[HN Gopher] Does the microbiome hold the key to chronic fatigue ...
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Does the microbiome hold the key to chronic fatigue syndrome?
Author : vincvinc
Score : 64 points
Date : 2023-07-14 17:41 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| [deleted]
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I hope they figure something out ::slams 5th cup of coffee::
| GordonS wrote:
| Do you have CFS? Personally, I find that coffee doesn't do very
| much to help.
| [deleted]
| rednerrus wrote:
| Doesn't it actually make it worse. The chronic stimulation of
| Catecholamines, especially dopamine is going to lead to
| chronic fatigue.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| I don't know. I've been chronically tired for years now. It's
| spanned from when I was military running 5 miles a day annd
| eating great, to periods of eating bad and barely exercising.
|
| Life style doesn't seem to effect it.
| digging wrote:
| Any chance you have ADHD? I learned (far later in life than
| I would have liked) that I have ADHD and that it is one of
| the biggest reasons I'm almost always tired or even
| exhausted. Brain's just thinking too hard/inefficiently. (I
| have other contributing factors, but this one is
| significant and fairly obvious). Still can't get treatment,
| but the awareness has helped me work around it somewhat, by
| removing stressors and taking time to relax and/or
| hyperfocus.
| TeffenEllis wrote:
| Seconding for for ADHD and narcolepsy. I had a sleep
| study done a few years back that came up borderline
| positive. Doctor had me try a few meds out but the one
| that really stuck was Vyvanse (basically a slow release
| pro-drug of Adderall). Suddenly I'm not having sleep
| attacks every time I sit down, or even feeling like my
| head is made of bricks.
|
| I grew up in a family that didn't believe in ADHD so I
| would cope with excessive amounts of caffeine. It's
| definitely worth looking into if you have the slightest
| suspicion.
|
| Also don't get too caught up in passing the MSLT.
| Personally, I think it's barely medical science, but it's
| a part of getting a diagnosis and some insights into how
| your brain is (or isn't) sleeping.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Have both ADHD and Sleep Apnea, both are treated (CPAP
| and Addral)
| devinprater wrote:
| Wait that's not just me? Holy crap.
| mfer wrote:
| I've been reading about health and all of this stuff for a
| bit now. Some things I learned...
|
| 1. Sleep is massively important. Not getting enough, sleep
| Apnea, and other things that mess with sleep will lead to
| feeling tired.
|
| 2. Diet matters. What most people consider healthy is often
| not all that healthy. You can read about the gut/brain
| connection. To keep the gut in healthy shape you needs
| plenty of fiber and micro nutrients found in things like
| vegetables and whole grains. Doctors aren't trained much in
| this stuff but nutritionists are.
|
| 3. I personally found that drinking too much coffee lead to
| it. I almost needed the coffee to feel awake. When I broke
| myself of that (I have limited amounts of coffee now) I had
| more energy. I cut off coffee cold turkey. Was not fun.
|
| 4. ADHD can lead to feeling tired.
| isykt wrote:
| Have you been tested for sleep apnea? This can affect even
| people who aren't overweight.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| Yeah I was diagnosed and have used a cpap consistently
| for years
| RandomTisk wrote:
| In the last couple years I've had to overhaul my diet due
| to sudden onset of all kinds of food allergies since COVID.
| I used to be chronically tired especially in the
| afternoons. I now eat very little sugar and no corn
| syrup/HFCS at all and I've made two interesting
| observations: My cravings for sweets are virtually zero and
| my energy levels are stable all day.
|
| There are exceptions but for the most part I'm almost never
| tired during the day anymore unless I worked out a lot. My
| energy isn't exactly bouncing me off any walls but it's a
| noticable improvement.
| ipunchghosts wrote:
| Folks in Maureen's group at Cornell have been looking at this for
| at least 10 years. There are changes but the research isn't
| replicable nor can people predict the changes.
| thedailymail wrote:
| Is there a sex-specific difference in gut immunity that would
| account for the much higher prevalence of CFS in women?
| pella wrote:
| imho: this is a slightly better link:
|
| "Studies find that microbiome changes may be a signature for
| ME/CFS"
|
| Wednesday, February 8, 2023
|
| NIH-funded studies link altered gut microbes to debilitating
| chronic disease.
