New Scientist: Probiotics are mostly useless and can actually hurt you

I think it goes to show that there is a lot of rubbish out there and we are miles off being able to substantiate the wild claims that you see some “scientists” making

I find gut biome interesting as a concept and follow the research but get frustrated when misleading statements are made ...it seems very convenient to blame all these multiple maladies on something that can’t be proven one way or the other. I suspect this is just fund raising bullshit to secure the next grant. Then ignorant journalists who don’t critically assess evidence make something out of nothing and report it as fact. Then consumers try some kefir or some pill and think they’ve found an effective treatment but it’s actually bias from the misinformation they’ve been fed or some other artifact from a change they’ve made to their diet etc..

At the moment we just have a load of poo and hot air and pretty much zero in terms of real understanding. I suspect we will find something moderately interesting in the next 20 years (vitamin synthesis effects of diet etc) but it probably won’t be anything near as significant as the proponents claim today.

 

I found kefir made me feel worse.

I'm such an idiot and gullible and am daft enough to give most things a try.

However I'm finally getting to the place where I am going to be a bit more discerning and improve my self care

Well that's my current working hypothesis?

Does anybody know whether there are any antibiotics which are kinder to the gut microbiome?
Or is that an oxymoron?

 

If I understand correctly, the kefir mentioned was made with raw milk. I have no opinion one way or another but could it not potentially be something in the raw milk as likely as it could be that it was made into kefir?

 

My takeaway from this was that I wish I’d managed to collect and effectively store a sample of my own gut microbiology when I was adult and healthy. Imagine if I could restore that, wow.
Might not have worked (my new gut might just have rejected the previous organisms) but would have been worth a try.


I think it’s sad and funny that so many people are peddling solutions to the microbiome at this stage in our study of it.

Can you imagine if people were offering a single item that would transform any garden, no matter where, no matter what is there already, into a beautiful and productive healthy kitchen-garden producing enough for the whole household? It’s obviously ridiculous. And we can see our gardens, we have some idea of what’s working and what’s there and how to do something about it.

[I can imagine only one thing that might fall short but perhaps work best for most situations: manure from healthy cows or poultry along with some sort of carbon plus some cold compost (for seed) from an already healthy garden. But we can already see there will be times when even that is not the right answer (native plants where I live don’t like fertiliser, and runoff damages waterways etc).]

We’re nowhere near there with our gut ecology. We don’t even know what a healthy gut consists of on that level.

Let’s learn before we treat?

 

I too have found from painful personal experience that fermented things cause me no end of trouble these days (never before illness). Not just yeast though, almost anything. Including wine, beer, brandy etc.
(But there is a yogurt I get direct from a farm that makes it commercially which is fine. I suspect with a lot of fermented foods there is cross contamination with things that happen to produce something my gut does not like at all.
I can’t even eat food that isn’t perfectly fresh. No oils which could go rancid etc.. I can tell of the fish is fresh today or overnight or whether it has been stored or even inexpertly gutted. Not by taste, by nausea.)

But I still look forward to more understanding of microbiology as it relates to humans. There is merit in the desire to investigate it.

 

I have recently started taking probiotics but I mix them up. Each week I take a different one. I also eat yogurt and plan on starting making Kefir again once I buy new grains. There is a yeast in Kefir that has been shown to colonize in the gut and it helps to keep candida in check.

 

FMT will probably turn out to be the superior method to treat issues with microbiome, which may extend well past diseases of the bowel. It's a shame that perhaps the most promising microbiome therapy is somewhat risky and quite expensive as well, as it seems patients may need periodically new transplants to maintain effects.

 

Yes it’s all a bit pie in the sky at the moment. The thing I’ve never really understood is this....if a subjects microflora was compromised due to metabolic or dietery reasons, transplants wouldn’t necessarily do anything for very long since the flora would adapt back to the conditions that made it that way in the first place. I think the dynamics are fairly complex in terms of population synergies in the different environments of the gut but the theory that you can influence it by dumping another carefully balanced population from another subject with potentially completely different variables at play (when you don’t know the significance of them) seems fundamentally flawed and overly simplistic.


I think diet is probably the best avenue for trying to influence microflora but this appears to be less sexy and far less lucrative in terms if funding.

 

The probiotics available to buy are only lactic acid bacteria that make up just a tiny portion of our overall natural gut flora, 3 or 4% something like that. Most of our gut flora is (or should be) other stuff that you can't get in a tablet or from a fermented food source, so at best any effect of currently available probiotics is going to be quite limited. In my experience most doctors don't even understand what probiotics really are, it's become a trendy prescription based on limited science. In my view.

 

And actually this is not really known either. The studies to date seem to have very little specificity and a lot of generalisations. I’m sure there would be a big difference in gut flora between a population that ate a lot of cultured milk in their diet vs one that had a lot of oily fish vs a vegan vs a trashy western diet of burgers and chips vs a high unrefined carb and meat diet etc.

I don’t think there has been enough done beyond looking at what comes out of the back end at a phyla family or genus level. We really need species level of understanding in situ for different diets to understand what normal actually is.

