4 ms·

That's really not outside the realm of possibility for something to change the microbiome. That's a quarter pound of bread, two servings and about 280 kcal on t

That's really not outside the realm of possibility for something to change the microbiome. That's a quarter pound of bread, two servings and about 280 kcal on the loaf I have in front of me. That's a reasonable amount for someone to consume as part of a normal diet. We know small changes in diet can have a large effect on the microbiome. For example, adding seaweed to a mouse diet can select for microbes with the ability to digest particular polysaccharides within seaweed (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0092-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0092-4). A company spun out of the Sonnenburg lab at Stanford is using this tech for microbiome therapeutics in humans (Novome). Those mice were given 10% seaweed by weight, so that serving of sourdough is right in the same range. My point is, the researchers designing these experiments know what they're doing, and they're well thought out. You can't criticize something if you don't know the details of the field.

glofish 7y ago
Your estimate is off by almost an order of magnitude. 100g is not 10% of a person's weight. Maybe you meant 10% of calories. Also, look at the comparison. It is seaweed! Wouldn't you expect that eating 10% of your weight in seaweed changes a microbiome? It is a massively different food than what we (or mice) typically eat - thus the microbiome has to adapt. I am not saying the discovery is not important - it is the right question, set up correctly. Compare that to a human eating two slices of different breads for a week. The differences between bread are too subtle. The amount ingested is too little, the time is too short. Your microbiome is already set up for digesting bread. That's all I am saying - I will stick to my story that there is very little chance that this would ever be sufficient to detect any change.

glofish 7y ago

Your estimate is off by almost an order of magnitude. 100g is not 10% of a person's weight. Maybe you meant 10% of calories. Also, look at the comparison. It is seaweed! Wouldn't you expect that eating 10% of your weight in seaweed changes a microbiome? It is a massively different food than what we (or mice) typically eat - thus the microbiome has to adapt. I am not saying the discovery is not important - it is the right question, set up correctly. Compare that to a human eating two slices of different breads for a week. The differences between bread are too subtle. The amount ingested is too little, the time is too short. Your microbiome is already set up for digesting bread. That's all I am saying - I will stick to my story that there is very little chance that this would ever be sufficient to detect any change.