5 ms·

Unrelated gut flora personal story: Few years ago I was in bad health. Got sick 4 times a year had a lot of pain going to the bathroom and was in a general sta

by knodi 11y ago

Unrelated gut flora personal story: Few years ago I was in bad health. Got sick 4 times a year had a lot of pain going to the bathroom and was in a general state of depression. Started taking probiotics in 2 weeks I felt happier and my over all health improved. Did some research and found that it is estimated that 90 percent of the body's serotonin is made in the digestive tract. Who knew, get your body right added some probiotics in your diet.

mtalantikite 11y ago
Out of curiosity, which ones do you take? I've been taking them for a few years now and have had similar results as you, although it took a while to find a combination that worked for me personally.
- mariodiana 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, which ones have you taken?
  - sbierwagen 11y ago
    Out of curiosity, mariodiana, do you take probiotics? If so, which ones?
    - mariodiana 11y ago
      Ha! No, I don't.
  - epimetheus 11y ago
    Not GP, but these have worked for me: L. reuteri ATCC PTA 6475[0] L. reuteri DSM 17938[0] Lactobacillus reuteri Protectis[1] [0]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AH3RT9Y http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AH3RT9Y [1]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XUQNN4 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XUQNN4 I was taking others too, as well as some prebiotics but I stopped for awhile and been taking these two again for about a week and already feel much better - at least as good as before when I was taking more.
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  The various Ultimate Flora brands are excellent. They are expensive and you can get them at whole foods. The trick is to get multi-strain LIVE species. Refrigeration seems to help. Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. The industry really needs to clarify this stuff. Independent evaluators need to check out their claims. Live strains will reproduce. There are many tricks to get them to survive the stomach acids: imbed them in gelatin or psyllium. Another trick is to prefeed them in airtight, dark bottle so they're growing before you eat them. Just put it in your pocket for a couple of hours. Clinical trials need to be done to firmly establish efficacy; but I've given this concoction to several people and they were very happy with the results. More research needs to be done on which species of fungi, bacteria , and arachea give good results. The gut microbiome is an interdependent environment. Restoring the balance occasionally may benefit lots of folks.
  - sbierwagen 11y ago
    Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. Incorrect. Probiotics are supposed to contain live, active bacteria: the large "CFU" number on the front stands for "colony forming unit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit Labdoor (which is advertising-supported) tests probiotics based on how accurate their CFU numbers are: https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics (These tests, of course, don't say if the probiotic in question is actually good for you or not.) I've taken both General Biotics Equilibrium and (115 strains, 1 billion CFUs, shipped unrefrigerated) and Renew Life Ultimate Flora Extra Care. (10 strains, 50 billion CFUs, refrigerated) If either of them had any effect at all, I didn't notice it.
    - tosseraccount 11y ago
      Thanks for the clarification and the link. Not surprising to see Ultimate Flora at the top. I'd bet that a lot of these species die on the shelf. The industry might still benefit from consistently labeling as "live" on the bottle if the probiotics are live. I suspect that not everyone has an imbalance that would benefit the user. A good strategy might be to try various species until something works. An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away.
- sunsu 11y ago
  General Biotics: http://www.generalbiotics.com/ http://www.generalbiotics.com/ Real science behind the strains they choose and I've never seen a probiotic with more of them (115 different bacteria).
  - exhilaration 11y ago
    Their CEO posted some HN comments in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600201 I'm waiting for them to post the results of their study.
  - graeme 11y ago
    I've had those. I think they improved my digestion. I have had IBS-like symptoms for years. For a while it was diarrhea. Then it switched to constipation. I could go to the washroom only with coffee. Starting taking these, suddenly was able to use the washroom normally. No coffee needed, finally quit that. No diarrhea. It's been about three weeks. So I doubt it's a coincidence. In a span of that length I would have had multiple problems in the past. Only alternate cause I can think of is that I was reducing coffee before I took them, but still drinking decaf. However, digestion had been entirely the same during this reduction process. And I was on the pills + coffee for about 10 days, with improved digestion, so I suspect the pills.
  - agbujsaoy 11y ago
    For me (Colitis), they made me worse. I had tried many brands, then settled on GB for like 3 months, I kept records, they made it worse. Within two weeks of stopping my symptoms improved.
    - redtuesday 11y ago
