https://www.amazon.com/Visbiome-Potency-Probiotic-Shipped-Sh...
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Not sure if you have heard of the low FODMAP diet? Its now
| the standard treatment for IBS. The theory is certain
| bacteria ferment FODMAPS into gas and water which leads to
| the symptoms. They don't know which bacteria yet but going
| low fodmap is now a well researched and accepted treatment.
|
| Everyone is different but personally, I'm able to tolerate
| everything except Fructans (one of several types of FODMAPS).
| So no garlic, onion or wheat for me.
|
| https://www.monashfodmap.com/ibs-central/i-have-
| ibs/starting...
| dan353hehe wrote:
| I was skeptical of this when I first heard of it several
| years ago. It sounded just like every other popular diet
| does: "Just (don't) eat this certain food, and you will
| feel amazing!"
|
| But I have several family members on it right now, and they
| all report feeling WAY better. And this is after years of
| dealing with IBS type problems too.
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| Another successful patient of the low FODMAP diet here.
| As soon as I stray from the restrictions I will suffer
| the next day. IBS can be crippling.
|
| Honestly the scientist(s) who developed the low FODMAP
| diet needs to be awarded a Nobel prize.
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| It's the same for me. If I eat the wrong food, I'll feel
| fine for the rest of that day.
|
| Then the next day, almost always in the morning is when
| the problems will start. Perhaps the bacteria had time to
| ferment the food overnight.
|
| So when I have symptoms, I always look at what I ate the
| previous day.
| Shank wrote:
| Low FODMAP works, but it's precisely because it's unlike
| all other "diets". It's a systematic removal of basically
| all short-chain sugars. The problem with it, as someone
| who was instructed to follow it, is that it's extremely
| unintuitive to know what foods are low or high FODMAP
| without the list. Because of this, it's really easy to
| make mistakes unless you consult the list prior to
| eating.
|
| So it definitely gives positive results, but it's also
| very difficult to follow.
| aussieguy1234 wrote:
| Yep, there are hundreds of foods out there that have
| them.
|
| Personally I use this app when eating anything I'm not
| sure about, it has a database of foods and their fodmap
| content: https://www.monashfodmap.com/ibs-central/i-have-
| ibs/get-the-...
| nvarsj wrote:
| As someone on FODMAP, what works for me is to do
| breakfast/lunch meal replacement with low FODMAP shakes
| (like Huel), then get a few FODMAP cookbooks and make
| dinners out of that. Works great and is fairly painless -
| lots of delicious meals can be made that are low fodmap,
| fortunately. It's really difficult to avoid FODMAPs when
| eating out, western food loves onions and garlic for
| instance - for these cases, I use alpha-glucosidase
| enzyme tablets (I take 2x 350mg tablets with a meal).
| happylion0801 wrote:
| Yes of course. I did low-fodmap for many months few years
| ago and continue to do it (when I go to an unknown place
| for example or travel).
|
| In studies Low-fodmap is typically only recommended for ~6
| weeks. I now try to eat any kind food though, I eat
| everything in smaller quantities and this also helps.
|
| I personally found that a combination of diet, stress,
| sleep control are the most effective for managing IBS
| symptoms. Any one of those can flare up the symptoms at any
| time and managing all of them is key
| car wrote:
| Rather than using these processed foods, one should provide the
| gut microbiome with "food" in the form of fiber from whole
| plant foods, i.e. not 'fiber' supplements like Metamucil.
|
| Lots of accessible information can be found at
| https://nutritionfacts.org.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| Another anecdata point:
|
| I used be lethargic, couldn't get myself to do anything but be
| on the sofa. I would get horrible migraine headaches if
| drinking alcohol or even alcohol free beer or eat certain
| foods. I self-diagnosed histamine intolerance through trial and
| error.
