[HN Gopher] Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut ...
___________________________________________________________________
Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes
Author : Hooke
Score : 382 points
Date : 2022-06-30 20:37 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| lbeltrame wrote:
| About ten years ago my former PI (second author in the below
| paper) did quite a job on this in Burkina Faso, analyzing the
| composition of the gut in children living outside cities, in
| cities, and a comparison with European children.
|
| Obligatory disclaimer: I was working in his laboratory at the
| time, but I wasn't involved in that research.
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1005963107
| aluminussoma wrote:
| How does one analyze the gut biome? I imagine it involves
| running poop through a machine - what kind of machine? I would
| love to learn more about the technical process.
| nebfield wrote:
| The paper uses 16S rDNA sequencing, which is a bit old
| fashioned now but it was a good method when the paper was
| published. The steps basically involve:
|
| 1. Extract all DNA from poop, normally using a kit that
| basically makes DNA stick to tiny plastic beads. You wash the
| beads in a bunch of different chemical solutions to isolate
| DNA from the original sample and purify it. There are a lot
| of different methods to do this.
|
| 2. Amplify a small section of DNA that's universally unique
| to bacteria and archaea which is used as a barcode. This
| barcode has some areas that change a lot across different
| species and some areas that don't change much.
|
| 3. Sequence the amplified DNA. The DNA sequencer determines
| the sequence of nucleotides in each DNA amplicon (an amplicon
| is a piece amplified piece of DNA). An example DNA sequence
| is ACCTGGCT
|
| 3. The DNA sequencer produces millions of DNA sequences in
| parallel and stores them and some metadata (e.g. quality and
| confidence measurements) in text files
|
| 4. When this paper was published, a friendly bioinformatician
| would have taken the text file and clustered the different
| sequences. Sequences 97% similar were binned together as a
| rough approximation of a species. Different taxonomic levels
| have different cutoffs, but it's all quite vague and there
| are better methods now that involve denoising sequences from
| quality measurements (e.g. dada2 method)
|
| 5. A count for each different bin is generated, and
| "representative sequences" for each bin are matched against
| taxonomic databases to see what species are present
|
| 6. Normal ecological analysis is done on the count data to
| calculate alpha and beta diversity or do other types of
| analysis. Once you have counts, it doesn't matter that the
| data are from bacteria instead of sheep or penguins
|
| Newer methods involve sequencing every single bit of DNA in a
| sample, not just a specific region. This is called
| metagenomics and it's very hard to do and requires very big
| computers and big DNA sequencers.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Really cool, thanks for the details. It's reminiscent of a
| plot point in a sci-fi I'm reading, Zendegi - the
| protagonist is hell-bent on cracking the problem of
| simulating the brain in a computer, but funding is running
| out. Her coworker excitedly explains that he's awarded a
| grant for his project: simulating the interactions of
| microbe species in latrines, for purposes of preventing
| outbreaks of disease. He wants our protagonist to jump ship
| on the brain stuff, says it will always be there, that she
| can do some real good right now, and the skills will
| transfer over, she won't be wasting her time learning how
| to simulate the microbial communities in poop.
|
| (Alas, an eccentric billionaire with hopes of uploading
| himself to a supercomputer swoops in to fund the mind-
| mapping project...)
| ebolyen wrote:
| Great summary! Although I would argue that 16S is still a
| perfectly good (and cost-effective) method, especially with
| DADA2. There are also neat sequencing techniques that like
| CCS which give you really high resolution of a target
| region (amplicon) without sequencing a lot of
| redundant/uninformative DNA.
| rvba wrote:
| How big are the samples analyzed by the machine? 1 gram?
| 1 miligram? Are they taken from random parts of the poop?
| (Outside, inside?)
|
| Even 1 miligram is probably a lot of DNA, but I wonder
| how to know if the place of sampling is important
| nebfield wrote:
| Very small amounts are sampled, on the order of grams.
| I'm not sure exactly, I worked on the bioinformatics side
| of things. I think an Illumina MiSeq requires 50 - 500
| nanograms of DNA to work well.
|
| Sampling and storage methods can significantly change the
| bacterial composition of an environmental sample (in this
| case, poop). The exact protocols will depend on the aims
| of the study. The gut microbiome is a gradient and very
| dynamic. Different parts of the gut will have different
| bacterial compositions. Some people might prefer to get a
| locally accurate sample from a biopsy of the intestine,
| but you won't manage to recruit many participants. Other
| studies may prefer to use faecal samples as a proxy for
| overall gut state, which lets you recruit more people.
| Some protocols may homogenise (blend) the poop before
| sampling, others might not. Here's a nice review:
|
| https://europepmc.org/article/MED/28830090
| lbeltrame wrote:
| > I think an Illumina MiSeq requires 50 - 500 nanograms
| of DNA to work well.
|
| You can go as low as 10ng depending on the library you
| use (or so the vendors say), but I'm not sure it's the
| case for these specific applications (my experience is
| with other, equally difficult samples, but from a single
| source).
| feet wrote:
| Most likely extracting and culturing then PCR
|
| Edit: grabbed from the methods section. I was wrong, they
| didn't culture :)
|
| >Fecal samples were collected by physicians and preserved in
| RNAlater (Qiagen) at -80 degC until extraction of genomic DNA
| (28) (details in SI Materials and Methods).
| jonny_eh wrote:
| What's a "former PI"?
| [deleted]
| sieabahlpark wrote:
| chronometry888 wrote:
| The private investigator with whom you have severed ties.
| vanattab wrote:
| principal investigator
| trollied wrote:
| "The person(s) in charge of a clinical trial or a scientific
| research grant. The PI prepares and carries out the clinical
| trial protocol (plan for the study) or research paid for by
| the grant. The PI also analyzes the data and reports the
| results of the trial or grant research. Also called principal
| investigator."
| [deleted]
| alienchow wrote:
| etiam wrote:
| "Principal investigator". Roughly a research group leader.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal_Investigator
| kkaranth wrote:
| The former "Principal Investigator" of the (research)
| project. Often the professor who is responsible for obtaining
| the grant and driving progress
| setgree wrote:
| Wow is the mobile UX of PNAS bad -- the cookie pop-up has no X
| button and if you click 'continue' -- which I thought meant
| continue to the article -- it directs you to the terms of
| service. If you press back, you see the same pop-up again.
|
| Looks like interesting research though!
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > indicating the importance of preserving this treasure of
| microbial diversity from ancient rural communities worldwide
|
| This study (and the FA) mention losing/presrving microbial
| diversity, but don't touch on how we got these microbes in the
| first place.
|
| I was expecting it comes mostly from what we eat and the
| environment, including eventually the people around us (and the
| mother - baby link ?)
|
| I kinda wondered if we hadn't lost these microbes because they
| disappeared from our surroundings, and we'd get them back if
| they became prominent again, making the (temporary?) loss less
| impacting.
| culi wrote:
| Very likely. Almost all probiotics people take are transient.
| Meaning they just pass through and don't form long term
| colonies in our guts. There's a few exceptions with some
| soil-derived probiotics but those are also the least
| predictable
|
| It seems really likely to me that our bodies have likely
| adapted to an environment where exposure to certain types of
| bacteria is very common. For example, there's been a lot of
| research on the potential of ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB)
| such as Nitrosomonas to reduce body odor when applied
| topically. There's companies trying to use this to sell you
| "probiotic shampoo" and other skin care products. But you
| know where else Nitrosomonas is commonly found? Most soils.
| These bacteria are also extremely easy to kill off with
| shampoos and even the small amounts of fluoride added to tap
| water
|
| Given how deeply we depend on microbes for digestion it
| doesn't seem far fetched to think our skin microbiome has
| also adapted to a ready supply of these microbes to help us
| in certain ways. Besides keeping us less stinky by eating our
| sweat, skin microbes have also been shown to help with
| acne,[0] protect us from UV damage,[1] and has even been
| shown to have deep interaction with our gut and brain
| health.[2]
|
| [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6534434/
|
| [1] https://mdpi-
| res.com/d_attachment/microorganisms/microorgani...
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S075333
| 222...
| asimpletune wrote:
| Interesting, I discovered once that soil on my socks could
| make them not smell. I don't know if the specific soil
| mattered though, and the circumstances for my discovery
| were never replicated.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| >Almost all probiotics people take are transient. Meaning
| they just pass through and don't form long term colonies in
| our guts.
|
| is this also the case for frequent ingestion? say you eat
| probiotic yoghurt on a regular basis, are you saying the
| good stuff is in a constant cycle of dying and being
| replaced?
| collyw wrote:
| > Besides keeping us less stinky by eating our sweat That
| sounds wrong. Sweat itself doesn't smell until microbes
| have had a chance to act on it. You can sweat right after a
| hot shower and you won't smell.
| [deleted]
| rr888 wrote:
| Its fascinating as its not clear between rural African and
| European urban children, who is healthier. Stereotypically
| Africans are probably closer to nature, less stress and fewer
| processed foods, where Europeans have more medicines, variety
| of foods and less exercise.
| pcrh wrote:
| Interesting! In De Filippo et al., they mention that
| Bacteroidetes sp are absent in urban Europeans, but present in
| rural Africans; in the OP they mention a similar sounding
| Bacteroides being present in chimps but not in humans. Is there
| any similarity between these apart from their similar spelling?
| ryanisnan wrote:
| That's why I live in the country and gorge myself on literal
| feces.
| tompccs wrote:
| I'd put microbiome research high up on my list of things which
| will turn out to be junk science in a few years. A lot of the
| actual numbers in this are pretty tenuous. Primates have 80
| species of bacteria and city dwellers have 50? Wow, stop the
| presses.
|
| A few years ago the fashionable thing was colonic irrigation (see
| https://journals.lww.com/ajg/fulltext/2009/11000/clinical_ef...).
| Now it just seems the pendulum has swung the other way and we
| need more crap in our colons, not less.
|
| We're looking for reasons why we feel sick all the time but the
| reality is beyond basic things like being too fat and too
| sedentary, we are healthier than ever, and many many people had
| wretched miserable lives of chronic pain before modernity. The
| expectation of health is a modern conceit and this research is
| just a reflection of the constant anxiety that there is something
| wrong with us all - a cultural hypochondria.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Given that the ratio of bacterial to human cells in a typical
| human is about 1:1, I'd wager you're wrong on that. This sounds
| rather like a "shallow dismissal" that buts up against the
| gudelines here, as well.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991899/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| I'll take that bet.
|
| I think we're going to find the opposite in a few years.
| corrral wrote:
| > We're looking for reasons why we feel sick all the time but
| the reality is beyond basic things like being too fat and too
| sedentary, we are healthier than ever, and many many people had
| wretched miserable lives of chronic pain before modernity. The
| expectation of health is a modern conceit and this research is
| just a reflection of the constant anxiety that there is
| something wrong with us all - a cultural hypochondria.
|
| Truly, "eat less trash; eat more veggies; eat less total; and
| move around at least an hour a day" is such good advice for
| most of us in "the West" that following it somewhat well would
| provide 100x more benefit than the next-closest thing. Plastic
| additives? Gut microbes? Fructose versus sucrose? Balance of
| omega fatty acids? Specific exercise routines? Forget all that
| unless you're already eating really well and staying active
| daily, which _very_ few of us are.
|
| When I read articles about these kinds of things and start to
| get the urge to act on them, I try to remind myself that I
| should go do a few squats or walk around the block a couple
| times instead.