      It sounds a little bit disgusting, but have you heard of fecal transplants? I've read that this can help people with clostridium difficle infections if antibiotics don't help (which is kind of 'funny', because patients seem to get clostridum infections after antibiotics therapy...) and research is going on if this can also be used for treatment of colitis and morbus crohn (but I don't know more than that, maybe you can find already published study results about that).
nibs 11y ago
Similar story about gut health rabbit hole and profound quality of life improvement after understanding gut serotonin... I took 23andme and found out I had HLA-DQ2.5 (Celiac gene) making my risk of developing Celiac around 10% (as opposed to near 0% if you don't have it - everyone with the gene cannot process Gliadin, a wheat protein, Celiac is just the most severe set of symptoms). Before this point I was highly critical of people with pretend/made up food sensitivites and ate anything I wanted on the basis that if there was a problem my doctor would tell me. Recently (a few months ago) I stopped eating wheat as an experiment as I had some Celiac-like symptoms showing up more and more. It changed my life. 76% of people with this gene who are not diagnosed with Celiac yet and consume wheat have a serotonin-based psychiatric disorder because the undigested wheat starts acting negatively on the serotonin system, making you volatile and anxious. My diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder took a matter of weeks to disappear. Genetic self awareness and choosing your foods carefully cannot be overstated as a means to improved quality of life.
- mcjiggerlog 11y ago
  To what extent did you stop eating wheat, out of interest? I seem to only be affected (digestive problems) by products that are literally made out of wheat flour (bread, pasta etc) and things that "contain gluten" have no discernible effect on me. Have you needed to go "gluten-free", or just avoid obviously wheat-based foods? Trying to avoid everything that has gluten in it does not sound like a fun way to live. I'm considering trying to cut out wheat-based foods to see how it affects my anxiety, but it'd be good to know whether just cutting out obviously wheat things is pointless.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nibs 11y ago
    I basically got rid of all of it at my house but none of the crazy stuff (some people replace their cookware, etc. I think that is a misunderstanding of the problem). I notice when restaurants use it but it doesn't really ruin my life or make me descend back into bad health. I just notice I am more anxious/blood sugar volatile for a few days after. So I avoid obvious large sources of wheat, but I accept that restaurants regularly use it in sauce, etc. and it causes noticeable but manageable issues. I have the heterozygote version (1 variant of HLA gene) rather than the homozygote version (2 variants of HLA gene) so it is less severe and only affects some of my cells. If you have both variants, your risk of Celiac goes to about 50% and you normally find out early in life. I would also confirm it is not some other category of food sensitivity affecting you - my fiance went through a similar process and found some links to IBS which leads to a low FODMAP diet. Wheat is a FODMAP but other FODMAP foods affected her also where for me it is 100% wheat. TL/DR: obvious wheat things is a big step, I noticed difference in anxiety, skin health, brain fog, focus, migranes, sleep. 80% of those issues for me went away by getting rid of obvious sources at home.
newobj 11y ago
You don't have MTHFR by any chance do you?
frikk 11y ago
Another piece of anecdotal evidence. My wife has had allergy attacks constantly for years and years. Every morning she would wake up and have to blow her nose for a half hour. We started making fermented food (saurkraut, pickles, fermented garlic carrots) and at the same time buying/drinking keefir daily. This was just to be healthy and as a new hobby. However, within a week or two, her allergies subsided substantially. To the point where she would go for weeks at a time without having the morning nose blowing session. When she dials back the intake of fermented foods, allergies come back. We haven't spent much time tracking it closely, but the relationship is obvious enough to be a no brainer for us.
- robbies 11y ago
  That reminds me of the 'hookworm' therapy to help alleviate allergies. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.14122951.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.141229...
  - frikk 11y ago
    Thats... really interesting.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  I've heard stories like yours, witnessed a few myself, and have noticed changes within myself as well. Yet no matter how many times I tell people they look at me like I'm an idiot.
  - frikk 11y ago
    I sincerely hope there will be more research into this in the coming years. The problem I think is that we need to do more personalized research and experiments, but somehow figure out the baseline to compare individual results against. Someone who has a system with X properties will respond differently from someone with Y properties, and we don't know enough about those properties to understand the different response types.
- 11y ago
cel1ne 11y ago
The serotonine in your body isn't able to cross the blood-brain-barrier. So it doesn't affect your mood the way brain-serotonine does. It does affect blood pressure and a few other things, so you get indirect effects.
- smac8 11y ago
  That assumes that consciousness only correlates to brain activity, which is unsubstantiated
  - firethief 11y ago
    No, GP's statement assumes only that serotonin in the bloodstream outside the brain has different effects from serotonin in the brain, so let's put that lid back on that kettle of fish.