|
| I tried multiple pro-biotic combinations. An easy one I tried
| in the beginning was simply some Danone Actimel the family had
| in the fridge anyway. I can attest to the fact that it contains
| live bacteria (a strain that makes lots of histamines) that do
| make it to the gut because it gave me the horrible migraine
| headache as would Sauerkraut actually. Researched what strains
| don't create lots of histamine. I landed on Garden of Life -
| Primal Defense Ultra. What I think made the difference is that
| it contains Bacillus subtilis. I say that because I tried two
| or three others that had largely the same makeup of strains but
| none had that particular bacterium. It's a soil based bacterium
| which you might get from eating your own cabbage you grew in
| the garden as well. Almost everything else just has various
| different strains of lactobacilli.
|
| Taking 3 capsules a day I felt like crap for 2 weeks (no
| headaches, just feeling sick, like a bad cold) and then things
| got better. I am able to drink alcohol again (I'll get a
| hangover headache like anyone would if I drink too much but
| it's not longer a day long migraine from just sipping 10ml) and
| eat anything I want to in any quantity. I still take one in the
| morning and one in the evening and I put one into the
| Sauerkraut I make.
|
| YMMV as always, not a doctor, try at your own risk, not
| affiliated etc :)
| itronitron wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, most of your experience sounds
| similar to those of a friend of mine (Yokult gives them
| migraines) although they haven't yet tried Bacillus
| subtillis.
| manmal wrote:
| Really interesting indeed! I just found this paper on B.
| subtilis from November:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34630666/
|
| Reducing intestinal permeability is a highly desirable
| effect.
| csdvrx wrote:
| It's the same bacteria found in Natto
| newsclues wrote:
| https://pendulumlife.com/pages/science
|
| From the maker but I heard about it on a podcast and was
| convinced.
| dade_ wrote:
| Sauerkraut is simple to make and cabbage is cheap.
|
| https://www.livestrong.com/article/413921-does-sauerkraut-ha...
| MikeDelta wrote:
| Or Kimchi if you're into Korean food.
| umeshunni wrote:
| Do you have an easy to make recipe?
| OJFord wrote:
| Not GP and don't have one to suggest, but as you're
| asking for 'easy' (and at risk of stating the obvious,
| but only once you know I suppose) - ignore anything that
| says something like 'refigerate for 30mins and enjoy'.
|
| Or don't, I'm not denying quick such er salads can taste
| great, just that if what you want is a fermented or
| pickled product, that takes time. (And much longer if at
| all in the fridge - that's their purpose!)
|
| A 'proper' recipe for sauerkraut for example will tell
| you something on the order of weeks at minimum, and it's
| done when you like the taste. Kimchi I think is typically
| fermented for longer, more like months or over a year
| (not including any transferred to the next batch).
| scott_paul wrote:
| I use a variant of Emmymade's variant of Maangchi's
| recipe. It works really well.
|
| Rinsed pickle jars work great, a head of Napa cabbage
| usually fills about 2+1/2 ~ 3 jars. If you're not into
| high spicy, dial back the red pepper by about half, for
| your first try. If you don't like funky, skip the fish
| sauce or any seafood component, I always do this so that
| the flavor won't clash with some dishes, you can always
| add fish sauce to a dish but you can't remove it.
|
| I ferment it for about 3 days at about 65 ~ 68
| degrees(f), then into the fridge. It keeps indefinitely
| but is best within a few months.
|
| Do not bring it into work, just as you would not
| microwave fish at work. The aroma is very much not to
| everyone's preference, even when made without seafood.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaoA7SKN0g0
| https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/easy-kimchi
| asiachick wrote:
| it would never have occured to me not to bring kimchi to
| work. Durian? Stinky Tofu? ok but Kimchee? I'll bet most
| company cafeterias have blue cheese around
| dekken_ wrote:
| https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-easy-kimchi-at-
| home-18...
|
| good base to build from, it didn't use to be so spammy
| tho
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Most lactofermented foods are: Main ingredient, spices, a
| few tbsp of salt. Add to sterile jar, fill with water
| (add a glass weight to the top if needed to keep
| everything submerged) and leave in a dark cabinet for a
| few weeks. Trial and error to get the flavor the way you
| want it, but that's basically it. If you see little air
| bubbles forming near the bottom after 2-4 days, you have
| a live culture.
