[HN Gopher] Mother's gut microbiome during pregnancy shapes baby...
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       Mother's gut microbiome during pregnancy shapes baby's brain
       development
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 51 points
       Date   : 2024-09-02 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (medicalxpress.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (medicalxpress.com)
        
       | Vinnl wrote:
       | in mice.
        
       | brightball wrote:
       | Makes perfect sense to me.
        
       | moomin wrote:
       | I feel like just linking to the article that explained why gut
       | microbiome research is so difficult.
        
         | pazimzadeh wrote:
         | Why?
        
         | zug_zug wrote:
         | I read that article, but this article cleverly circumvents the
         | challenges that article raised.
         | 
         | By not needing measure the microbiome the testing pains are
         | avoided. And though mouse models aren't human, they are
         | effectively blinded.
         | 
         | Seems like a very worthy finding that adds to the legitimacy of
         | microbiome's significance.
        
           | tlb wrote:
           | However, they're comparing against no gut bacteria at all, a
           | condition never found in nature. Gut bacteria are necessary
           | for mammals to digest some foods. "Eliminating all gut
           | bacteria harms fetal development" could be another title.
           | 
           | It'd be more interesting to compare different plausible
           | microbiomes.
        
       | kylehotchkiss wrote:
       | My first curiosity was not satisfied by CMD-F "kombucha".
        
       | DataDive wrote:
       | Having no bacteria in the gut leads to worse development ... I
       | mean ... duh ... what is the discovery here?
       | 
       | It is well known that bacteria are necessary to digest food.
        
       | j_bum wrote:
       | _In mice_ [0]
       | 
       | What translational value was gained from this study? This is lost
       | on me.
       | 
       | We take germ-free pregnant female mice, with no gut microbiome.
       | We then add _B. breve_ UCC2003 to the control group. We observe
       | that the metabolic profiles of the fetal brains from the
       | experimental group are altered.
       | 
       | Great. Now we can say, with slightly more confidence, "A fetus in
       | a pregnant biological female human with only _B. breve_ UCC2003
       | in their gut microbiome _may_ exhibit altered brain metabolic
       | profiles." Did we need to euthanize 11 pregnant mice (at least)
       | to determine this?
       | 
       | I commend the authors on their reporting and transparency, but
       | truly I do not understand this research.
       | 
       | Clearly I am cynical from my time in academic biomedical
       | research, so perhaps my perception of this research is biased.
       | Happy to hear opposing opinions.
       | 
       | [0] https://x.com/justsaysinmice
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-02 23:00 UTC)