by knodi 11y ago

mtalantikite 11y ago

Out of curiosity, which ones do you take? I've been taking them for a few years now and have had similar results as you, although it took a while to find a combination that worked for me personally.

mariodiana 11y ago
Out of curiosity, which ones have you taken?
- sbierwagen 11y ago
  Out of curiosity, mariodiana, do you take probiotics? If so, which ones?
  - mariodiana 11y ago
    Ha! No, I don't.
- epimetheus 11y ago
  Not GP, but these have worked for me: L. reuteri ATCC PTA 6475[0] L. reuteri DSM 17938[0] Lactobacillus reuteri Protectis[1] [0]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AH3RT9Y http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AH3RT9Y [1]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XUQNN4 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XUQNN4 I was taking others too, as well as some prebiotics but I stopped for awhile and been taking these two again for about a week and already feel much better - at least as good as before when I was taking more.
tosseraccount 11y ago
The various Ultimate Flora brands are excellent. They are expensive and you can get them at whole foods. The trick is to get multi-strain LIVE species. Refrigeration seems to help. Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. The industry really needs to clarify this stuff. Independent evaluators need to check out their claims. Live strains will reproduce. There are many tricks to get them to survive the stomach acids: imbed them in gelatin or psyllium. Another trick is to prefeed them in airtight, dark bottle so they're growing before you eat them. Just put it in your pocket for a couple of hours. Clinical trials need to be done to firmly establish efficacy; but I've given this concoction to several people and they were very happy with the results. More research needs to be done on which species of fungi, bacteria , and arachea give good results. The gut microbiome is an interdependent environment. Restoring the balance occasionally may benefit lots of folks.
- sbierwagen 11y ago
  Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. Incorrect. Probiotics are supposed to contain live, active bacteria: the large "CFU" number on the front stands for "colony forming unit": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony-forming_unit Labdoor (which is advertising-supported) tests probiotics based on how accurate their CFU numbers are: https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics (These tests, of course, don't say if the probiotic in question is actually good for you or not.) I've taken both General Biotics Equilibrium and (115 strains, 1 billion CFUs, shipped unrefrigerated) and Renew Life Ultimate Flora Extra Care. (10 strains, 50 billion CFUs, refrigerated) If either of them had any effect at all, I didn't notice it.
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Thanks for the clarification and the link. Not surprising to see Ultimate Flora at the top. I'd bet that a lot of these species die on the shelf. The industry might still benefit from consistently labeling as "live" on the bottle if the probiotics are live. I suspect that not everyone has an imbalance that would benefit the user. A good strategy might be to try various species until something works. An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away.
sunsu 11y ago
General Biotics: http://www.generalbiotics.com/ http://www.generalbiotics.com/ Real science behind the strains they choose and I've never seen a probiotic with more of them (115 different bacteria).
- exhilaration 11y ago
  Their CEO posted some HN comments in the past: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600201 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600201 I'm waiting for them to post the results of their study.
- graeme 11y ago
  I've had those. I think they improved my digestion. I have had IBS-like symptoms for years. For a while it was diarrhea. Then it switched to constipation. I could go to the washroom only with coffee. Starting taking these, suddenly was able to use the washroom normally. No coffee needed, finally quit that. No diarrhea. It's been about three weeks. So I doubt it's a coincidence. In a span of that length I would have had multiple problems in the past. Only alternate cause I can think of is that I was reducing coffee before I took them, but still drinking decaf. However, digestion had been entirely the same during this reduction process. And I was on the pills + coffee for about 10 days, with improved digestion, so I suspect the pills.
- agbujsaoy 11y ago
  For me (Colitis), they made me worse. I had tried many brands, then settled on GB for like 3 months, I kept records, they made it worse. Within two weeks of stopping my symptoms improved.
  - redtuesday 11y ago
    It sounds a little bit disgusting, but have you heard of fecal transplants? I've read that this can help people with clostridium difficle infections if antibiotics don't help (which is kind of 'funny', because patients seem to get clostridum infections after antibiotics therapy...) and research is going on if this can also be used for treatment of colitis and morbus crohn (but I don't know more than that, maybe you can find already published study results about that).

