4 ms·
Wow, what a headline. We're completely at the beginning of our understanding of the gut biome – it seems outrageous to claim that it can 'actually hurt you' whe
by gdubs 8y ago
Wow, what a headline. We're completely at the beginning of our understanding of the gut biome – it seems outrageous to claim that it can 'actually hurt you' when, in fact, we have no idea what's going on.
For me, the biggest question is – how healthy was a person's biome before the antibiotics? Research seems to indicate that the quality and health of a given person's gut bacteria is highly variable. What's to say that the colonization of the new bacteria is 'bad', just because it's 'different' than before?
The answer is, we don't know. Way too early to say.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago> it seems outrageous to claim that it can 'actually hurt you' when, in fact, we have no idea what's going on. Uhm, wait isn’t that exactly how the lack of knowledge actually works?
- gdubs 8y agoI'm not sure I understand your question. My point was that this study doesn't seem to support the claim that probiotics are potentially harmful, or useless. I question the conclusions they've drawn, and find it problematic that the headline borders on prescriptive without compelling evidence to support the claims. Good science welcomes intense criticism and skepticism.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoCan doesn’t mean does. The fact that we don’t know that they are harmful means that they could be. Maybe we are disagreeing on the meaning of “can” here?
- gdubs 8y agoI see. Well yea, 'could' is significantly different than 'can'. The latter implies probiotics have the capacity to be harmful. The former says, 'hey, we don't know – maybe they're harmful?'. "Useless and can actually hurt you" isn't really supported by the evidence. More accurate would be, "probiotics role is still a mystery, requires further study."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]