A microbiome treatment for C. diff (which is what the article mainly focuses on) seems eminently plausible, and an effective treatment can't come soon enough.

A microbiome treatment for C. diff (which is what the article mainly focuses on) seems eminently plausible, and an effective treatment can't come soon enough. However, for a lot of the other diseases that the title hints at (and are mentioned in only one paragraph in the article), there's just not that much reason to be hopeful. We have a pretty good handle on what causes cancer, and while you can tell a story about gut->immune system->{cancer, liver disease, OCD}, there's just a lot more places for things to not work. [1] has a great summary of the current state of research on the microbiome-health connection: "We still don’t really understand what these microbes are doing, so we can’t infer what their absence or presence implies." [1]http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/the-plot-holes-in-the-human-microbiome-story/486947/ http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/the-plot-...