Here is a case where the research is lagging the knowledge base. Every holistic MD has, for decades, preached eating foods enriched with healthy bacteria. What we need now is research that looks at outcomes.
> Every holistic MD has, for decades, preached eating foods enriched with healthy bacteria.
The problem with this is that they are frequently wrong. Many people respond poorly to these type of probiotic diets, and holistic medicine has observed outcomes in a small portion of the population and thus encouraged us to generalize them. All we really know about the gut is that it is extremely complicated and that in terms of gut conditions' ("IBS") relationship with gut microbiota they run the gamut. Many of them are either not directly affected by microbiota population (ie: nerve damage, circadian rhythm ), or gut microbiota are part of a multi-causal problem.
We need more science like this, that reaffirms what we "know," not more holistic bullshit.
Source: IBS sufferer who has spent years talking to GI specialists and reading research papers about this stuff. It's hard, and as soon as you think you have it figured out it smacks you in the face with another factor you haven't considered.
These results indicate that you can eat anything, not just foods enriched with bacteria like probiotic yogurt (which has questionable benefits in itself http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6180/do-probioti...), and observe a change in gut microbiota.
"Turnbaugh’s team found that switching mice to a high-sugar, high-fat diet reshaped the abundance of the community of microbes in the gut to a new, stable makeup within three days, in a reproducible manner that was largely independent of genetic differences among individual mice."
The real yogurt is the Bulgarian yogurt, not low-fat high-sugar ones sold at store in the States. Only an idiot will eat a probiotic "yogurt" with 30g of sugars in the small container and think they are doing good to their health! Fortunately, there are two brands [0] of the original sold at Whole Foods today (one, unfortunately, available only on the East Coast [1]), but they are too sour for the American to like. Does it have questionable benefits? Maybe you should try to research how yogurt got the attention of medicine. It was eaten by my predecessors for centuries and the benefits are without doubt.
When babies are born, their gut is sterile before it gets colonized from outside. The diet definitely can affect which strain will outgrow others, but all gut bacteria is exogenous.
This is true and might be surprising that Bulgarians are not accustomed to make their own yogurt, because stores are full of high-quality one that's cheap (unlike the $6-7/jar in the States). Kefir is also great and can also be made at home. My favorite is Lifeway [0].
Not sure I follow - is there a suggestion that you can only eat 'foods enriched with bacteria like probiotic yogurt'? I would think the less questionable benefits of eating yogurt would be calcium and protein, at the very least. This study didn't try to feed any sort of special 'probiotic' foods to the mice.
It's too bad you're being downmodded. I'll state what I think you're getting at: "holistic MDs have, for decades, hypothesized that the link between foods and gut bacteria is much more important than the scientific community yet realizes". Everything else they did from that point, yes you can call it "bullshit" because it was conjectural/anecdotal/etc, so downmod away for daring to suggest that such a morally bankrupt bunch as the holistic community might have had the faintest conjecture about something that turned out to be scientifically significant.
If you put a chip down on every number at a roulette wheel, you can experience the joy of winning with nearly every spin! Yet, strangely, the stack of chips dwindles instead of grows....
The problem with this is that they are frequently wrong. Many people respond poorly to these type of probiotic diets, and holistic medicine has observed outcomes in a small portion of the population and thus encouraged us to generalize them. All we really know about the gut is that it is extremely complicated and that in terms of gut conditions' ("IBS") relationship with gut microbiota they run the gamut. Many of them are either not directly affected by microbiota population (ie: nerve damage, circadian rhythm ), or gut microbiota are part of a multi-causal problem.
We need more science like this, that reaffirms what we "know," not more holistic bullshit.
Source: IBS sufferer who has spent years talking to GI specialists and reading research papers about this stuff. It's hard, and as soon as you think you have it figured out it smacks you in the face with another factor you haven't considered.