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| > We're looking for reasons why we feel sick all the time but
| the reality is beyond basic things like being too fat and too
| sedentary, we are healthier than ever, and many many people had
| wretched miserable lives of chronic pain before modernity. The
| expectation of health is a modern conceit and this research is
| just a reflection of the constant anxiety that there is
| something wrong with us all - a cultural hypochondria.
|
| Aside from things like infectious diseases, we're not healthier
| than ever. We have better medicine than ever, but disease
| states that were once rarities have become commonplace in our
| modern world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_disease
|
| By the way, these are diseases which cannot all be blamed on
| "being too fat and too sedentary", as even skinny people can
| develop type 2 diabetes. Unheard of centuries ago.
| wizofaus wrote:
| This is true, but lifestyle diseases are somewhat easier to
| avoid than infectious diseases (plus all the various other
| things that could easily kill you in your first decade or so
| in bygone eras). I'd almost say lifestyle diseases seem to
| be, to a large degree, a choice - maybe not directly, but as
| a society we accept that if we want to enjoy all the
| privileges of modern technology and food availability etc.,
| then we pay for it with heart disease or diabetes or certain
| cancers etc.
| throwaway202022 wrote:
| > I'd almost say lifestyle diseases seem to be, to a large
| degree, a choice - maybe not directly, but as a society we
| accept that if we want to enjoy all the privileges of
| modern technology and food availability etc., then we pay
| for it with heart disease or diabetes or certain cancers
| etc.
|
| It's a choice for many, but I think it's not a fully
| informed one. If I'd known in my teens and early twenties
| what I know now, there is a zero percent chance I would
| have eaten and lived the way that I did. These things don't
| seem to hit people until the point that their personal
| health is affected, and sometimes not even then.
| wizofaus wrote:
| Seems to me the same way we treat environmental damage,
| though in that case most of the suffering will fall on
| our kids and grandkids. But even the choices young adults
| are making today aren't really compatible with having a
| decent planet to live on in 60 years or so, barring some
| technological miracles.
| Sunspark wrote:
| Once a gene has started expressing, it's pretty hard to flip the
| switch back to the off position. Losing the microbes is a big
| problem.
|
| It's just going to get worse. People seem to have this fetish for
| anti-bacterial everything.. soaps, coatings, etc. They take anti-
| biotics even for viral issues then they wonder why they start
| developing a new health problem they didn't have before, like a
| mood disorder or an autoimmune issue.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Here in Indonesia, antibiotics can be bought over the counter
| without a prescription. Many people self medicate for a cough
| or runny nose (they don't distinguish whether viral or
| bacterial, most likely the average worker doesn't know the
| difference).
|
| Few have the luxury to take a sick day so the pressure is on.
| Sunspark wrote:
| This should be an election issue, that Indonesia should not
| be selling antibiotics without a prescription. Stupid people
| take them just a little then stop, and as a result are
| continually training tuberclosis and other bacteria to become
| antibiotic resistant.
|
| Then when they can't treat things anymore, surprised
| Indonesian faces all around. What if the West doesn't have
| anything new for them? Time to die.
|
| Before antibiotics, was not a fun time and we're heading back
| there soon.
| olliej wrote:
| What did the lost microbes do? If they helped digest things
| that aren't part of our diet then the there would be no
| selective pressure maintaining them, so they could be easily
| dropped, independent of the issues of vast over-application of
| antibiotics, etc.
|
| Over application of antibiotics and anti-bacterial stuff is
| clearly causing problems, but that's not the only thing that is
| happening that impacts something as complex as the gut. Just as
| with genes, the microbiome is under constant selective pressure
| from evolution, and we will - over time - gain new microbes as
| we lose ones that aren't beneficial.
| rawoke083600 wrote:
| I'm waiting for the "designer fecal supplements". i.e fecal
| transplants.
| goatcode wrote:
| >people in U.S. cities...people in less developed parts of the
| world
|
| What about people in the US who are not in cities? That's the
| more interesting comparison to me. Why would that be left out?
| jascii wrote:
| I'm curious why that comparison is _more_ interesting to you? I
| can see great value in having _both_ data points when trying to
| formulate a hypothesis about what causes the decline in gut-
| microbes in us city folks, but I find it hard to think of a
| use-case for solely a urban /rural comparison without other
| context.
|
| (Update: I was thinking about this from a scientific
| perspective, ignoring the idea that people might be interested
| in what it means for them personally (facepalm) )
| runjake wrote:
| Because a bunch of us don't live in the city or urban
| environments and we're curious.
| jascii wrote:
| So the interest stems from a curiosity about your own gut-
| microbes? That seems fair enough, I may have been
| overthinking this...
| CodeBeater wrote:
| Personal interest does not necessarily equal marginal
| utility.
| jstanley wrote:
| Even from a scientific perspective, it would be more
| interesting to see the effect of each variable independently
| (cities vs rural, US vs somewhere else) rather than bundling
| them together.
| goatcode wrote:
| I shouldn't say more overall, but the difference among people
| who have a similar diet and circumstances, but differ by
| housing culture, would be interesting to observe. I'd like to
| see apples to apples, if indeed the theorized reason of where
| gut differences come from is strictly (or mostly) urban vs.
| rural. Is it that country people are around more dirt, or
| that city people have different stressors, or maybe both are
| included? It'd be easier to tell if other differences are
| eliminated, imo. I've long preferred country life, having
| spent roughly half of my life in cities and the other half in
| the country, so maybe some personal interest is there too, to
| be honest. I do feel a lot healthier living in the
| countryside, perhaps my gut has something to do with that.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > What about people in the US who are not in cities? That's the
| more interesting comparison to me. Why would that be left out?
|
| At least in the US, my lay-intuition is that you wouldn't see
| much of a difference between _average_ Americans between urban,
| suburban, and rural settings. That 's perhaps worth testing,
| but I think the much more interesting test would be between
| wealth and class groups.
|
| (Again, wild speculation: it's easy to imagine that most gut
| biota don't care about the difference between dollar-store
| knockoff sodas and brand-name sodas, but _definitely do care_
| about $14 free-range, organic eggs.)
| mathgeek wrote:
| > but definitely do care about $14 free-range, organic eggs
|
| Can you elaborate on why you think this is the case?
| Intuitively to me, most folks' diets are going to be mostly
| cooked eggs which would reduce any effect on bacteria in the
| gut.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Sorry, I meant that as a proxy for "families that have the
| purchasing power to buy premium goods." My intuition is
| that there's a _weak_ inverse relationship between food
| processing and food price, with less processing
| corresponding to healthier gut biota. But you're right that
| the $14 eggs themselves probably don't matter.
| astrange wrote:
| "Processing" is meaningless and largely a naturalistic
| fallacy; your biome definitely cares about what you eat,
| but not if it's been sliced up first, which is a kind of
| processing.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I don't disagree. You can substitute "processed" for the
| "ultra processed" category in the NOVA scheme[1]. I don't
| think there's anything wrong with chopping up your apples
| before eating them.
|
| [1]:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6389637/
| olliej wrote:
| My first thoughts are (without access to the actual article)
|
| * We have lost the microbiome that primates present
|
| * have we gained other microbes?
|
| * what did those microbes we lost do? If they break down heavy
| fibre (branches) we may simply not need them, so evolution would
| stop selecting for them
|
| * This says cities, but it (a) only appears to look at the US,
| and (b) the article doesn't mention comparing to non-city
| dwellers in the US. Saying "cities" without also providing a non-
| city reference seems bogus, but also could simply be left out of
| the article.
|
| * Following from the "US only" comment above - how stable is this
| microbiome between geographical regions in the US?, how about
| different countries in close geographic location (think Europe)?,
| or geographically separated countries with similar culture?
| different culture?
|
| All of these things _might_ be answered in the paper, but per-
| usual Science has given us a fairly useless summary article with
| a clickbait headline :-(
|
| [Edited to bring back formatting. For a text only, anti-emoji,
| etc site HN is obnoxiously opposed to basic white space
| formatting :-/]
| afarviral wrote:
| I'd be really curious where some of these wild microbes can be
| found so we can repopulate them.
|
| Every time I brush my teeth, use dish washing liquid or really
| any man made substance with a lots of ingredients I also wonder
| if I'm accidentally killing off my skin/mouth/gut microbiomes.
| Not worried enough to only use water (not that tap water can be
| fully trusted either....)
| Bilal_io wrote:
| Explore the use of Miswak for your teeth.
| samstave wrote:
| epgui wrote:
| I'm unable to verify that quote.
|
| Also, it's irrelevant, and not really true at all.
| samstave wrote:
| epgui wrote:
| You're right, I don't see the humour in this.
|
| And it's not pedantic to question a misquoting when the
| meaning is completely different. Nor is it pedantic to
| question the relevance of someone's comment.
|
| I don't think this quote means what you think it means.
| samstave wrote:
| >> _that being mindful about the language we choose to
| accept socially is in general radical_
|
| Yeah, you're a hypocrite.
|
| I am not upset, but based on your comment history, I
| actually expect higher of you.
|
| "question a misquoting" <-- You didnt even get the FN
| quote in the first place, then attempt to make yourself
| all "enlightened"
|
| Give me a FN break...
|
| Your feigned self-righteous demeanor simply devalues your
| Truth, and I am assured that you will defend your mental
| superiority, regardless..
|
| My Grandmother, would oft state:
|
| "often in err, never in doubt"
| epgui wrote:
| Please see the rules for commenting on Hacker News:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments
| mjsweet wrote:
| Can someone comment on the effect of chlorinated town water on
| gut microbes? Would treated water have an affect as opposed to
| consuming rain or bore water?
| altfredd wrote:
| > effect of chlorinated town water on gut microbes
|
| Unless you are drinking a tap water (pretty extreme thing to
| do!), the effect is probably non-existing:
|
| https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/67027
| mjsweet wrote:
| I live in Australia, I would say most people would drink tap
| water at home. We have a sink top filter that filters water,
| so we use that. I don't think drinking tap water in this part
| of the world is abnormal, on the contrary. Out of curiosity,
| where are you from?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Unless you are drinking a tap water (pretty extreme thing
| to do!)_
|
| Around your parts you do not drink tap water?
| rmetzler wrote:
| My understanding is that the amount of chlorine added to
| the tap water differs between regions. I read it can be a
| lot in the US.
|
| Here in Germany there is a limit by law of 0.3mg per liter
| and most districts use between 0.03mg and 0.05mg per liter.
|
| We drink tap water daily. There is no noticeable chlorine
| smell but I heard from friends their cat seems to not like
| it and drinks rainwater only.
| tomcam wrote:
| I found them in the seat of an Uber during spring break
| benknight87 wrote:
| I really enjoyed reading Fiber Fueled which basically lays out
| how all the latest science links our overall health very closely
| to the health and diversity of our microbiome. It will be
| interesting to see if new research continues to find evidence to
| support this. It's also a pretty convincing scientific argument
| in support for plant-based diets which, conveniently, is good for
| the planet and animal welfare as well.
| rr888 wrote:
| Does anyone know of probiotics with a variety of bacteria?
| Currently they (and yoghurts) seem to be just a single type,
| which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. If there are unusual
| bacteria out there where do they come from and how can we get
| them?
|
| I've done a bunch of anti-biotics in the last few years so what
| to get back to what I was.
| prirun wrote:
| I've had good luck with these, taken one in the morning and one
| at night.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Probiotics-Formulated-Probiotic-Suppl...
|
| Now, instead of taking the probiotics, I make yogurt from whole
| milk (it's easy!) and open 3 probiotic capsules as the starter,
| letting it ferment for 24 hours to ensure all of the milk sugar
| is gone. This gives 2 quarts of yogurt and I eat a tablespoon
| every morning with breakfast. Way cheaper than the pills, plus
| I have a problem swallowing the capsules. Has worked great for
| me.
| asdff wrote:
| You don't need to order more starter once you have your
| yogurt. You can use a spoonful of your last batch to start
| the next batch. I go 30 minutes at 180-190*f with the milk,
| then i let it cool to 110*f, then I add my scoop of yogurt,
| then I will hold that at 110*f in a separate container in a
| 110* waterbath (just a big pot of 110* water holding my
| yogurt tupperware containers that I periodically splash more
| hot water into) for like 8-12 hours or so (I sometimes forget
| about it on the stove...). Then I put it in the fridge for
| two days and after its good to go. If you want it to be more
| like greek yogurt you can strain it with coffee filter paper
| and use the whey liquid for various things.