| ng12 wrote:
| I brew my own kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, and occasionally
| kombucha. Of those kefir is the most demonstrably effective,
| all of them are cheap.
|
| The only effective probiotics I've found are very expensive,
| costing around $120/mo.
| ijidak wrote:
| > The only effective probiotics I've found are very
| expensive,
|
| But how do you know if they're effective?
|
| That's always been my question.
|
| What is the effect one should notice?
| ng12 wrote:
| I have some odd GI issues so there's a clear impact
| there. The alternative treatment is some very nasty
| medication. Effective probiotics restore normality
| without the side effects the medications have. I'll spare
| you the details ;)
|
| More anecdotally I do feel generally better even when my
| GI symptoms aren't present: more energy, better mood,
| more restful sleep.
| happylion0801 wrote:
| Personally kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha - all give me
| lots of bloating even after trying out for weeks. Maybe thats
| just how its supposed to be? Not sure but I stopped after a
| while after it affected my daily life
| pknight wrote:
| I've come across plenty of evidence in the literature but there
| are lot of variables that can prevent any positive effects from
| taking place. If you're taking probiotic supplements in
| isolation and the rest of your diet is suboptimal in terms of
| bacteria-friendly nutrients, it's unlikely that you'll get
| results. It could be the case that many people are throwing
| money away if they're taking probiotic supplements without
| addressing their diet and lifestyle.
|
| There's so much variety between people, one formulation for one
| person might work well for one person but have negative effects
| on another even if they have a supportive diet and lifestyle.
| People might simply have to trial multiple formulas that have
| the right mix of strains before they find one that works for
| them.
|
| Prebiotic foods seem to have more consistent results on gut
| health, according to some studies.
|
| (not medical/health advice disclaimer)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Probiotic and gut biome research is all over the place.
|
| It's possible to find some studies showing correlations, but
| it's harder to find successful replications of those studies.
|
| Some probiotics have been shown to temporarily alter gut flora,
| but it usually reverts after the probiotic is stopped. Dietary
| and activity changes are generally good at improving the biome.
|
| It doesn't help that one of the commercial guy biome measuring
| companies basically turned out to be fraudulent a few years
| ago. Even some of the public efforts to measure correlations
| are suspect or bunk because they relied on these services.
| throw_me_up wrote:
| Eat fiber. Meet the recommended amount and eat a diverse set of
| fiber which will feed different microbes in the gut. It will
| take some time for the gut to adjust to the new levels though.
| Expect gas, cramping, etc for a few days.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Do you advise just fiber from natural foods, or do you take a
| fiber supplement (like those that come in powder form)? I
| guess the supplement route won't give me the diverse fiber
| types you mention, am I right?
| CodeGlitch wrote:
| I've always been prescribed them by doctors after taking
| antibiotics... As you guessed it the guy microbes are killed
| off by the medication.
|
| Well that's the theory anyway...
| kazishariar wrote:
| It's better for you if you tried something more well-reviewed:
|
| https://microbz.co.uk/product/bio-live-gold/
|
| Thank me later- and you're welcome.
| Gatsky wrote:
| There was a lot of work on microbiome and cancer immunotherapy...
| the latest study in the field published in the most prestigious
| journal there is [1] seemed to show that fibre intake was more
| important than any specific microbe. In fact they found that
| eating more fibre and taking probiotics resulted in worse
| outcomes than just eating more fibre alone. This was
| recapitulated in a mouse model:
|
| > Together, these data have important implications. We show that
| dietary fiber and probiotic use, factors known to affect the gut
| microbiome, are associated with differential outcomes to ICB.
| Although causality cannot be addressed from the observational
| human cohort, where unmeasured confounders may exist, our
| preclinical models support the hypothesis that dietary fiber and
| probiotics modulate the microbiome and that antitumor immunity is
| impaired in mice receiving a low-fiber diet and in those
| receiving probiotics--with suppression of intratumoral IFN-g T
| cell responses in both cases.
|
| It would be a bit disappointing if the final conclusion from all
| this microbiome work was 'Eat more vegetables'...
|
| [1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aaz7015
| enchiridion wrote:
| Interesting result about the fiber plus probiotic. To me that's
| saying that's your body mostly knows how to maintain a micro
| biome if given the right building blocks.
|
| I wonder how the immune system comes into play to actively
| shape the microbiome, vs our typical understanding of just
| "fighting bad bacteria".
| baxtr wrote:
| Why only more vegetables? Isn't fiber also in some other food?
| brainaxis wrote:
| Great to see the gut brain axis becoming more well known in
| medicine. Less than 10 years ago it was considered near
| pseudoscience to consider that the gut could actually influence
| the brain.
|
| https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-preventi...