|
| https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/studies-find-m...
|
| (1); Guo, et al. Deficient butyrate-producing capacity in the gut
| microbiome is associated with bacterial network disturbances and
| fatigue symptoms in ME/CFS. Cell Host & Microbe, February 8,
| 2023. DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2023.01.004. https://www.cell.com/cell-
| host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(2...
|
| (2); Xiong, et al. Multi-'omics of host-microbiome interactions
| in short- and long-term Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue
| Syndrome (ME/CFS). Cell Host & Microbe, February 8, 2023. DOI:
| 10.1016/j.chom.2023.01.001. https://www.cell.com/cell-host-
| microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(2...
| noyeastguy wrote:
| [flagged]
| Jacky4Chan wrote:
| Source?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Not to be the tool of Big Yeast or anything, but single-purpose
| accounts aren't allowed on HN. That's because pursuing a fixed,
| pre-existing agenda is incompatible with the curious
| conversation we want on HN, which is unpredictable and free
| ranging. So I'm afraid we have to ban this account.
|
| If you want to participate as a community member--i.e. posting
| and discussing on a variety of topics of interest as curiosity
| moves you--you're of course welcome. A little yeast or no-yeast
| is reasonable as part of a mix alongside everything else, but
| we don't want campaigns here.
| ilya_m wrote:
| Betteridge's law of headlines: "Any headline that ends in a
| question mark can be answered by the word no."
| accoil wrote:
| Betteridge's corollary: "any headline that ends in a question
| mark will have a comment pointing out Betteridge's law when
| linked to in a forum."
| ben_w wrote:
| Goodhart's law of headlines:
|
| Any quick measure for recognising and avoiding clickbait,
| when widely shared and applied, stops being a good measure.
| jsbisviewtiful wrote:
| I always find these articles about "the microbiome being the key
| to a healthcare revolution" to be kind of annoying and just
| repetitive info.
|
| If a person's diet consists of Diet Coke, high carb/fat/sugar
| processed foods, 14 servings of bacon or beef a week and alcohol
| every other day with no exercise _they are going to feel like
| shit_. Leafy greens, fruits, less meat and less breads with some
| exercise would do anyone wonders - especially for their
| microbiome.
|
| These articles and ideas on the microbiome have been coming out
| for at least 10 years and the realistic takeaway from the
| research has always been _make healthier decisions and you'll be
| healthier_. It's just never seemed _that_ revolutionary, aside
| from the microbiome and mental health connections, which are
| interesting but still the same message.
| acuozzo wrote:
| > _make healthier decisions and you'll be healthier_
|
| > aside from the microbiome and mental health connections
|
| Conjecture: If our microbiome has the ability to impact our
| mental health, then it most certainly is possible for an
| unhealthy microbiome to rob individuals of the willpower
| necessary to maintain the discipline for their healthier
| decisions to bear fruit; a kind of self-preservation, perhaps.
|
| The behavioral changes of toxoplasmosis-afflicted individuals
| suggests to me that these little buggers can effect complex
| change.
| DANmode wrote:
| Until I stop getting surprised looks when I explain that
| probiotics and proper dietary fiber effectively stop bad
| bacteria from eating your gut lining, causing bowel (and often
| systemic) inflammation, I hope one of these posts makes it to
| front-page weekly.
|
| Hopefully daily.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| What interests me is the possibility that over time you can
| cause certain strains of beneficial bacteria to go extinct in
| your gut, so you can't repopulate it by correcting your diet.
| And if that bacteria is initially populated by the mother, if
| she already has some of those strains go extinct when she has
| children, they could be born without those strains at all. But
| that's all a wild guess on my part.
| InSteady wrote:
| You are being a bit reductive. For understandable reasons: the
| articles actually are repetitive and not terribly information-
| dense. This is because most of what sciences has uncovered
| about the microbiome so far does not translate well to
| journalism even when it's directed at a semi-technical
| audience.
