Then I had better stop surfing Hacker News ;)
Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
31–40 of 90 posts
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Quality of salt It's not on its face impossible for sea and rock salt to differ in trace minerals, but be aware that the salt itself is the same in both. From the medical stuff you mentioned it sounds like it's the salt itself that's having the beneficial effect and not the other minerals. Although, I do see an oft-overlooked wrinkle to it: the costs of these minor changes are so small that the odds that there might…
I think the other trace minerals matter. But I also think simply consuming kosher or canning and pickling salt is better than consuming standard table salt. Standard table salt typically has iodine added. It also has a chemical added to make it pour easier. This may not have a notable impact on a healthy person, but if you genetically misprocess various things and are medically prescribed a high amount of salt, that…
Adding iodine has generally been a huge success.
Wikipedia: "Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities."
Wikipedia also lists sources for this claim.
Edit: if anybodys doctor told them to be careful with iodine then they should listen to their doctor instead of listening to random strangers on the internet. I'm just pointing out that there is good reasons why we started adding iodine to salt.
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, the most surprising bit was in the Conflicts of interest section: "Professor Hawkey [from the Institution of Microbiology and Infection, University of Birmingham] reports grants and personal fees from Eumedica, grants and personal fees from Pfizer, personal fees from Merck, personal fees from Novartis, personal fees from Magus Communications, personal fees from Bio Merieux, personal fees from Wyth, from Becto…
Amazing that doctors can get away with NOT disclosing any of that information when prescribing any medicine to patients. I would certainly want to know what they get from X when they prescribe a certain drug with other alternatives around.
I agree, but at least the data is out there.
> The Open Payments Search Tool is used to search payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians and teaching hospitals.
> A federal government website managed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not a mental model that CF is something in the lungs; it’s a treatment aimed at the pulmonary manifestations of the disease. No one is positing that saline inhalations are going to preserve pancreatic function, but that’s not because they forgot about the pancreas. People with CF get a high salt diet because the same transporter defect causes an inability to reclaim sodium from sweat. This results in an inabilit…
What can be absorbed through the skin depends on various factors: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_(skin) People with CF are prone to aquagenic wrinkling. In layman's terms, they get extremely pruney when they bath. This suggests they absorb the water at a higher rate than is normal due to their genetic disorder impacting epidermal function. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle... No…
> What I recall reading is that when people with CF surfed, their general prognosis was overall better.
Why would you think of sea salt as the relevant factor instead of the very well known positive effects on breathing and lung capacity caused by swimming?
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the other trace minerals matter. But I also think simply consuming kosher or canning and pickling salt is better than consuming standard table salt. Standard table salt typically has iodine added. It also has a chemical added to make it pour easier. This may not have a notable impact on a healthy person, but if you genetically misprocess various things and are medically prescribed a high amount of salt, that…
Adding iodine has generally been a huge success. Wikipedia: "Worldwide, iodine deficiency affects about two billion people and is the leading preventable cause of intellectual and developmental disabilities." Wikipedia also lists sources for this claim. Edit: if anybodys doctor told them to be careful with iodine then they should listen to their doctor instead of listening to random strangers on the internet. I'm jus…
I am not talking about the general case. I am talking about two things: 1. The impact on me in specific, and I personally do not tolerate iodine well and 2. The impact on people with CF, who are told by their doctors to consume a high salt diet and there is zero commentary on the quality of the salt or the additives in it.
As far as I know, there are no studies on how consuming those additives in high quantities impacts this population with a genetic disorder that causes them to misprocess a number of different things.
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
What can be absorbed through the skin depends on various factors: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absorption_(skin) People with CF are prone to aquagenic wrinkling. In layman's terms, they get extremely pruney when they bath. This suggests they absorb the water at a higher rate than is normal due to their genetic disorder impacting epidermal function. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamadermatology/fullarticle... No…
> What I recall reading is that when people with CF surfed, their general prognosis was overall better. Why would you think of sea salt as the relevant factor instead of the very well known positive effects on breathing and lung capacity caused by swimming?