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/#:~:tex....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gut%E2%80%93brain_axis
| The_rationalist wrote:
| vmception wrote:
| I went down that rabbit hole to have a more informed opinion
| and I found that accepted science would converge on some of the
| same goals naturopaths and other alternative medicine
| practitioners eventually.
|
| Basically, they both want personalized medicine. As in,
| remedies that are custom tailored to the internal state of the
| individual, instead of "personalized" by listening to an
| individual describe a current ongoing affliction.
|
| Alternative medicine lacks any method for peer review or
| repeatability and practitioners themselves procedurally
| generate the remedies, which makes it incapable of being
| accepted science except by mere coincidence of some practices
| eventually being peer reviewed if reviewable at all. This is by
| a design that is comical to the scientific community, where
| "everybody is different".
|
| At the same time, the scientific method and peer review itself
| is too rigid to evaluate all ailments, without associated
| advances in technology. This is also by design as it was
| necessary to distinguish the sciences from arbitrarily
| religious or arbitrarily heretical practices at one point in
| some areas.
|
| Now we are on the cusp of convergence of the ideals, by being
| able to analyze and sequence the symbiotic relationships within
| our bodies. How little control we have in many cases, or at
| least potentially redefining the sense of self.
| taeric wrote:
| For those curious, morganella is the main culprit listed here, it
| seems. Wikipedia isn't clear to me on how one gets this in your
| biome. Outside of other susp conditions. :(
| cmckn wrote:
| My personal, completely unsubstantiated take is: your diet
| allows certain bacteria to thrive (or not). It's less about
| trying to avoid the bad ones and more about trying to nurture
| the good ones. One incredible thing you can do for your gut is
| eat more fiber; which the vast majority of Americans don't. Try
| psyllium husk powder (the stuff in Metamucil). Eat less refined
| sugar and saturated fat; eat more raw and fermented vegetables.
| Probiotics are kind of a scam, and are usually _really_
| expensive. Like most things with health, you have to
| consistently do the not-so-fun things to get good results, you
| can't just take a pill and move on.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| The rule of thumb in nutrition is diet is way more effective
| than supplements.
|
| There's a place for supplements, some of them may be helpful
| or not, but having a good diet that naturally includes those
| things is always better.
| taeric wrote:
| That is as may be, however, this study shows that removing
| that bacteria helps with mood disorder. And, there is no
| evidence that diet gives you this bacteria. Nor that it can
| help remove this one, either.
|
| That is, discussion of diet is a bit of a non sequitur. Not
| wrong, but also not necessarily relevant.
| cmckn wrote:
| The paper is titled " Combined effects of host genetics
| *and diet* on human gut microbiota and incident disease..."
| (emphasis mine). Dairy (and the way some people process it,
| because of genetics) was shown to influence levels of
| certain bacteria.
|
| The study also does _not_ show that removing Morganella
| resolved depression; the study did not attempt to remove
| it, and a researcher is quoted as saying it's not clear how
| one would do so (last line of the article):
|
| > But it's less clear how Morganella could be eliminated
| from the gut to relieve symptoms. "That's a bit more
| challenging."
| taeric wrote:
| Ah, fair. I was going with what I saw as an implication
| that removing it would help. My apologies.
|
| Clearly, I had not made it through the article to the
| underlying studies. My reading was that they were looking
| for lactose related bacteria, but landed on this other
| one. And that they did not find a way to control it's
| presence.