| asdff wrote:
| chobani claims six strains of yogurts, I used that as starter
| for my homemade yogurt batches since then. Otherwise I try and
| get my exposure in from the environment. I'm vaccinated so I
| don't bother with the mask unless there are hard rules. I will
| avoid overusing hand sanitizer. I take crowded public transit
| and otherwise walk around sidewalks and stores with a bunch of
| people vs private car and delivery of all my needs. I do
| computer work but I do almost all of it outdoors on a patio
| table, where I am exposed to pollen and spores and microbe
| aplenty (but probably better air quality than indoors given the
| plastic off gassing in the modern home). Basically I am trying
| to inoculate myself with a wide variety of things available in
| my local environment, just like people used to be before all
| this modern society stuff locked us sitting in rooms. It seems
| to work as far as I can tell anecdotally; I can't remember the
| last time I was sick.
| hackerlight wrote:
| Is that beneficial if it's a busy area? There's some
| pollution that I want to simply avoid, primarily car exhaust
| and fine particles like tire dust.
| asdff wrote:
| You would be surprised. According to the EPA:
|
| "In the last several years, a growing body of scientific
| evidence has indicated that the air within homes and other
| buildings can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor
| air in even the largest and most industrialized cities.
| Other research indicates that people spend approximately 90
| percent of their time indoors. Thus, for many people, the
| risks to health may be greater due to exposure to air
| pollution indoors than outdoors."
|
| https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/inside-story-
| guid...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Try searching for "soil bacteria Probiotic". Amazon has several
| products that include lots of bacteria not commonly used in
| yogurt or similar products.
| rmetzler wrote:
| Just start gardening. There is a lot of good bacteria in the
| soil.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Does anyone know of probiotics with a variety of bacteria?"
|
| Home fermenting and raw products (honey, fruit, veggies, etc)
| are probably a good place for variety. You may have a primary
| strain you're fermenting with, but there are likely other
| minority strains present too.
| trollied wrote:
| I started taking these a month ago. They've worked wonders for
| my IBS: Healthspan Super20 Pro 60
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B085632HRB
| wnolens wrote:
| What have you noticed? (I have IBS-C)
| Splendor wrote:
| A quick search turned up this one that claims to have 12
| strains of bacteria. It is also USP verified. I'm not an expert
| and have never tried it, but hopefully that info helps.
|
| https://www.costco.com/trunature-advanced-digestive-probioti...
| astrange wrote:
| Most probiotics aren't useful because if you're going to
| manufacture a ton of bacteria, you have to go with the ones
| capable of growing that fast. That's typically just one or two
| strains used in the making of yogurt, though you could branch
| out to miso, kefir, kimchi etc.
|
| And the oral delivery route doesn't work that well because they
| have to make it through the stomach, then get to the
| intestines, then survive there - which they won't if they
| aren't specific strains evolved to live inside humans.
|
| If you want to do science (aka mail someone your poop) there
| are ways to measure what's currently inside you:
|
| https://www.viome.com
| cheese_goddess wrote:
| If you want variety of bacteria, then the highest is probably
| in milk kefir, and the second highest in aged, hard cheese.
|
| Kefir, we don't even know how many or what bacteria it hosts,
| but we know it's a lot. Different studies have reported wildly
| different communities, but all of them with upwards of a dozen
| species. For example:
|
| > Sequencing-Based Analysis of the Bacterial and Fungal
| Composition of Kefir Grains and Milks from Multiple Sources
|
| https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
|
| Aged hard cheese, unless made with raw milk, is usually
| inocculated with a couple of strains of lactic acid bacteria,
| but during aging a varied flora develops, of "adventitious
| bacteria" and yeasts from the environment.
|
| To be honest though, I made kefir for a couple of years and
| I've been making cheese for about four now and I make the
| occasional yogurt now and then, but I'm still not convinced
| about the health claims of "probiotics". And I'm not the only
| one to be skeptical:
|
| > A growing probiotics market has led to the need for stricter
| requirements for scientific substantiation of putative benefits
| conferred by microorganisms claimed to be probiotic.[7]
| Although numerous claimed benefits are marketed towards using
| consumer probiotic products, such as reducing gastrointestinal
| discomfort, improving immune health,[8] relieving constipation,
| or avoiding the common cold, such claims are not supported by
| scientific evidence,[7][9][10] and are prohibited as deceptive
| advertising in the United States by the Federal Trade
| Commission.[11] As of 2019, numerous applications for approval
| of health claims by European manufacturers of probiotic dietary
| supplements have been rejected by the European Food Safety
| Authority for insufficient evidence of beneficial mechanism or
| efficacy.[8][12]
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probiotic
|
| Btw, you know what elese has plenty of lactic acid bacteria,
| therefore probiotics? Sourdough. Alhtough if you make kefir,
| you can use it instead of sourdough as a bread starter.
| jschveibinz wrote:
| Microbiome research at John's Hopkins:
|
| https://www.hopkinsmicrobiome.com/faq
| somenameforme wrote:
| I'm curious how simple sanitary factors come into play. Something
| I've always found intriguing is that in Ancient Greece toilets
| would use shared butt brushes (sponge on a stick) in lieu of
| toilet paper. In an especially fancy place there might be a
| bucket of vinegar nearby to clean it off, but in general it was
| just a quick swirl through some water and onto the next bum.
|
| The thing I find interesting there is that the Ancient Greeks had
| extremely limited medical knowledge alongside practices like
| this. And they also lived through less than pleasant times, yet
| they were often also quite long lived as a quick perusal of your
| Philosophacrates of choice can readily demonstrate. There's
| certainly a literal survivorship bias there, but the
| ubiquitousness of longevity is, if nothing else, interesting.
| Certainly many of these individuals would have still left their
| mark had they died at 40 or 50 instead.
| moreira wrote:
| It seems like it's about statistics, more than anything. Some
| people can be sedentary and smoke their whole lives and eat
| lard non stop and still live to be 80. Doesn't mean any of that
| helped them in any way.
|
| It's like that for them, too; regardless of their sanitary
| practices, some people will live to be old. On its own I don't
| think it says much about their effectiveness.
|
| Long-lived people have always existed. The difference is in the
| % of people that make it that far.
| somenameforme wrote:
| That's exactly what I was hitting on. Ancient Greeks living
| to quite old age were _not_ statistical outliers, but the
| norm! The only way to explain this with contemporary
| understanding is to suggest it 's just an extremely large
| survivorship bias, but that seems to difficult to swallow
| because many of those we know of from Ancient Greece we would
| likely still know of even had they died decades earlier as
| well.
|
| This [1] study looked at the mean age of Greeks "of renown"
| from the 5th and 4th century and found the average life
| expectancy was 71.3 years! There's certainly a class bias,
| but when we're speaking of times of antiquity all the money
| it world couldn't buy you what didn't exist. So all that bias
| would represent is, at best, more or less secure access to
| food, drink, and other basic necessities.
|
| [1] - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18359748/
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > "perhaps we can restore them with probiotics."
|
| Really? AFAIK probiotics, as well as antibiotics, can only affect
| the gut microbiome temporarily - it will restore to the baseline
| (defined in early childhood) if left alone and given some time.
| Isn't it so?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > AFAIK probiotics, as well as antibiotics, can only affect the
| gut microbiome temporarily - it will restore to the baseline
| (defined in early childhood) if left alone and given some time.
| Isn't it so?
|
| Seems to be more complicated, and differ for different types of
| bacteria in the gut microbiome.
|
| https://www.embl.org/news/science/gut-microbiome-changes-ove...
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| haklport wrote:
| "Moeller and others also suggest identifying the missing microbes
| may be the first step toward bringing them back. "If we determine
| that these groups were providing important functions to keep
| humans healthy," Maccaro says, "perhaps we can restore them with
| probiotics."
|
| Oh really? Nice submarine for Actimel, Yakult etc.
| antiterra wrote:
| Unfortunately, the most effective treatment I know of to change
| gut biome is bacteriotherapy via a method many people find off-
| putting and violating.
|
| I think, for the time being, people are much more likely to
| accept a probiotic.
| thematrixturtle wrote:
| I take it you mean fecal transplants, aka inserting somebody
| else's feces up your rectum?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Well, it's either a pill, or moving out of the city, or a fecal
| transplant (assuming that the urban / rural divide is relevant,
| and not just a proxy for diet).
|
| I don't live in the city, but if I were told that I would be
| healthier with more of these microbes that my environment
| doesn't support, I'd opt for the pill.
| jgrantx wrote:
| Doing nothing is also an option! I'm not aware of an
| indigestion epidemic among city dwellers.
|
| Being told to do something is not sufficient, especially when
| multi-billion dollar industries are behind it.
| bawolff wrote:
| More research is needed.
|
| However there is an obseity epidemic and a depression
| epidemic, and its plausible they are related. Which doesn't
| mean they are, but seems like something worth looking into.
| dannyperson wrote:
| The study compares humans (who happen to live in cities) to
| primates (who definitely don't live in cities). It doesn't
| compare between human populations.
| zdragnar wrote:
| The content I replied to implied that the article was a
| submarine advertisement for pills.
|
| _If_ there is a problem in need of a solution, and it isn
| 't diet related, I'd much prefer the pill over there other
| options.
| wtetzner wrote:
| Kinda feels like identifying the missing microbes should
| instead help us track down what we're doing that's causing them
| to die off.
| kewrkewm53 wrote:
| I wonder how much of the fast increasing prevalence of gut-
| related diseases like IBS can be explained by the changes in gut
| microbes, and how much is just about lack of exercise and changes
| in diet.
|
| Whenever I go work at relative's farm my stomach seems to work
| way better, even though I do plenty of exercise in my home city
| as well. Perhaps the type of manual labor is better for stomach
| than gym/running, but I wouldn't rule out the impact of microbes
| either.
| ck2 wrote:
| year ago in WSJ https://archive.today/rCjpO
| boomchinolo78 wrote:
| It's the iron fortified flour and then the people are like OMG I
| have celiac and what not. There's a reason breast milk and milk
| in general contains lactoferrin; guess what, they also remove it
| from most milk that is in supermarkets.
| getcrunk wrote:
| can you please expand on this?
| nebfield wrote:
| The burden of proof for a coeliac disease diagnosis is quite
| high: a biopsy from an endoscopy that shows classic signs of
| damaged villi (from autoimmune mechanisms), or a blood test
| with extremely high tTG levels and a family history of the
| disease.
|
| https://www.bsg.org.uk/covid-19-advice/covid-19-specific-non...
| Splendor wrote:
| > ...a researcher reported last week at a microbiology meeting in
| Washington, D.C.
|
| Am I missing it or is this all we are given as a source for the
| claim in the headline? Not even a name?
| david_l_lin wrote:
| I wonder if the same is happening to mouth microbes, which could
| explain the epidemic of oral disease in developed countries.
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| It's the diet.
|
| City dwellers tend to eat a lot more unhealthy foods. They also
| eat a lot less vegetables, fruit and nuts than their rural
| country(wo)men.
|
| You want more microbes in your gut? Eat more plant-based food.
| dagw wrote:
| Having lived both in the city and fairly rural, I can say that
| access to a healthy and varied diet is much much easier in the
| city. Both when it came to restaurants and buying and cooking
| food.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Small town / suburban areas can be the best with large
| supermarkets or dedicated markets, as long as you have a car.
|
| That said bushland in Australia has natives that you can't
| buy in the supermarket. So there is that.
|
| But the average person probably doesn't forage.
| wtetzner wrote:
| Maybe a varied diet is what's causing the problem.
| woodruffw wrote:
| The study doesn't show this: it compares humans (who happen to
| live in cities) to primates (who definitely don't live in
| cities). It doesn't compare between human populations.
|
| Ironically, cities (particularly affluent ones, but in general)
| probably have better access to fresh and healthy produce than
| do medium or low-income rural areas. Some of that is supply and
| demand (the economics of moving bulk produce favor large
| population clusters), and some of it is pricing (affluent
| consumers prefer cities and suburbs on average). You can see
| these trends in the USDA's Food Atlas[1], which shows lots of
| rural areas with poor access to produce.
|
| [1]: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-
| research-...
