6 ms·

> Dr Sampson has tested this hypothesis in mice. He bred a strain of E. coli that cannot make Curli and injected mice with it, while injecting others with unmod

> Dr Sampson has tested this hypothesis in mice. He bred a strain of E. coli that cannot make Curli and injected mice with it, while injecting others with unmodified bacteria. Those that received Curli-producing bacteria expressed higher levels of synuclein and demonstrated symptoms like involuntary rigidity which, when seen in people, are associated with Parkinson’s disease. That is tantalising. These mice were mono-colonized with E. coli, whereas both mice and humans normally have a diverse gut flora. I colonize mice with E. coli containing curli all the time and the mice do not exhibit any rigidity or symptoms of Parkinson's. So it's interesting but not quite as huge of an effect as you might think, unless your microbial flora is really disrupted. May be relevant if you have an antibiotic resistant strain of E. coli blooming in your intestine following antibiotic treatment/some other disruption of your microbiota. A gut bacterial amyloid promotes α-synuclein aggregation and motor impairment in mice https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012599/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012599/

boplicity 6y ago
As someone with IBD, I really wish the hard science about bacteria would start to filter into actual treatments. I know there are possibilities there, and many patients have found avenues of success, but there is so much guesswork involved that it is very frustrating. Hopefully there will be definitive answers in the future. My gastroenterologist, who has quite a lot of training from very good schools, has absolutely nothing useful to say, in terms of the microbiome.
- throw345hn 6y ago
  As someone with IBS, totally agree with you. I wish the research would trickle down into actual treatments. I have started following a lot of research about gut etc but very little of it leads to something that can mass consumed. I spent thousands of dollars on trying out medications, tests, visiting a number of highly trained doctors etc, nothing came up in tests and at the end almost all doctors threw their hands up and categorized my gut issues as IBS which is just a catchAll term for which there is no specific treatment other than trying out a number of things.
  - fodmap 6y ago
    Fellow IBS sufferer here. I understand and share your pain. There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort following the FODMAP diet. I've wasted ten horrible years until I discovered that Monash University diet. Ten years of pain and expending. Hoping it can help you as well https://www.monashfodmap.com/ https://www.monashfodmap.com/
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - jodrellblank 6y ago
      (I didn't downvote). For comparison, imagine you signed up with the username "Oracle" and posted "Fellow data storage sufferer here. I understand and share your pain. There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort using the Oracle database" and a link to a "purchase Oracle" page. You might be a well-meaning person, but you're hard to distinguish from a bot pushing a fad diet with online courses, a for-pay app, a shop, "find a dietician" services, certifications, etc. Preying on offering hope to the sick and desperate is common and people are cynical and wary of it, and even genuine well-meaning people are prone to sharing dubious alternative medicine suggestions which they honestly believe help but aren't proven to do anything more than the placebo effect. If you were a long-standing HN commentor, you'd probably get more benefit of the doubt; signing up as "fodmap" to link to an apparently for-profit fodmap service with an emotional message makes it easy to assume bad faith astroturfing at a glance - focused username, commercial link, fringe/alternative/woo treatment, claims of health cure for incurable condition, SEO style message ("As a fellow sufferer, believe me, I know, I've been there, trust me, just one easy credit card payment"). [I wrote this for your deleted comment;]
      - throw345hn 6y ago
        I agree with your overall message but in this case I would like to point out one thing - a lot of fad diets were first adopted by people and then researched to see if they are helpful where as Fodmap has been specifically researched for the gut and only after it has been shown to be helpful, its now being recommended by doctors. Obviously you should talk to your doctor before adopting the diet. It may not provide all of the nutrients that your body needs and its normally only recommended for 3 to ~6 months. Its may also not work well for some variants of IBS / IBD / other gut issues and may even be a detriment - so talk to your doctor. Personally its been helpful for me. A lot of people also may not need to do fodmap and instead just do a elimination diet. For example you may not know it but may be suffering from lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance and so on. Probably easier to try that first as well.
- graeme 6y ago
  Check out hyperbiotics. They had a submission here a while back, and have both probiotic and prebiotic products. They were started by microbiome researchers. Also I’ve heard promising things about fecal transplants for biome restoration.
- nextos 6y ago
  It's starting to filter into actual treatments. I've been doing research in the field of host-microbiome interactions for the last 8-10 years. And in the last couple of years, it's gone from a fringe to a mainstream topic. I know a few places in Europe where they are already doing fecal microbiome transplants on a daily basis. For example, Quadram Institute & NHS Norwich. They have had some adverse events, so it's not totally safe, but I think the benefits already outweigh the risks if it's having a significant impact on your quality of life. New research avenues include, for example, doing a phage-only transplant. And obvious things like matching donors by HLA haplotypes. Both should improve safety. Still, I understand progress is too slow for patients. Most research institutions are pretty bad at polishing, industrializing and translating basic theories into clinical benefits. They just like to churn out small papers. I have sometimes considered to spin off as a non-profit maybe to speed things up. Theories are beginning to be understood quite well. It's mostly about cross-reactive bacterial epitopes and self antigens [1]. Plus metabolites. A very complex network, but some epitopes are central. For example, Ro60 in Lupus or insulin in T1D and their corresponding bacterial mimics. With sufficient data, we could easily throw in a personalized cocktail of phages that could halt many autoimmune disorders and tumors with high probability. That's the vision for the next 10 years, I think. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0367-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0367-2
- Mildlypolite 6y ago
  I had Ibd for 10 years, did a microbiota transplant and, literally, the day after it was gone. I am not sure why this treatment is not being pushed for Ibd,bbut it was nothing short of miracolous.