Firsthand personal experience. I was consuming sea salt to great benefit and looking for studies that might cast light on the relationship between sea salt and cystic fibrosis.
Exercise also has played a significant role in my improvement. I am not discounting the impact it has. I just am baffled that they found that surfing benefits people with CF and their primary takeaway is that it must be beneficial to breath damp, salty air. There is a lot more going on when you surf than breathing damp, salty air. But that's the piece they turned into a medically prescribed treatment.
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#37Then I had better stop surfing Hacker News ;)
It does seem to be full of shit lately. Even 6 months ago no way this article would get upvoted to front page. These mildly-interesting scienc-ey articles unrelated to computers/tech have no place on HN in my opinion, it's just noise.
Victim of it's own success I guess.
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazing that doctors can get away with NOT disclosing any of that information when prescribing any medicine to patients. I would certainly want to know what they get from X when they prescribe a certain drug with other alternatives around.
I agree, but at least the data is out there. > The Open Payments Search Tool is used to search payments made by drug and medical device companies to physicians and teaching hospitals. > A federal government website managed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/
> I agree, but at least the data is out there.
Not in every country...
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazing that doctors can get away with NOT disclosing any of that information when prescribing any medicine to patients. I would certainly want to know what they get from X when they prescribe a certain drug with other alternatives around.
As I understand it, they don't get paid for prescribing stuff. Rather, they get paid for persuading other physicians to prescribe stuff. Through speaking fees, payments for putting their name on favorable publications, and so on.
> As I understand it, they don't get paid for prescribing stuff.
Yes, this kind of practice has now been outlawed in many developed countries, but there are tons of indirect ways a doctor can get "favors" from a company. Free lunches, invitation to seminars, scholarships, speaking fees as you mention (which can be pretty, pretty generous), publications, reviews, advisory boards, etc...
So, let's not be naive. Patients should be aware of all this kind of things because they can clearly influence doctors in their choice of drugs.
Re: Surfers three times more likely to have antibiotic-resistant bacteria in guts
#40Unfortunately, I do not need to see a study to know that the waters near Lima (Where I live & surf) are full of crap.. That said, the healthy effects of the exercising on the sea must counteract the bacteria, because I don't know a healthier group than the surfing community around here.
That said, the healthy effects of the exercising on the sea must counteract the bacteria That was my initial thought as well, basically. Cystic fibrosis is a deadly genetic disorder that makes one vulnerable to infection. Last I checked, the life expectancy was about 37 in the US, though someone on HN recently said it is now age 40. People with CF who surfed had such a better prognosis than average that it led to dev…
>But everyone tells me that's anecdotal
Most people have NO idea/sympathy for what its really like to have a disease/condition that medicine doesn't totally understand yet.. including doctors.
The bar for a certain treatment to be scientifically accepted is rightly pretty high - studies/research etc. that takes decades to do.
But as a patient, when medicine has no real treatments to offer you, of course our own bar should be lower! Even if sea salt hasn't been studied in a million people with double-blind placebo-controlled blah-blah studies, this kind of experiment has zero downside and potentially a very high upside - you would have to be crazy not to try it.
Anyways, just want to offer my sympathy and ranting as someone with a rare and ill-understood disease. Tim Ferriss and the whole "bio-hacking" movement also have this idea of "you are an N of 1" - we don't need permission to do basic experiments on ourselves. And for many millions of people for whom medicine has no answers, this really is the best we have.
Please keep talking about what works and what doesn't work for you regardless of haters - anecdotes can help others and the right anecdotes will someday become experiments, which will one day become well-accepted "science". Maybe in a 100 years medicine will recommend sea salt for CF, it will be just as effective then as it is now, and all that will have changed is it will have the "REAL SCIENCE TM" stamp of approval.