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| hahaxdxd123 wrote:
| > near non-sequitur thesis not discussed in article stated
| definitively
|
| > flimsy evidence which isn't true
| [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3365871/]
|
| Certified HackerNews moment!
| astrange wrote:
| "Cities are unnatural therefore they contain less natural
| foods" is the West Coast/boomer environmentalism mindset, so
| this is actually a California moment.
| 0bfus wrote:
| > City dwellers tend to eat a lot more unhealthy foods. They
| also eat a lot less vegetables, fruit and nuts than their rural
| country(wo)men.
|
| Can't find it for meat in general, but it seems that rural
| areas eat significantly more beef than suburban or urban
| dwellers.
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/outlooks/37388/29633_ldpm13...
| .
| sudden_dystopia wrote:
| Based on the way my body responds and reviewing lab results
| after trying different diets, I am of the opinion that it has
| more to do with processed foods versus minimally/unprocessed
| foods. I don't think whether it is plant or meat/dairy based
| really matters that much nutritionally. Enriched flour, is
| plant based but by no means do I believe that to be healthy.
| Same goes for sausage and bacon, too processed. N of 1 but
| since I stopped consuming processed food and stopped worrying
| about cholesterol while restricting calories, eating plenty of
| fruit & veggies, and exercising, I have actually lowered my ldl
| cholesterol by 40 points. Triglycerides were fine. Dr was
| thrilled, didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't follow her
| advice.
| baby wrote:
| How does probiotic helps here?
| swayvil wrote:
| Therefore the city dweller must be somewhat insane.
|
| Because the gut biome is a key component in our central nervous
| system. It's basically the seat of emotion.
|
| Anybody notice any funny behavior out of the cities lately?
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I had to use oral antibiotics about a year ago for reasons that
| could have been avoided. I was pretty upset about it precisely
| because it probably wreaked havoc on all the beneficial gut
| microbes that I had built up over the years.
| Spinosaurus wrote:
| Have you had any lasting effects?
|
| I've been prescribed a "fairly serious" antibiotic for a skin
| condition that has been plaguing me for several years (I've
| gotten like 5 different diagnosis and tons of different Rx).
| I'm otherwise incredibly healthy, so this antibiotic scares the
| shit out of me and I have yet to start taking it.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| No lasting effects but it was only a year ago so who knows -
| my completely amateur take is you've got to balance the
| payoff with the risk - in your case the payoff of getting rid
| of a skin condition that's been plaguing me for years seems
| like a fair trade for the risk of the antibiotics if I were
| in your shoes... it's not like you didn't try to let your
| body resolve it on its own (since you've had it for years)
| GistNoesis wrote:
| Have you tried cleaning your washing machine regularly ?
| People often think of washing their pillow cases and sheets
| once a week, but if the washing machine isn't well
| maintained, the bacteria don't get properly killed and you
| spend all nights and day with them, and no amount of skin-
| cleaning and hydrating products will be able to work.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I had a couple courses of IV antibiotics to fight a severe
| tooth infection. All the oral surgeons who came in to check on
| me recommended picking up a few bottles of probiotic drinks on
| my way home.
| hinkley wrote:
| And some cheddar cheese.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacticaseibacillus_casei is
| theorized to be a sort of a halo probiotic - it doesn't do
| the work, but it makes you GI tract more hospitable to the
| bacteria that do.
|
| There are cheddar cheeses though that barely rank the name.
| Quality over quantity here. Buy the small block of fancy
| cheddar, not whatever name the food megacorporations are
| using locally.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Lacking these gut microbes has been posited to lead to depression
| and effect mood by a few researchers:
|
| https://www.science.org/content/article/evidence-mounts-gut-...
| TranquilMarmot wrote:
| The future of antidepressants is fecal transplants for healthy
| gut bacteria (not even kidding)
| badkitty99 wrote:
| baronswindle wrote:
| > The researchers can't say whether the absence is a cause or
| an effect of the illness
|
| My immediate thought was that people suffering from depression
| might eat more "junk food" due to the depression and that their
| poor diets might lay waste to their gut biomes. Of course,
| there may be other studies that contradict my hypothesis.
| insaider wrote:
| A theory: this decrease in gut microbiome diversity directly
| correlates with an increase in fatigue.
|
| Ever since the first time I had antibiotics I've suffered from
| chronic fatigue, I'm pretty sure there's a strong connection here
| to the bacteria in my gut as it often feels like the main symptom
| is a reduced ability to digest food.
| [deleted]
| mulmen wrote:
| This article is mostly cliche popsci trash that isn't worth
| reading. Good for a game of logical fallacy bingo.
|
| The only interesting development seems to be the methodology but
| that only gets a passing mention.
|
| The rest is basically fearmongering.
|
| > In humans, for example, gut bacteria influence how the immune
| system responds to pathogens and allergens, or interact with the
| brain, affecting mood.
|
| Ok. But what does that have to do with diversity? Humans have not
| been an emotionally rational species at any point in the past.
| Arguably the relationship between gut biome diversity and
| civilization is inverse. Maybe we want fewer microbes.
|
| Lifespan has also increased with decreased gut biome diversity.
|
| This is why correlation alone is uninteresting. You can find it
| anywhere.
|
| > Splitting the difference, people in less developed parts of the
| world have between 60 and 65 of those bacterial groups, an
| observation that ties the decrease in microbial diversity to
| urbanization.
|
| Oh come on. How does a line like this get published? This is fine
| if you define "ties" as "moves with" but not "is connected to".
| IOW correlation doesn't imply causation.
|
| > Kyle Meyer, a microbiologist at UC Berkeley, argues such losses
| are not necessarily a problem. "Maybe we don't need them," he
| points out. But Moeller is worried. "We are really doing some
| scary stuff to our microbiomes," he warns.
|
| Why is it "scary"? Nothing in this article established any cause
| for concern.
|
| The guy that developed the methodology is now in search of a
| problem his solution fits.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| All good points.
|
| But it's scary because without gut bacteria we'd all be dead.
| We depend on them so much that I sometimes wonder if they're
| the host and we're the "parasite".
|
| What you said about correlation v cause and such is spot on.
| And perhaps the article fails because of what you listed.
|
| Nonetheless, losing half of something that our living depends
| doesn't feel like grounds for celebration. The fact that we
| just don't know, well that's concerning as well.
| jcoq wrote:
| I think you're largely missing the point of this article, which
| mostly summarizes a novel technique for comparing gut biome
| diversity, and which goes through a small amount of effort to
| summarize the growing (if not clearly established) scientific
| consensus about the importance of healthy gut biomes.
|
| I don't think it takes very much imagination to understand why
| the loss of diversity in an ecosystem might have negative
| implications for that ecosystem.
|
| For whatever it's worth to you, Science magazine is a companion
| to the extremely prestigious Science Journal and it often tries
| to summarize the research in the journal. The tiniest amount of
| searching shows that the biologist whose work is being
| summarized a is one of the leading experts in this area.
| mulmen wrote:
| > I think you're largely missing the point of this article,
| which mostly summarizes a novel technique for comparing gut
| biome diversity
|
| As I already said, it doesn't _largely_ do that. It mentions
| it in literally one paragraph that is itself mostly fluff.
|
| The most substantive line is literally "with computers":
|
| > With computers, they were able to compile the fragments of
| DNA sequenced into whole genomes of the gut microbes present.
|
| There's no further mention of how these computers work or
| what they do or what is novel about them. And that's the
| _most_ interesting part of the piece.
| watwut wrote:
| Most of article is tldr of various researches with links if
| you are interested in how they collected poop to make tests
| or used computers.
| feet wrote:
| Having a community of different species _is_ good. The way that
| those communities work is that they keep each other 's
| populations in check. If we go out of balance and one dominates
| we can see disease states coming from not only an imbalance of
| metabolic products but even infection from the population that
| went out of control.
| jasonfarnon wrote:
| Why is it "scary"? Nothing in this article established any
| cause for concern.
|
| I think when people see a difference in modern life versus
| traditional, and that difference was unexpected and unintended,
| that in itself is cause for concern. I don't need to believe
| claims about how important the gut biome is to the brain etc.
| But I would be surprised if the there weren't some consequence
| of the difference, and it seems like wishful thinking to
| suppose, as you do, that the consequences are benign.
| mulmen wrote:
| You answered the wrong question. The article reproduced a
| claim without substantiation.
|
| I didn't conclude that the effects are benign. I claimed that
| this article does nothing to assist me in deciding if they
| are.
| lwouis wrote:
| Not knowing which way the scale tips is in-itself scary, I
| think. It means moving into uncharted territory.
|
| Similarly, global warning is rising temperature, and we are
| trying hard to model the effects, but it's really all it
| is: models and guesses. We would much prefer if we could go
| back to the climate we were familiar with for the past
| 20,000 years. That one we were starting to understand to
| some extent. Now all bets are off
| watwut wrote:
| Why should article assist you in deciding of they are? That
| decision is not science. That decision is politics.
| neuroma wrote:
| I think OP was rather bemoaning the lack of useful
| information and scientific rigor. Their points were good I
| thought.
|
| Whilst microbiome is a fascinating topic people are quick to
| lend unsubstantiated pet theories new credence, harboured by
| the topics nasence and complexity.
|
| Anecdotally, logical fallacy bingo is a great actual game and
| I recommend everyone play
| sol_invictus wrote:
| Lifespan is a poor metric for quality of life. You can be alive
| whilst being plagued by multiple illness. Healthspan is what is
| important (how long you can live without suffering from a major
| ailment) and that is where gut microbiome plays an important
| role.
| mulmen wrote:
| No shit. That's the point. I can draw a correlation between
| basically anything. That doesn't make it interesting.
| metamuas wrote:
| socialdemocrat wrote:
| I found it interesting and useful. Much more so than this
| criticism which comes across as overly pedantic. It quotes
| various researches. It isn't meant to be a study or paper onto
| itself. Anyone interested in the scientific details would
| lookup the publications from the people mentioned. Articles
| like this is to give you an overview and spark some interest
| among the general public.
| potamic wrote:
| It is scary because the gut microbiome in humans is evolving
| much faster in recent times. This is coming from a study that
| maps evolution of gut microbiome in primates to the primate
| evolutionary tree. They found that families of gut bacteria can
| be passed down over millions of years in a species. The gut
| microbiome has always coevolved with the species. As the
| species diverges, so does the microbiome adapting to the
| changes in the host. Except in modern humans, where it is
| evolving at a much faster rate since industrialization. It's a
| very interesting observation in my opinion and asks important
| questions about how the modern lifestyle is affecting the
| biome. For instance, what happens if a pregnant mother takes
| antibiotics? Will a family of bacteria get killed off in that
| mother's evolutionary branch?
|
| The article is most certainly popsci and written for laymen,
| but I don't think it is trash at all. Not sure why you think
| so. It highlights some very interesting discoveries and offers
| you a window to dive in and learn more things on the subject if
| you are interested.
| mulmen wrote:
| Consider my comment as feedback from an editor to the author.
| I don't think this is fit to print.
|
| I agree with you. This could be an interesting topic. But the
| article provides no substantive information. Anything that is
| learned will be in spite of this article, not because of it.
|
| What you describe is the potential that I maintain this
| article fails to live up to.
|
| > It's a very interesting observation in my opinion and asks
| important questions about how the modern lifestyle is
| affecting the biome. For instance, what happens if a pregnant
| mother takes antibiotics? Will a family of bacteria get
| killed off in that mother's evolutionary branch?