nibs 11y ago

Similar story about gut health rabbit hole and profound quality of life improvement after understanding gut serotonin... I took 23andme and found out I had HLA-DQ2.5 (Celiac gene) making my risk of developing Celiac around 10% (as opposed to near 0% if you don't have it - everyone with the gene cannot process Gliadin, a wheat protein, Celiac is just the most severe set of symptoms). Before this point I was highly critical of people with pretend/made up food sensitivites and ate anything I wanted on the basis that if there was a problem my doctor would tell me. Recently (a few months ago) I stopped eating wheat as an experiment as I had some Celiac-like symptoms showing up more and more. It changed my life. 76% of people with this gene who are not diagnosed with Celiac yet and consume wheat have a serotonin-based psychiatric disorder because the undigested wheat starts acting negatively on the serotonin system, making you volatile and anxious. My diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder took a matter of weeks to disappear. Genetic self awareness and choosing your foods carefully cannot be overstated as a means to improved quality of life.

mcjiggerlog 11y ago
To what extent did you stop eating wheat, out of interest? I seem to only be affected (digestive problems) by products that are literally made out of wheat flour (bread, pasta etc) and things that "contain gluten" have no discernible effect on me. Have you needed to go "gluten-free", or just avoid obviously wheat-based foods? Trying to avoid everything that has gluten in it does not sound like a fun way to live. I'm considering trying to cut out wheat-based foods to see how it affects my anxiety, but it'd be good to know whether just cutting out obviously wheat things is pointless.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nibs 11y ago
  I basically got rid of all of it at my house but none of the crazy stuff (some people replace their cookware, etc. I think that is a misunderstanding of the problem). I notice when restaurants use it but it doesn't really ruin my life or make me descend back into bad health. I just notice I am more anxious/blood sugar volatile for a few days after. So I avoid obvious large sources of wheat, but I accept that restaurants regularly use it in sauce, etc. and it causes noticeable but manageable issues. I have the heterozygote version (1 variant of HLA gene) rather than the homozygote version (2 variants of HLA gene) so it is less severe and only affects some of my cells. If you have both variants, your risk of Celiac goes to about 50% and you normally find out early in life. I would also confirm it is not some other category of food sensitivity affecting you - my fiance went through a similar process and found some links to IBS which leads to a low FODMAP diet. Wheat is a FODMAP but other FODMAP foods affected her also where for me it is 100% wheat. TL/DR: obvious wheat things is a big step, I noticed difference in anxiety, skin health, brain fog, focus, migranes, sleep. 80% of those issues for me went away by getting rid of obvious sources at home.

newobj 11y ago

You don't have MTHFR by any chance do you?

frikk 11y ago

Another piece of anecdotal evidence. My wife has had allergy attacks constantly for years and years. Every morning she would wake up and have to blow her nose for a half hour. We started making fermented food (saurkraut, pickles, fermented garlic carrots) and at the same time buying/drinking keefir daily. This was just to be healthy and as a new hobby. However, within a week or two, her allergies subsided substantially. To the point where she would go for weeks at a time without having the morning nose blowing session. When she dials back the intake of fermented foods, allergies come back. We haven't spent much time tracking it closely, but the relationship is obvious enough to be a no brainer for us.

robbies 11y ago
That reminds me of the 'hookworm' therapy to help alleviate allergies. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.14122951.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01iht-01prof.141229...
- frikk 11y ago
  Thats... really interesting.
atom-morgan 11y ago
I've heard stories like yours, witnessed a few myself, and have noticed changes within myself as well. Yet no matter how many times I tell people they look at me like I'm an idiot.
- frikk 11y ago
  I sincerely hope there will be more research into this in the coming years. The problem I think is that we need to do more personalized research and experiments, but somehow figure out the baseline to compare individual results against. Someone who has a system with X properties will respond differently from someone with Y properties, and we don't know enough about those properties to understand the different response types.
11y ago

cel1ne 11y ago

The serotonine in your body isn't able to cross the blood-brain-barrier. So it doesn't affect your mood the way brain-serotonine does. It does affect blood pressure and a few other things, so you get indirect effects.

smac8 11y ago
That assumes that consciousness only correlates to brain activity, which is unsubstantiated
- firethief 11y ago
  No, GP's statement assumes only that serotonin in the bloodstream outside the brain has different effects from serotonin in the brain, so let's put that lid back on that kettle of fish.