| bladegash wrote:
| Will be interested to at some point see what kind of connection
| gastrointestinal autoimmune (among others) diseases such as
| Crohn's and Ulcerative Colitis have on not only the guy microbe
| balance, but mental health as well. Many mental health disorders
| have strong genetic ties, as well as autoimmune diseases. Wonder
| if existence of one makes the likelihood of existence of the
| other greater.
| whatshisface wrote:
| There's some progress now in tying specific mental disorders to
| autoimmune problems in the brain. Wish I could tell you more
| but all I know about this is that they test people's cerebral
| spinal fluid for antibodies against specific neurotransmitter
| receptors, and they've discovered several connections between
| those and problems people have.
| bladegash wrote:
| Very interesting! I actually have both Crohn's and bipolar
| disorder, and one anecdote that's interesting (to me) is that
| the TNF inhibitor I'm on, which has put Crohn's in remission,
| has simultaneously appeared to have a positive effect on the
| mood disorder side of things as well.
|
| Really cool to see the GI getting so much research!
|
| Edit: Found an interesting study that addresses the
| relationship between TNF and mood disorders - go figure!
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19477018/
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I've seen these studies time and time again. I do wonder what are
| the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew" their gut?
| I'm not a fan of drugs being the cure. In fact, I don't think
| they are the first solution people should hope for or supplement
| with unless it's not practical to get them in a natural way.
|
| I feel like we see more and more gut related issues due to
| depression & depression's little cousin anxiety. IBS for example
| manifests itself from anxiety and can also be a gut microbiome
| imbalance.
|
| If there are more and more studies around gut health being a
| sort-of panacea of mental & physical health, why aren't we
| focusing on making healthier decisions for our diet, exercise,
| and mental well being?
|
| It's no surprise that many people(myself included) in our always
| connected world suffer with crippling anxiety from over
| stimulation/shock & awe news/comparison to others/overwork/etc.
| That anxiety manifests in your gut as digestive issues. Those
| digestive issues make you less likely to exercise for long
| periods of time or even at all.
|
| In my opinion, it's four main things. Increase sleep,
| improve/wide ranging diet, moderate exercise, and reduced stress.
| There are definitely hacks like fiber, yogurt, sauerkraut, and
| more that people swear by, but I am genuinely curious if a study
| had tracked some of these variables to see if they improve gut
| microbiomes.
| cesnja wrote:
| > what are the practical steps one takes to "repair" or "renew"
| their gut?
|
| Look up nutritionfacts.org and read/view it with a generous
| pinch of salt. A few years ago it took me half a year to switch
| to a mostly WFPB diet advertised there and I had no issues
| whatsoever. My gut is now more resilient, I remember having
| problems with bloating and/or diarrhea if I ate just a bit more
| fiber some days.
|
| > why aren't we focusing on making healthier decisions for our
| diet, exercise, and mental well being?
|
| The answers are there, but cognitive dissonance prevents us
| from recognizing or accepting them.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| This dude sounds like Jeff Goldblum. Thanks for the
| recommendation!
| noneeeed wrote:
| It seems to be a case of lots of variety in your diet, ideally
| lots of different vegetables, nuts, pulses etc, and cutting
| down/out highly processed foods. Variety seems to be the spice
| of life, quite literally.
|
| I've just finished reading Prof. Tim Spector's "The Diet Myth".
| The book's title is a little hyperbolic, but it works through
| all the major food groups and how we eat and talks about both
| the historic research and diet fads of the past (like Ansel
| Keys research that sparked the obsession with low fat foods)
| and how all these different foodstuffs tie into our gut
| bacteria, which in turn affects us.
|
| Tim's "thing" is the human biome, but I didn't read it as him
| touting it as a cureall, but as something that is more
| important than almost all of us are aware, and which has been
| seriously neglected to the point that it's having an impact on
| many aspects of our health. He's also pretty open that a lot of
| this is still very much up in the air at the moment, and lots
| more study is needed to really understand many of the effects.
| He also seems pretty sceptical of the medicallisation and the
| obsession with isolating one factor and packaging it up as a
| supplement or magic pill that will solve your health issues.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I've read similar books. Will pick this one up though. Thanks
| for the recommendation!
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