|
| That's a great question! But it isn't in the article.
| [deleted]
| Agamus wrote:
| I'm not trying to be snarky, and while I largely agree with
| you, I feel like I'm missing something. Are you saying that
| the only time that it is 'fit to print' something about
| this topic is when we have arrived at the conclusion, and
| are ready to present objective facts?
|
| Or, perhaps we shouldn't print speculation about
| interesting topics unless we have the answers to the
| questions being discussed?
|
| Or, print should be reserved objective facts?
|
| I agree that hyperbole like "scary" are confusing to many
| people. But in this case, I think the scientist is
| appealing to slang in an effort to communicate with non-
| scientists.
| sol_invictus wrote:
| OP understands neither science nor complex systems.
| Science is never "ready" so by their logic nothing would
| ever get published, and something as integral to human
| "system" as the gut microbiome being reduced to half can
| have dramatic nonlinear effects to health, making an
| alarmist approach 100% valid
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > OP understands neither science nor complex systems.
|
| This seems like an uncharitable take. I can't imagine how
| an alarmist approach is "100% valid" when there are not
| any known problems caused by this. The article is only
| stating that living in urban environments is correlated
| with a decrease (by A Lot) in gut microbes. Even if it is
| true that a significant decrease in gut microbes is a Bad
| Thing, the article does not argue that well. Indeed, it
| seems to intend to argue that with little or no
| substance.
|
| > Consider [OP's] comment as feedback from an editor to
| the author.
|
| If the comments are just criticisms about the content in
| the article then they seem apt. Many of the points hold
| up when I am critical about the article's arguments. It's
| possible to argue that position and also be in favor of
| publishing this information.
| watwut wrote:
| I think that your comment is excessively uncharitable bordering
| on a lie.
|
| The article does not make reader scared at all. It does not
| call for any major action. It is about what kind of research
| that is being done and tl;dr to what they found. And then
| quotes from researchers most of them about "that research is
| really cool".
|
| It is popularization article with excessively low amount of
| anything emotional. It is interesting article too. But you
| somehow want to to be scary and then blame it for not being
| sufficiently scary while blaming it for being scary.
| pojzon wrote:
| Whats scary is that we have more and more civilization diseases
| and we have no idea whats causing them beside guesses.
|
| Worsening of the environment we live in impacts us in ways we
| cannot even imagine.
|
| Scary is that we cannot go back, coz its financially impossible
| for most.
| nextos wrote:
| > Whats scary is that we have more and more civilization
| diseases and we have no idea whats causing them beside
| guesses.
|
| We do have some good mechanistic hypotheses, but most reviews
| fail to describe them because a lot of research is hand wavy.
| However, things are slowly reaching mainstream.
|
| Let's consider type 1 diabetes (T1D), which is a common
| autoimmune disorder where beta cells in the pancreas get
| destroyed by your own immune system. T1D was rare a century
| ago, and we know from patient records that incidence
| increases rapidly whenever a society becomes industrialized.
| For example, take the Karelia region split between Finland
| and Russia. People on both sides of the border have the same
| genetic background. However, children on the Finish side have
| 10x more incidence of insulin autoantibodies [1]. Microbiomes
| on both sides are actually very different, with Russian
| children resembling ancient non-industrialized ones.
|
| The immune system is essentially a huge distributed memory
| where individual cells recognize small protein or lipid
| fragments as self or foreign, and then collectively decide
| whether there is an infection in the particular
| microenvironment they are exploring. We know T1D typically
| begins because the immune system recognizes a particular
| insulin chunk, the amino acid sequence SHLVEALYLVCGERGFF, as
| foreign. In other more complex autoimmune disorders this part
| is less clear.
|
| It turns out that many gut bacteria mimic that particular
| insulin chunk [2]. That probably gives these commensal
| bacteria the ability to survive and avoid immune responses,
| and it is a flag of the symbiotic relationship these bacteria
| have developed with higher organisms in the last 100 million
| years. Now, the bacterial ecosystem of a modern gut has a lot
| less diversity than it should and therefore it is very
| fragile. We don't know exactly what happens before T1D, but
| one possibility is that these bacteria grow too much in
| abundance and therefore initiate autoimmunity as T cells
| found in the pancreas of T1D patients can't distinguish
| between one protein chunk from these bacteria and insulin.
|
| There are similar patterns in other autoimmune disorders like
| multiple sclerosis. This patent aims to edit bacterial mimics
| that cause autoimmunity using a CRISPR system in a pill [3].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4950857/
| (Figure 1)
|
| [2] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.05.11.222746
| 78v... (Extended Table 1)
|
| [3] https://patents.google.com/patent/US11224621B2/en (see
| e.g. Example 4)
| manmal wrote:
| My understanding is that, in healthy humans, gut bacteria
| are not presented in huge numbers to the immune system
| because the intestinal barrier (tight junctions) prevent
| most of them from migrating into the blood stream.
|
| Are then not antibodies against gut bacteria a clear sign
| of a damaged gut barrier?
|
| (FWIW there seem to be suspicions that Ankylosing
| Spondylitis is also caused by a certain type of bacteria
| being present _and_ getting into places such that
| antibodies against them are formed.)
| nextos wrote:
| This is a very good question.
|
| There is a lot of literature that supports the role of
| gut bacteria inducing Tregs, and now there is also some
| evidence of epitope transport from the gut into the
| thymus.
|
| Hence, I think these events might matter even if they are
| not very frequent.
|
| But you could be right, and perhaps there's not really a
| relevant mutualistic relationship between host and
| commensals in terms of epitope crossreactivity.
| majormajor wrote:
| Cities were historically unhealthy, etc, etc, as well. Yet
| people kept moving to them. So "most people can't afford to
| [leave civiliation]" is far from new. Perhaps the life
| everyone has been fleeing to get to cities was never what you
| think it is for most.
| watwut wrote:
| People moved to cities for economic opportunities.
| ramblenode wrote:
| The movement to cities was more likely the result of an
| arms race rather than preference. Most anthropological
| evidence points to deterioration in quality of life (e.g.
| diet, height, disease, teeth, inequality) when comparing
| hunter-gatherers and city dwellers.
|
| Larger populations, specialization of labor, and
| fortifications made city-states militarily superior to
| small bands of hunter-gatherers and allowed cities to
| dominate a surrounding region (at least until the modern
| horse). When a region was depleted of wild game then cities
| and their croplands were the most reliable source of food.
| Armies from city states would not infrequently raid and
| capture smaller groups of humans and bring them back to
| cities as slaves.
|
| So cities were likely a forced choice, as smaller nomadic
| groups were forceably absorbed into the domains of city-
| states or repelled toward less hospitable lands.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Which "civilization diseases"?
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Diseases of civilization usually refers to things like
| diabetes, obesity, heart disease, cancer. I'm not 100% sure
| but I think the common threads are metabolic and
| inflammatory.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Lifespan has also increased with decreased gut biome
| diversity.
|
| Life expectancy increase is mostly a factor of decreased death
| at birth or in early years. You dont see an exponential
| increase of 100 years old. People die at about the same age as
| before, give or take.
| watwut wrote:
| This is not true. An average adult lives longer still just
| not by that much. Whole bunch of deadly diseases or injuries
| are not deadly anymore. The work got safer and injuries
| happen significantly less often.
|
| What did not changed is maximum longevity people have
| assuming they don't get sick or injured.
| eru wrote:
| Maximum ages haven't really increased much, yes; but life
| expectancy at eg age 10 has increased a lot, too, throughout
| history to modern times.
| sleepychu wrote:
| Parent's point is that you can draw a correlation to a
| beneficial factor without examination of whether causation
| exists just as easily.
|
| You correctly identify that it is unlikely your lifespan is
| increasing because the average gut bacteria diversity is
| decreasing, more likely they are simple correlated.
| insaider wrote:
| Sounds like you're fighting confirmation bias with confirmation
| bias.
|
| Your points are valid, don't get me wrong, but there is also a
| lot of research causally linking microbiome deficiencies with
| various health problems.
|
| Also worth noting your shots seem more aimed at the
| journalist's style than the researcher's work. I for one, think
| this is super valuable and promising research
| mulmen wrote:
| > Your points are valid, don't get me wrong, but there is
| also a lot of research causally linking microbiome
| deficiencies with various health problems.
|
| I'm sure there is. But it isn't in _this_ article. So reading
| this to learn about it is a waste of time.
|
| > Also worth noting your shots seem more aimed at the
| journalist's style than the researcher's work.
|
| That's a correct assessment, yes.
|
| > I for one, think this is super valuable and promising
| research
|
| A good source for that conclusion may exist, but this isn't
| it.
| digitcatphd wrote:
| I think the consensus is nobody really knows and nutritional
| science is largely trendy pseudoscience...
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| Agreed, a lot of it shoddy 'science'.
| starwind wrote:
| I've always been shocked at how crappy the research into
| nutrition is and how there's very little consensus beyond
| "vegetables are good" and how shoddy a lot of the professional
| training is for dieticians. Nearly everybody eats nearly every
| day, how have we not figured this out?
| NoPicklez wrote:
| I don't think that's necessarily the case.
|
| There is much more that we know than just "Vegetables are
| good" and we know why they're good. Nutrient dense, packed
| with fiber to slow digestion, includes necessarily vitamins
| and minerals to not only absorb the nutrients of your food
| but to also provide you with the micronutrients you need.
|
| That's of course just one example you made. But the problem
| is where people go to find the right information. Don't watch
| instagrammers and don't look at the latest "super foods"
| where the benefits might only be marginal, albeit hardly
| palatable.
|
| Having studied nutrition and human movement in first year
| University, my recommendation is for people to actually buy a
| first year Uni textbook on nutrition and understand what is
| in your food, what energy systems are, what macro (carbs,
| fats, proteins), micro (vitamins, minerals) are and how they
| impact your body. Then you can go and make more informed
| decisions about what you eat without someone necessarily
| telling you. You'll know that sugar isn't bad for you, but
| copious amounts of simple carbs like Mars bars are especially
| if you're not exercising.
|
| Top level Athletes and body builders are the way they are
| because of how they train and but largely how and what they
| eat. If we didn't know that much about nutrition we wouldn't
| have many world class athletes. As the saying goes, you can't
| outrun a bad diet and that's true.
|
| If you could afford a sports dietitian, I guarantee they'll
| know what you should be eating in combination with exercise
| to be healthy.
|
| A big problem with the Nutrition industry is that its easy to
| make big positive leaps in what you eat, without it being a
| bowl of kale and beetroot. The challenge is people's ability
| to be able to plan and cook properly between their busy lives
| where nutritionally simple foods are more readily available.
| Additionally, in today's world of many of us sitting in
| offices all day, you cannot live a healthy life purely based
| on what you eat, you need to move your body and exercise as
| well.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| > don't think that's necessarily the case.
|
| >There is much more that we know than just "Vegetables are
| good" and we know why they're good. Nutrient dense, packed
| with fiber to slow digestion, includes necessarily vitamins
| and minerals to not only absorb the nutrients of your food
| but to also provide you with the micronutrients you need.
|
| A lot to unpack here. Did deeper, do we really need those
| micronutrients which make "Vegetables are good". To me, to
| the extent I dug up, the answer is no.
| onkoe wrote:
| Everyone wants to be the one eating - no one wants to be the
| foodless researcher.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| Also mortgages to pay, and mouths of feed of this little
| brats they pop out are all valid reasons....
| astrange wrote:
| It's both difficult and largely unethical to do intervention
| studies on people, and we don't know how to measure
| individual differences between people very well.
|
| For instance, studying gut biomes of people is mainly done by
| looking at their poop but that doesn't help you know what
| kind of bacteria are where in their intestines, and it's not
| like you can take them apart.
| somenameforme wrote:
| I think there's a pretty simple explanation for this. How
| many calories should you consume per day?