I think I read somewhere that we think the human gut flora could harbour over 1000 individual species with an individual subject only having around 100-200 of these in common with others. That makes for a lot of variation within “normal”.

And this is before you get down to strains. I think E coli has at least 10 known strains and that’s just one of those 1000 species.

All these studies looking at phyla level for 100 test subjects (or in that order) are really just using the test results to speculate without much to go on.

 

I had been online googling if probiotics are bad thing, And I came across this thread. Long story short...Have high levels of anxiety, tried different
probiotic formula's. Found one that actually helped bring my anxiety down from 80% down to 15%. I could interact with other humans on a level
never attained before. All was well until the migraine's kicked in, The loud ringing in my ears, and Right hand and foot had swollen up until they threatened to seize up. Cut the doses until i finally stopped taking it. Now anxieties have returned worse than ever! Has anyone ever had this happen? I don't where else to go with this. My doctor is no help. Prozac was an option, and is not anymore. Devastating!

 

Sounds like a truly horrible situation. I hope you find the right help.

 

It was clearly some time since you posted this but I just wanted to ask you if you have investigated if you belong to those who have a genetic defect causing a lack of the enzyme DAO? If not, It could be worth reading up on it. I know a guy whose life totally changed after he had found out about this as a cause of his food intolerances. You can buy a bottle of the enzyme and take it before meals.

 

Nope, never thought of that one.

Have considered Histamine in relation to someone who had something like Mast Cell Activation Disorder (=MCAD ... edited from mistakenly writing MCAS)
(ETA: but maybe that’s the same? Anything I can confirm with a blood test or by taking an enzyme to see if it works sounds good to me. Not being sure what it is makes sticking to the ‘rules’ frustrating)

I have definitely not always had food intolerance. I have spent most of my life with a ‘cast-iron gut’, travelled the world from early age and for long periods, lived on a variety of foods, eaten good food most of my life etc. Always (what I now realise was) excellent diegention. So genetics is not obviously it.

That said, some people can be coeliac and not realise til my age - damage needs to happen before symptoms significant (for some people).

I think it might just be a sort of cascade effect: when one system in the body isn’t working well, everything else loses its resilience, its range of tolerance narrows etc. Also, when unwell, it’s more worth the effort to find things that aren’t working well to correct, upping function even a little helps a lot when function is very small.

 

would you remember, what probiotic caused the swellling of hand and leg ?
how long did you take it before that happened ?

when your leg swell, was it only the lower half or tigh too ?
how long did it take until the leg/hand went back to normal ?

and the migraine ... was there any specific side/area of the head, with pounding ?
did it get worse at certain times of the day?

(i never took probiotics, but had something similar, e.g. after taking some ayurvedic herbs)

 

Yes, it was called "Lifted naturals: Mood Boosting Probitotic." The blend is 30 million CFU. with
it listed 9 strains online. It had started working right away. Wow, was like coming into quiet
calm after being in a dark stormy night! It took about 2 weeks for side effects to kick in fully.

Actually, The swelling was localized in my right ankle and wrist area. they didn't really
balloon up, mild swelling with an high arthritic ache. difficult to flex in the bone joints.
It took 3 weeks for it to come back with full mobilty. I still get a bit of ache from time
to time. especially if i overdue the sugar!

The headaches were bad, on a migraine level. full temple areas, both sides. They would kick
in still with only 1/100 of a dose. mostly right after taking lifted. It took 3 weeks+ for them
to go away. That 1st week was rough. Scared that they would never go away.

 

I had never heard of Ayurvedic herbs, I did google and found a page that had some concerns
with that these herbs may have metals. lead, Mercury or Arsenic that can be toxic. This was
under U.S. health and human services (clicked on link at top and took me to a valid webpage)
the actual website is NIH: national center for complementary integrative health. looks like it
might be legit. Not sure if the moderators will let that link stay or not.

 

Thank you!

 

Looking at the probiotic on Amazon, it seems very much like a typical probiotic blend with all common Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium strains. B. infantis in particular, which is included, has helped me with anxiety in the past, so you may want to retest with a brand which only contains B. infantis. The reaction in your ankle sounds odd to be caused by a probiotic, but you never know with ME/CFS. I had a horrible reaction to Prescript Assist, which is a popular soil-based probiotic. It induced a state that felt like sepsis for a week and it felt like all bacteria of the probiotic went straight to my blood. Yet, it's a popular probiotic that healthy people seem to tolerate fine.

 

I might try just the B. Infantis, by itself, i did try a lighter formula with only four strains, Including b.infantis Still same effects.
I thought it odd with the joint pain and slight swelling. lifted has GOS to treat leaky gut. which im not sure if i have. My old
doctor was zero help. She advised not to take anymore, DUH. This without providing an alternative including not renewing Rx for
Prozac. My old pharmacist agrees that these are unusual symptoms for a pre/probiotic. It just should pass through. Hopefully my
new doctor help me zero in on this. (note: I did provide lifted formula to the Pharma)