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Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

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Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#131

Post by astrange »

woodruffw wrote: post #93
mathgeek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

"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.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#132

Post by amanaplanacanal »

rr888 wrote: post #20

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.

Try searching for "soil bacteria Probiotic". Amazon has several products that include lots of bacteria not commonly used in yogurt or similar products.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#133

Post by Sunspark »

thelittleone wrote: post #50
Sunspark wrote: post #14

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 autoimm…

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.

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.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#134

Post by steve_adams_86 »

giantg2 wrote: post #110
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dow…

You may be thinking of this. https://www.newser.com/story/119965/so-do-pickles-really-cau...

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.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#136

Post by woodruffw »

astrange wrote: post #131
woodruffw wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"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.

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/

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#137

Post by lemming »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #108
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

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 s…

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.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#138

Post by baronswindle »

subsubzero wrote: post #103

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-...

> 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.

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#139

Post by wnolens »

trollied wrote: post #38
rr888 wrote: post #20

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.

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

What have you noticed? (I have IBS-C)

Re: Modern city dwellers have lost about half their gut microbes

#140

Post by gdudeman »

woodruffw wrote: post #124
theonething wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get they are bad, but you seem to speak from experience, either yours or others. Out of curiosity, why not? What can happen?

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...

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/1354443837897388033 is one person's story about participating in those studies.

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