|
| It's a trick question because it has no answer. It's going to
| vary _dramatically_ depending upon environmental, physical
| /physiological, and genetic characteristics. And that is
| probably the most simple question to answer, because when you
| get into the specifics of nutritional content, the same is
| true except it's orders of magnitudes more complex with far
| less understood.
|
| And many things come down to pretty precise measurement
| because it's all systems in equilibrium. 100 calories to your
| diet would ostensibly have a negligible impact because it's
| not much relative to your entire intake, but if you were just
| at the equilibrium where your consume - burn = 0, then that
| 100 calories is suddenly going to start seeing you gain
| weight dramatically faster than before.
| asdff wrote:
| Pretty much every culture around the world 100 years ago had some
| staple fermented food. Nowadays, a lot of people in western
| culture at least outright refuse yogurt or other fermented foods
| like saurkraut or pickled cabbage that used to be staples in
| these people's ancestor's diets a few generations ago. People are
| becoming even lactose intolerant. You have to fertilize your
| microbes so to speak and eat these sorts of foods. Plus once you
| are doing stuff like making your own yogurt, a jug of whole milk
| works out a lot cheaper than the chobani stuff.
| amarshall wrote:
| > You have to fertilize your microbes so to speak and eat these
| sorts of foods
|
| [citation needed]. It seems unlikely that fermented foods are
| not consumed in urban areas at all. I've also no idea if other
| primates consume any fermented foods, but I'd guess probably
| not.
|
| > People are becoming even lactose intolerant
|
| Do any other primates drink milk after infancy? If not, that's
| not really a valid concern in the context of the article.
| msbarnett wrote:
| No. In fact, almost all mammals stop producing lactase once
| they stop nursing from a mother. Humans are quite rare in
| that there's a significant population with the mutant
| "lactose tolerant adult" gene.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The study is of US cities.
|
| I would be curious to see if you took, say, South Korean
| cities, what the results would be. (Seoul is one of the
| largest megacities in the world, and kimchi is an extremely
| common fermented food.)
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| One tricky part with fermented foods is that the salty ones
| appear to increase rates of colon and stomach cancer as I
| recall.
|
| I read something years ago about how as the Japanese population
| adapted a more western diet, heaps of ailments came upon them
| as you'd expect, but their salt intake declined so dramatically
| that they stopped experiencing stroke and GI tract cancers
| nearly as much.
|
| I think you'd need to pin down just how much salt was causing
| those issues though and then ask if the benefits of the salty
| fermented foods outweigh the current problem of having depleted
| gut microbiomes and atrocious diets.
|
| So, I'm certainly not suggesting everyone avoid salty fermented
| foods. I eat (and make) a fair amount myself and as I alluded
| above, I suspect it's better for me than eating food that is,
| on balance, worse for me.
|
| There's no perfect diet, but there are clearly worse diets. I
| try to avoid the latter.
| hackerlight wrote:
| Salt tolerance varies a lot with blood pressure
| [deleted]
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| Seems unlikely. A lot of the traditional West African diet is
| fermented and they have the lowest rates of colon cancer on
| Earth. Smoked foods and foods containing nitrates/nitrates
| are correlated with stomach and colon cancer, but not salty
| or fermented foods. Studies that show a correlation of salt
| intake with cancer are very possibly confusing intake of
| smoked meat or processed meat (also high in salt) with colon
| cancer. For example, when adjusting for processed meat, one
| study finds that salt is not correlated at all with colon
| cancer. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-56
| 14(...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for that. I hadn't seen it yet. Though
| the rest still stands, and as mentioned in the paper,
| reducing sodium intake is still recommended for other
| health benefits. There is a wealth of other research
| showing that most people in North America should
| dramatically reduce their sodium intake.
|
| > Reduction of processed meat intake may be an effective
| strategy for CRC prevention, while sodium reduction should
| still be recommended to achieve other health benefits.
|
| Apart from that, I'm still seeing evidence of correlation
| with stomach cancer, even if not in the lower GI tract:
|
| https://www.wcrf.org/salt-shaking-up-the-link-with-
| stomach-c...
|
| Given the connection to stomach cancer and cardiovascular
| disease, it does seem wise to be careful about salt intake.
|
| Regarding west African diets, are they high in salted
| fermented foods or just fermented foods? It seems if the
| food is low in salt, it's probably just fine
| lemming wrote:
| _There is a wealth of other research showing that most
| people in North America should dramatically reduce their
| sodium intake._
|
| The evidence for this seems much less conclusive than
| most people think: https://examine.com/nutrition/awful-
| nutrition-myths/#summary.... The tl;dr is that most of
| that salt comes from crappy food, and that's what you
| want to fix - it's not the salt as such.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| It really is the salt though, and examine says as much:
|
| > Some myths contain a grain of truth. Studies have
| associated excess salt with hypertension (high blood
| pressure),[54] kidney damage,[55] and an increased risk
| of cognitive decline.[56][5
|
| The thing is, a lot of people have no idea that their
| salt intake is way too high. You're right that the salt
| tends to come from processed foods, but the salt is still
| a problem.
|
| I'm not trying to suggest the processed foods are not a
| problem, either. It's a compounding problem, and it's a
| massive one.
| lemming wrote:
| To be fair, that says "a grain of truth", and that's
| contained within a section entitled: "Myth 6: Salt is bad
| for you". The summary says:
|
| _But a drastic decrease in salt intake has not shown
| uniform benefit in clinical trials. Most people will
| benefit more from a diet of mostly unprocessed foods than
| from micromanaging their salt intake._
|
| As an example, salt-sensitive hypertension is a condition
| which some people have, but most people don't. If you
| don't, then salt will generally not affect your blood
| pressure adversely (it will go up temporarily if you eat
| a whole Domino's pizza, but will quickly go down again).
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| There are some interesting points in this podcast and
| related resources/sources (not a fan of all of this
| site's content, though Gregor is good at compiling
| research):
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/audio/the-sodium-debate/
|
| My take away from this and other sources is that we don't
| have proper long-term, randomized, human trials to
| determine exactly what to say about this. At the same
| time, there are cases where a reduction is clearly
| helpful but no typical cases where an increase is
| beneficial.
|
| I'm certainly not out to debate or disprove you here --
| I'd really like to eat more salt, but the evidence I come
| across doesn't justify it. I'd rather be wrong, though.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You may be thinking of this.
|
| https://www.newser.com/story/119965/so-do-pickles-really-
| cau...
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Not quite. I'd seen information about fermentation-related
| carcinogens, but like the article says, I haven't come
| across anything suggesting this is problematic unless you
| eat a lot of this stuff every day (like the people in China
| who were a part of the study mentioned in the article).
|
| I linked to an article pointing to heavily salted,
| preserved foods being correlated with stomach cancer in a
| response to another comment. Though salted fermented foods
| fall into this category, so would things like jerky or
| salted olives for example. It isn't clear to me what should
| be avoided necessarily, though it seems like decreasing
| sodium intake is a net positive regardless.
|
| In any case, I think eating these foods is likely okay or
| even healthful so long as it doesn't make up a large part
| of your diet.
| giardini wrote:
| Eating yogurt or sauerkraut will not render you (once again)
| lactose tolerant.
|
| Lactase (the enzyme that breaks down lactose) production is
| regulated by a human gene; how would a probiotic like yogurt
| alter a gene?
|
| https://biologydictionary.net/lactase/
| etiam wrote:
| Well, as you probably know, genes are regulated more or less
| according to environmental cues all the time, including being
| very much subject to presence and behavior of
| commensals/parasites/symbionts.
|
| I don't know any specific data whatsoever about inducing
| lactase, but it seems perfectly plausible that microorganisms
| such as lactic acid bacteria could interact with the system.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| You can't say something is "perfectly plausible" right
| after admitting you don't know any data supporting that
| hypothesis.
|
| The negative symptoms of lactose intolerance is exactly due
| to microbes in the gut digesting lactose and producing
| metabolic byproducts such as gas. People who aren't lactose
| intolerant are free of such symptoms because lactose is
| digested with enzymes produced by the body before it
| reaches the gut thus depriving gut microbes of sufficient
| quantities of lactose to cause negative symptoms.
| msbarnett wrote:
| This has been studied, but the results tend to argue that
| it's purely genetic, eg)
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6669050/
|
| > Studies that have measured changes in endogenous lactase
| activity after an intervention period consistently show a
| lack of enzyme induction, suggesting that lactose intake
| does not affect an individual's lactase activity. Although
| these studies are scarce and have relatively few subjects,
| data from cross-sectional studies support the theory of
| purely genetic regulation
| etiam wrote:
| That's interesting, and thank you for bringing it up.
|
| What I was speculating about though, and what may be more
| relevant for the (Science) article, also includes things
| along the lines of a microbe manipulating the host gene
| expression to improve its living conditions. For instance
| a species that derives energy by fermenting glucose to
| lactate might under certain conditions have better
| benefit from that piece of metabolism if it can also make
| the host act as a sink for the product.
|
| Again, not sure if that particular example is real or
| documented, but the idea has some consequences for the
| sort of adaptations and connections one might find.
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| I thought it would be that as well. But I went quite a
| while, probably almost two years, without ingesting milk at
| all. And I just had my 34th birthday two weeks ago. I
| figured there's just no way I can still process milk and it
| turns out I absolutely can. No issues at all. Reading into
| it, it seems to be genetic.
|
| https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/lactose-
| intoleran...
|
| You just either get the right genes or you don't. I'm
| curious as to how long into my life I'll be able to drink
| straight cow milk and be fine. Still got a bit of
| experimental time left. Hopefully, anyway.
|
| Also both my parents can drink milk without issues.
| barkingcat wrote:
| You could always ingest other bacteria that can digest and
| break down lactose and rely on probiotics to digest the
| lactose for you instead of having a gene.
|
| That's what ruminents do anyways, you need a steady colony of
| these helpful bacteria or you lose the tolerance. While that
| seems troublesome, for many animals that's how metabolism
| works for their entire life.
| p10_user wrote:
| Epigenetic reversal of some inhibitory histone marks at the
| promoter region of the enzyme? Driven by some yet-to-be-
| discovered signaling cascade induced by reintroduction of
| lactose and proliferation of lactose loving microbes?
|
| Just spitballing, this is pure speculation, but is plausible.
| easytiger wrote:
| I have noticed pseudosciences are becoming fashionable
| again.
| collyw wrote:
| Even the fermented food that you mention will not be probiotic
| if they are commercially bought. Sauerkraut in a jar will be
| pasteurized. Even probiotic yogurt is supposedly pasteurized
| then some live culture added after. I make my own kefir and
| saurkraut for that reason.
| colordrops wrote:
| Fermented foods are important. Milk-based foods, not so much.
| There's a reason most people are lactose intolerant - milk is
| to grow baby cows into large animals, and not suitable for
| consumption by adult humans.
| corsac wrote:
| > milk is to grow baby cows into large animals
|
| Whence this transcendent purpose that limits suitability?
| Likewise, quinoa grains are to grow into full-sized plants,
| and not for consumption by humans, etc. etc.
|
| Most people may be "lactose intolerant", but some of them
| find ways to survive and thrive on milk-based foods;
| meanwhile, some populations _have_ developed tolerance to
| lactose, presumably because milk-based foods are important.
| colordrops wrote:
| There is no need for transcendant purpose. Quinoa
| intolerance is pretty uncommon, whereas milk intolerance is
| the norm. Even without a lactose intolerance, there are
| several health issues with milk consumption, unlike quinoa
| consumption. That is because we've evolved for a orders of
| magnitude longer to eat plant material.
|
| Yes, some northern European peoples have evolved to be more
| tolerant of milk. And some tibetans have evolved to live at
| very high altitudes. It's not a good argument to take a
| small exceptional population and apply that reasoning to
| the general case.
|
| And this doesn't even get into all the problems with the
| dairy industry with regards to environmental damage and
| animal suffering.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| Chlorine, chlorinated water, chlorinated (bleached) flour,
| chlorinated chickens....
|
| Which is why its consigned to the conspiracy books.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Are you conflating fluoride and chlorine? Or are you gulping
| water down your throat at swimming pools? If it's the latter
| then you really should stop doing that.
| teruakohatu wrote:
| I am not the OP, but you may not be aware that many, if not
| most, cities have chlorine added to the tap water. I have
| read comments on HN about people leaving jugs of water in
| the fridge so the chlorine is off-gassed.