|
| The microbiome is insanely complex. In some ways I believe the
| GI tract is a more complex system than the brain (in terms of
| more variables all cross-interacting which has significant and
| sometimes severe influence on health outcomes). We are a long
| way away from fully understanding any single aspect of it, let
| alone how multiple aspects of the GI or microbiome work in
| concert.
|
| The microbiome is insanely important in human health. It is the
| absolutely critical foundation of our entire immune system, for
| one thing. Yes, a good diet is foundational to health. But if
| you encounter enough microbiome research, it becomes quite
| clear that a proper diet is not a magical cure for a whole lot
| of severe diseases and disorders in which the microbiome is
| moderately to strongly implicated. And various extreme and fad
| diets don't really bear out in the research to cure many let
| alone most diseases in large populations (aside from the few
| obvious ones, type II diabetes, obesity, lower risk of heart
| disease, etc). Eating well is better than eating like crap just
| like not slamming heroin is better than becoming a junkie.. but
| that is not where insights from microbiome research begin nor
| end.
|
| If you get impatient with the slow pace of actionable results,
| do keep in mind that researchers are only looking closely at
| only a fraction of the 1,000 or so species that make up the 100
| trillion bacterial cells in it, and almost none of the fungi
| and yeast nor the viruses that also compose it (the latter of
| which are now believed to vastly outnumber the 100 trillion
| bacteria!). All of these critters produce side effects -
| whether good or bad (eg bacterial and fungal metabolites, many
| of which are critical to host immune signaling and other
| essential aspects of human health).
| renewiltord wrote:
| I agree that it's being touted as a panacea and The One Cause.
| But I think that you can do all those things and still have
| life suck. For instance, Crohn's and celiac both look similar
| to the untrained eye. You have digestive trouble. And some
| generic "just eat healthy" advice won't have worked properly.
| Literally cutting out gluten would instantly work wonders for
| celiac, not "less bread, less meat". Literally just "no bread
| from sources with gluten". So, we just go through and find
| causes and more precisely intervene.
|
| And the worst thing is that someone would have gotten a bit
| better with celiac's if they eat less bread, but the problem
| will have been unsolved. Way better to identify precisely and
| they can do all these other things and just avoid bread with
| gluten and can enjoy the occasional matcha mochi waffle.
| bequanna wrote:
| I mostly agree, but I think we need to start
| discussing/researching the effects of nuking our gut bacteria
| with antibiotics and the herbicides like Roundup which are
| present in our food.
|
| The latter is obviously pretty tough because you risk upsetting
| the ag industrial complex who would like to continue spraying
| everything with Roundup and claiming it has no harms
| whatsoever.
| dundarious wrote:
| They find it easier to directly monetize a pill for a chronic
| condition, instead of preventing the chronic condition.
| throwawaycities wrote:
| There is a study that would really annoy you then, the subjects
| were pairs of identical twin children throughout Africa. They
| would find twins where one was perfectly healthy and the other
| was malnourished. The reasoning is both nature (genetics) and
| nurture (diet) were nearly identical. The difference is nearly
| all cases was the makeup of the microbiome leading to one child
| being healthy & the other malnourished with all other things
| being equal. Per your comment it would seem no amount of
| dietary changes would makeup the difference, plus it probably
| also highlights a possible bias that a bunch of malnourished
| kids around the world can simply make "healthy" dietary
| changes.
|
| 10 years really isn't a significant period of time to study
| something as complex as the microbiome. Don't be surprised if
| it continues to be studied for decades, just as we have been
| studying genetics for decades and despite all the incredible
| advancements and understanding we still have more questions
| than we have answers.
| elmomle wrote:
| That's interesting--it's certainly plausible, even probable,
| sense that good diet is necessary but not sufficient to
| ensure that the microbiome is in a personally-optimal state.
| Please give a citation if you can!
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Did the study suggest what had damaged one of the twins
| biome? I can only assume it was antibiotics.
| deepsun wrote:
| The correlation you presented is obvious, but there ia also a
| question of what causes what.
|
| Speaking for the devil, there might be a case when biome makes
| people irresistive to Coke, sugar and bacon, through, say,
| depressive/impulsive shots.
|
| Fortunately, unlike astronomy, we can test it, e.g. by
| injecting a different biome without touching anything else, and
| see what happens on its own.
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