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| No, fluoride makes bones brittle so they don't flex ergo
| after 60 years of modern day products, bones should be
| seriously weakened as top Tennis player Andy Murray has
| found out with his artificial hip and numerous other thirty
| years olds!
|
| Chlorine stimulates an excessive response in various parts
| of the body. The US military saw this at the Korean War,
| the camp water was so highly chlorinated that of the
| autopsy's performed on the dead troops, with an average age
| of early twenties, many displayed signs of atherosclerosis
| and other degenerative diseases normally associated with
| septua and octogenarians! Things get covered up to avoid
| payouts to survivors, same thing seen again in the Vietnam
| war. Chlorine is effective in making people docile, which
| is perhaps why all many many govt's continue to use it even
| to this day. Of course, privatisations is also a way to
| privatise the problem, leaving the private sector to deal
| with any claims now or in the future. Medical experts like
| the business as its quite varied and hard to attribute to
| Chlorine under current convention.
|
| There are other ways to get clean water today, move with
| the technology and the knowledge, your health will thank
| you.
| ryanianian wrote:
| What?
| swayvil wrote:
| He's saying that this ubiquitous modern stuff kills gut
| flora.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Lactase persistence is regulated by genetic mutations, not gut
| microbes. The negative symptoms of lactose intolerance is
| exactly due to lactose being able to reach the gut and making
| the microbes there flourish by digesting lactose, creating
| large quantities of gas and other metabolic byproducts that
| cause flatulence, diarrhea, etc. People don't spontaneously
| become lactose intolerant just because they stopped eating
| something. Koreans eat lots of fermented vegetables, yet why
| are 70%-100% of Koreans estimated to be lactose intolerant? Why
| are you suggesting lactose intolerance is some new condition
| that arose as a product of modern life? Lactose intolerance is
| simply the default setting for the majority of humans around
| the world for most of history.
|
| Yogurt/kefir occupies very large segments in most developed
| countries' grocery store shelves and new brands/varieties pop
| up every year. How has this industry not collapsed if "a lot of
| people outright refuse yogurt" according to you?
|
| The development and marketing of lactose free dairy products in
| recent years is simply the dairy industry exploring new market
| segments, because substantial portions of the population do not
| have lactase persistence. Even societies whose culinary
| traditions involved heavy consumption of dairy do not have 100%
| lactase persistence. It's not some weird conspiracy aimed at
| making modern humans "weak". The lack of lactose is not
| significant enough to change the nutritional content of dairy
| products.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| Holy shit, that is the most over-the-top, aggressive response
| to a guy being factually incorrect about yoghurt that I've
| ever read.
| jancsika wrote:
| Yet they are all reasonable questions.
|
| I'd be interested in knowing how asdff arrived at the idea
| that a sizable portion of lactose intolerance comes from
| people neglecting to fertilize their microbes with
| sauerkraut, pickled cabbage, or yogurt.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Can you point exactly which part was "over-the-top" or
| "aggressive"? Or is calling out that factually incorrect
| things are, well, factually incorrect somehow unacceptable
| nowadays? The world needs less pseudoscience misinfo, not
| more.
| justsomeguy123 wrote:
| I re-read your post and while it's not overly aggressive
| it's the difference in tone and approach that get you.
| The original poster was like the hippie encouraging home-
| made yogurt and you were like the school principal saying
| 'this is bull, store yogurt has scientifically the same
| benefits'.
|
| PS: I also learned while writing this I can't spell
| yogurt. Thanks spellchecker!
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Sadly the topic of lactose intolerance is rife with
| misinfo, biases, and dogwhistles, hence my rapid-fire
| questions in the previous comment. Most commercial yogurt
| products sold in grocery stores today are heavily laden
| with sugar and so mildly fermented that their probiotic
| quanlities are nearly nullified. Commercial unflavoured
| kefir is slightly better, but the overall probiotic
| effect is still questionable since we don't have
| affirmative answers on how much of the microbes can
| survive through our stomach acid, or how much of them can
| establish in our guts vs. heading straight for the exit
| like passengers on a roller coaster.
|
| As for the spelling of yoghurt there's no correct version
| honestly, they are all transliterations of the same
| Turkish word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#Etymolo
| gy_and_spelling
| collyw wrote:
| The majority of nutritional science seems full of
| bullshit to be honest. I remember how we laughed at the
| Atkins diet when it first appeared as well all knew so
| well that the science told us fat was bad. Now Keto diet
| seems to be gaining a lot of acceptance, and refined
| sugar is the real enemy. Refined sugar being bad for you
| seems to be one of the few things that is agreed on. Will
| that change in another 20 years?
| collyw wrote:
| If you are worried about people's tone and approach, go
| over to 4chan for a bit then come back here. It should
| toughen you up.
| justsomeguy123 wrote:
| I'm not worried at all. I was just commenting why
| _others_ may see that comment (not mine) overly
| aggressive.
| doc_gunthrop wrote:
| > The world needs less pseudoscience misinfo, not more.
|
| Fully agreed. I appreciate the stern yet information-
| laden correction. It's certainly much better than hearing
| specious claims based on conjecture/misinformation that
| only _seems_ plausible to the uninformed.
|
| Also, IMO it did not sound "over-the-top" or "aggressive"
| at all. Some people are just so absurdly oversensitive
| that a simply direct method of speaking (or in this case,
| writing) is taken as hostile.
| bardworx wrote:
| Honest question: I grew up on a farm in former USSR. We
| milked cows daily, when I was a kid. Back then, I never knew
| about lactose intolerance but to be fair, this wasn't a topic
| discussed.
|
| Considering I know nothing about this, and you seem like you
| do, are there any studies that looked at links between
| lactose intolerance and fresh milk produce?
|
| Reason I say "fresh" is because we never refrigerated the
| milk. In the morning you get milk, cream is taken off top, by
| next morning you have a kefir like drink. All was consumed.
| There was no processing.
|
| I know there is a study[0] that link exposure to farm animals
| being linked to less allergic reactions but never seen
| anything about milk.
|
| [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7744242/
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Fresh milk is linked with some viruses that can cause
| autoimmune diseases like type-1 diabetes and bunch of other
| stuff.
|
| Always makes my eyes roll when I hear people driving hours
| just to get fresh farm milk.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| Fermented milk is lower in lactose because some of the
| lactose have already been broken down by microbes in the
| fermentation process.
| https://www.webmd.com/allergies/news/20030530/kefir-helps-
| la...
|
| Lactose intolerance in many cases also doesn't have a clear
| cut threshold nor is it common to be hypersensitive where a
| single drop of milk causes projectile vomitting. Many
| people who are technically lactose intolerant (as in they
| don't self product lactase in adulthood) can consume some
| amount of dairy without any symptoms. Otherwise dairy
| products such as milk, yogurt, and ice cream would not have
| existed in most of Asia.
|
| https://www.journalofdairyscience.org/article/S0022-0302(87
| )...
|
| >"However, when lactose loads of up to 12 g are fed,
| symptoms can be minimal or absent." >"Tolerance to yogurt,
| acidophilus milk, and other microbe-containing dairy foods
| has been suggested and is thought to be due to either a low
| lactose content or in vivo autodigestion by microbial
| b-galactosidase."
| ls15 wrote:
| > Lactase persistence is regulated by genetic mutations, not
| gut microbes.
|
| > Koreans eat lots of fermented vegetables, yet why are
| 70%-100% of Koreans estimated to be lactose intolerant?
|
| On the other hand, there is Mongolia:
|
| > But a closer look at cultural practices around the world
| has challenged that picture. In modern Mongolia, for example,
| traditional herders get more than a third of their calories
| from dairy products. They milk seven kinds of mammals,
| yielding diverse cheeses, yogurts, and other fermented milk
| products, including alcohol made from mare's milk. "If you
| can milk it, they do in Mongolia," Warinner says. And yet 95%
| of those people are lactose intolerant.
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.362.6415.626
|
| Even though most products are fermented for shelf life,
| unfermented milk _is_ widely consumed by Mongolians to this
| day.
| ssnistfajen wrote:
| So how exactly does the diet of Mongolians prove lactase
| persistence is not fundamentally genetic? Lactose
| intolerance isn't something like celiacs where a dash of
| the substance causes adverse reactions. Most of Asia still
| sell non-lactose-free dairy in supermarkets. Look up any
| Youtube video of Korean street foods and you will see dairy
| products such as processed cheese, yogurt, mil, and ice
| cream are ubiquitous in Korea. That doesn't detract from
| the fact that the vast majority of the population are
| lactose intolerant in the definition that they no longer
| produce enzymes that can break down lactose once reaching
| adulthood.
| [deleted]
| corsac wrote:
| Koreans don't get a third of their calories from dairy
| products, though. Whereas if Mongolians get ~30% of their
| calories from dairy on average (which is credible), that
| would mean they are getting far more than that in summer,
| since dairy consumption is largely seasonal. We're
| talking prodigious amounts by the standards of any
| culture, not a dash. That consumption includes both
| significant unfermented dairy (milk, milk tea, clotted
| cream) and dairy products fermented in a wide variety of
| ways.
|
| Are lactose intolerance symptoms widespread among
| Mongolians? If not, and if Mongolians are really
| genetically lactose intolerant, then it is worth asking
| whether the fermented dairy foods (as opposed to kimchi)
| they consume are mitigating that intolerance.
| ls15 wrote:
| > So how exactly does the diet of Mongolians prove
| lactase persistence is not fundamentally genetic?
|
| It doesn't, but I think it indicates that genetic lactase
| persistence is not the only factor that affects lactose
| intolerance. Otherwise, how do you call a lactose-
| intolerant person that can tolerate significant amounts
| of lactose?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Yeah and none of the foods on the list was raw
| unfermented milk.
| kstenerud wrote:
| I developed lactose intolerance sometime during the 5 years I
| lived in Japan. I only noticed after returning to Canada when
| I resumed my old diet. I can still generally eat yogurt and
| kefir without symptoms, but I can't drink milk anymore
| without taking lactase tablets.
| msbarnett wrote:
| > People are becoming even lactose intolerant.
|
| This isn't new, and certainly isn't some crisis of the last 100
| years. Historically only a minority of the planet has ever been
| lactase persistent into adulthood. It's a well-understood
| genetic trait, not some product of gut microbes.
| dannyw wrote:
| You can think of this being evolutionary beneficial, if some
| milk is bad, the whole village don't all get sick.
|
| Also a possible reason for why people have different taste
| preferences.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| It seems that lactose tolerance is the new thing here.
|
| Lactose intolerance is normal, but for a few people,
| presumably dairy animal farmers, something happened to
| their genes and they became tolerant, and it was an
| evolutionary avantage because they had access to all that
| milk. But because access to farmed milk is relatively
| recent from an evolutionary standpoint and people can live
| with lactose intolerance, the trait hasn't spread to all of
| humanity.
| easytiger wrote:
| Or people who worked out they were tolerant to it, farmed
| it, and the high density nutrients allowed faster more
| reliable development of healthy children in adverse
| conditions. i.e. North Western Europe.
| haimez wrote:
| Also that smallpox resistance via cowpox exposure can't
| have hurt survival rates in general
| msbarnett wrote:
| It's probably simpler than that: it's simply not energy-
| efficient to keep producing an enzyme throughout its life
| for a sugar that's rare-to-non-existent in an organism's
| diet for most of that life. Because mammals don't have any
| means of obtaining milk once they separate from their
| mother, lactose intolerance for their lifetime after
| weaning is almost universal among mammals. Over millions of
| years, the slight energy efficiency win of turning off that
| enzyme's production post-weaning probably won out.
|
| Humans are odd in that we harvest milk for consumption at
| all beyond our own mother's, which is probably why we're
| the only species with a notable population with the genetic
| mutation that allows some of us to digest it - there's no
| competitive advantage to that mutation in most other
| mammals, because where would they even obtain milk?
| hypertele-Xii wrote:
| The specific enzyme that breaks lactose is lactase. It's
| built from almost 2000 amino acids. In comparison, Alpha-
| Amylase, the enzyme that breaks starch, is much smaller.
| Couldn't find an exact count but it appears in the
| ballpark of 200.
| the_af wrote:
| I think it's just that mammals don't drink milk once they
| are weaned.
| easytiger wrote:
| What does lactose tolerance have to do with "bad" milk?
| starwind wrote:
| You are correct. It's likely that the majority of humans have
| been lactose intolerant for human history. It's primarily
| people of Northern European descent that are not lactose
| intolerant, but lactose intolerance is very common outside of
| those groups
| hprotagonist wrote:
| and west african; by two entirely separate mechanisms,
| which i've always found to be quite cool.
| chimeracoder wrote:
| > and west african; by two entirely separate mechanisms,
| which i've always found to be quite cool.
|
| What's the separate mechanism? I'm only aware of one set
| of genes coding for adult lactase production.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17159977/
| flir wrote:
| I wonder if there's any advantage to inheriting both
| mechanisms.
| urthor wrote:
| Zero added sweetener, straight Greek yoghurt. Absolutely
| sublime.
|
| To the typical North American diet it tastes incredibly foreign
| because the US of A is _drenched_ in sweeteners.
|
| But unsweetened foods just taste beautiful once you get used to
| them.
| smackeyacky wrote:
| Its amazing the incredible, over the top flavor that highly
| processed junk food has. Commercial Corn chips and the like
| are so over flavoured, but you don't notice until you give
| them up for a while.
| asimpletune wrote:
| I spent two months in Turkey and can confirm this. The
| national drink is called Ayran, and it's not only fantastic
| tasting and cheap but full of nutrition.
| infologics wrote:
| LightG wrote:
| Interesting. Perhaps someone could do a geographical survey of
| people with IBD (Colitis / Chrons / etc).
| db1234 wrote:
| Could this explain trends like increasing food allergies in
| countries where more and more people are becoming urban dwellers?
| prometheus76 wrote:
| There's a guy (Jasper Lawrence, who had a horrible allergy
| problem) had heard of a study where they were testing to see if
| allergies was related to parasites. He was rejected from the
| study, so, long story short, he ended up flying to northern
| Africa and walking around barefoot to get hookworm. He now
| monitors and manages his hookworm infection with low doses of
| anti-parasite medication, and he sells soil infected with
| hookworms so that you, too, can get infected by hookworm and
| reduce/eliminate your allergies. Oh, and his allergies are
| gone.
|
| I read about it here: https://www.ksl.com/article/20838871/man-
| infects-self-with-h...
|
| But there are lots of stories and some studies on the subject
| as well. The original hypothesis was proposed in 1989 by David
| P Strachan. According to the theory, many modern diseases have
| gotten out of hand and are rapidly growing in industrialized
| western countries because of chlorinated drinking water,
| vaccines, antibiotics and the sterile environment of early
| childhood. Moreover, it is theorized that since we have become
| so good at preventing infections, we have upset the internal
| balance and ecology in our bodies. One missing element of
| hyper-clean and sterile environments is that our inflammatory
| responses do not function as they should. Parasites and
| bacteria play a symbiotic role in preserving our health.
| noodles_nomore wrote:
| He originally posted his story on kuro5hin[1]. It's an
| interesting read. He was interested in the worm because, for
| its survival, it has evolved a mechanism to disable the
| host's immune system in a particular way that eliminates
| allergies. At the time he wrote that nobody knows how the
| worm does it. Now that we can do similar things with
| monoclonal antibodies, I wonder if the mechanism is similar.
|
| [1] http://web.archive.org/web/20151205143301/http://www.kuro
| 5hi...
| woodruffw wrote:
| Please, for the love of all that is good and holy, do not
| give yourself hookworms.
| theonething wrote:
| I get they are bad, but you seem to speak from experience,
| either yours or others. Out of curiosity, why not? What can
| happen?
| woodruffw wrote:
| The history of hookworms in the US is the history of
| millions of intellectually and physically stunted
| children and adults[1].
|
| [1]: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/how-a-worm-
| gave-the-so...
| gdudeman wrote:
| There is a great Radiolab show about both the South and
| modern research into hookworms.
|
| If you have 2-10 hookworms and eat a modern diet (higher
| in iron), you're probably going to be fine.
|
| If you have 30-50, you're going to have abdominal
| discomfort and some side effects.
|
| If you have insane allergies or autoimmune disease, the
| risk/reward seems pretty incredible.
|
| Worst case scenario if you're an adult with hookworms is
| you take some antibiotics and they go away.
|
| This https://twitter.com/jimmybernot/status/1354443837897
| 388033 is one person's story about participating in those
| studies.
| seraphsf wrote:
| I know a person who contracted a transient parasite
| infection, possibly hookworm, while doing research in Africa
| and walking around barefoot. In the decade+ since, they've
| suffered terribly from debilitating and incurable auto-immune
| diseases brought on by the initial parasite infection.
|
| So, YMMV.
| prometheus76 wrote:
| I agree that caution is in order. The question above just
| reminded me of the story so I thought I'd pass it along
| because it was from 2012.
| CodeBeater wrote:
| I can only imagine how desperate he must have been. Truly
| debilitating levels of allergy.
| UberFly wrote:
| "he sells soil infected with hookworms so that you, too, can
| get infected by hookworm"
|
| Well, when Fry ate the truck-stop egg-salad sandwich in a
| Futurama episode the worms he ingested really helped him, so
| sign me up!
| epgui wrote:
| It's not impossible, and it might even be plausible... But it's
| a really, really difficult question.
|
| People outside of science: don't make the mistake of thinking
| that scientists haven't thought about this before! haha
| bejelentkezni wrote:
| What is that supposed to mean?
| monocasa wrote:
| That it's certainly a valid thought with the information we
| have, and is being thought about, but requires further
| investigation to make an affirmative statement.
| epgui wrote:
| ^ This is the best explanation of what I meant.
| [deleted]
| timfsu wrote:
| Guessing that this means there are a lot of confounding
| variables other than gut biome (environment, diet,
| genetics, etc) that are very difficult to isolate to prove
| causation, as opposed to correlation.
| K0SM0S wrote:
| Gut biome being one of the most promising area of
| research, whose earth-shattering potential is about on
| par with the sheer complexity of the problem.
|
| If you thought ML was difficult, try modeling a human
| being's digestive tube from mouth to anus down to the
| cell: welcome to a category of problems where climate and
| gravity are the "simple" ones.
|
| On the other side of that space though, potentially the
| promise to increase by orders of magnitude our mastery of
| human condition both biologically and experientially.
| moistly wrote:
| We are a symbiote.
| deepstack wrote:
| Bingo, we are just bunch of bacteria walking around. Some
| organism become symbiotic over time like mitochondria, so
| it go incorporated into our cells to make energy. The
| whole concept that we as human-being is one organism
| needs to be revisited.
| epgui wrote:
| This is already understood, it's not like scientists
| aren't aware.
|
| The simplified concept of humans being one organism will
| continue to be taught nonetheless, because it's extremely
| useful, and not even wrong in most contexts in which it's
| applied.
|
| There's nothing special about this, you can say the same
| thing about any simple model in biology: that the brain
| is an organ inside the head is a simplification, any
| diagram of a homeostatic system or metabolic pathway that
| fits on a single page is a simplification, the "central
| dogma" of DNA -> RNA -> protein is a simplification...
|
| All of these things are well-known. They continue to be
| used as models, because, well... they're useful models.
| And there's nothing wrong with that!
| K0SM0S wrote:
| Even more generally, reductionism _works_ but with known
| limitations which warrant a more holistic approach, and
| we can 't work our way out of most real-world problems
| without this multi-layered approach. _Welcome to
| empiricism in complex systems._
| wizofaus wrote:
| I'm willing to go out on a limb and suggest that the
| workings of the human brain are still far more complex
| than that of our digestive system. If the amount of
| effort that has been put into trying to emulate the
| former with software had been put instead into trying to
| emulate the latter, I reckon we'd pretty much have it
| cracked by now (as in, you could feed some tool info
| corresponding to all the inputs into our digestive system
| and it would be able to spit out exactly what outputs
| would be produced in the average human). But unlike
| AI/ML, not enough people, ahem, give a shit...
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Well of course it's obvious that we're not carnivorous our
| ancestors didn't eat meat and always used to go to the
| pharmacy to get their iron and B vitamin supplements
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| Plenty of both iron and vitamin B in plant-based food.
|
| You really believe we hunted big game so much? With what?
| Sticks and stones? How did we catch them with our weak
| legs? How the hell did we skin them or eat their raw flesh?
| Cooking wasn't a thing for a long time.
|
| And why don't we eat the animal meat raw? Don't you love it
| when you see the dead, rotting carcas all open and blody?
|
| I sure don't. And neither would you, unless you were
| starving in the middle of winter.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I don't know I meet a lot of people that say that there
| is a lot of iron and B in plants but all the vegan I met
| working were always taking supplements, maybe if you tell
| me what are the plants with B12 and iron I can pass over
| the info next time I see one of them
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| There is abundance of iron in spinach, nettle and other
| similar plants.
|
| For the b12 needs, eat some algae or even dirt. Yes,
| dirt. Plenty of dirt on a plant's root, which ancient
| humans ate like no tomorrow.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Eating dirt seems much more natural than eating animals,
| I guess they discovered the fire to cook the dirt then, i
| guess tonight I found the reason why vegans are full of
| shit :D
|
| Ps just searched for 'dirt b12' on ddg and the first
| website is an ad for b12 supplements
| fosk wrote:
| Humans used to exhaust their prey. Once the prey is
| exhausted - in the absence of better tools - pick a rock
| and hit the head of the animal until it dies.
|
| There are videos of animals (like deers) so exhausted
| they just sit there while a lion eats them alive: they
| are not moving, they are not standing up, they are just
| sitting there watching another animal eating their guts
| alive. Just like that.
|
| You can eat meat raw as long as it's fresh (just killed),
| likewise we eat raw fish as long as it's fresh. Carpaccio
| is raw meat, for example, and very popular too.
|
| We were eating less meat - for sure - since cutting and
| digesting raw meat takes longer. But I guess we were also
| eating less of everything to begin with.
| moistly wrote:
| > You really believe we hunted big game so much?
|
| I mean there's proof we hunted dinosaurs to extinction,
| so yah, we hunted down all the big game. Indians hunted
| bison, most everyone hunted elk and deer, humanity grew
| up on meat.
|
| Edit: Eskimo hunting freakin' whales, every Nat Geo
| special on tribal peoples show them hunting for daily
| meat, arrowheads and napping knives and spears found in
| ancient caves...
| gilmore606 wrote:
| > there's proof we hunted dinosaurs to extinction
|
| Gosh, really?
| moistly wrote:
| It's a shame that HN doesn't recognize a joke answer to a
| statement as silly as "do you really believe we hunted
| big game."
| wheelerof4te wrote:
| "I mean there's proof we hunted dinosaurs to extinction,
| so yah, we hunted down all the big game."
|
| Really? How did we do that when all dinosaurs (except the
| birds) died off ~65 millions of years before our species
| even began?
| bayesian_horse wrote:
| I've heard fecal transplants are the latest shit in healthcare...
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Only the bad ones, I hope
| bmj wrote:
| Requisite xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1471/
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