boplicity 6y ago

As someone with IBD, I really wish the hard science about bacteria would start to filter into actual treatments. I know there are possibilities there, and many patients have found avenues of success, but there is so much guesswork involved that it is very frustrating. Hopefully there will be definitive answers in the future. My gastroenterologist, who has quite a lot of training from very good schools, has absolutely nothing useful to say, in terms of the microbiome.

throw345hn 6y ago
As someone with IBS, totally agree with you. I wish the research would trickle down into actual treatments. I have started following a lot of research about gut etc but very little of it leads to something that can mass consumed. I spent thousands of dollars on trying out medications, tests, visiting a number of highly trained doctors etc, nothing came up in tests and at the end almost all doctors threw their hands up and categorized my gut issues as IBS which is just a catchAll term for which there is no specific treatment other than trying out a number of things.
- fodmap 6y ago
  Fellow IBS sufferer here. I understand and share your pain. There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort following the FODMAP diet. I've wasted ten horrible years until I discovered that Monash University diet. Ten years of pain and expending. Hoping it can help you as well https://www.monashfodmap.com/ https://www.monashfodmap.com/
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - jodrellblank 6y ago
    (I didn't downvote). For comparison, imagine you signed up with the username "Oracle" and posted "Fellow data storage sufferer here. I understand and share your pain. There isn't any magic pill yet but until someone invents it I can tell you I've found great comfort using the Oracle database" and a link to a "purchase Oracle" page. You might be a well-meaning person, but you're hard to distinguish from a bot pushing a fad diet with online courses, a for-pay app, a shop, "find a dietician" services, certifications, etc. Preying on offering hope to the sick and desperate is common and people are cynical and wary of it, and even genuine well-meaning people are prone to sharing dubious alternative medicine suggestions which they honestly believe help but aren't proven to do anything more than the placebo effect. If you were a long-standing HN commentor, you'd probably get more benefit of the doubt; signing up as "fodmap" to link to an apparently for-profit fodmap service with an emotional message makes it easy to assume bad faith astroturfing at a glance - focused username, commercial link, fringe/alternative/woo treatment, claims of health cure for incurable condition, SEO style message ("As a fellow sufferer, believe me, I know, I've been there, trust me, just one easy credit card payment"). [I wrote this for your deleted comment;]
    - throw345hn 6y ago
      I agree with your overall message but in this case I would like to point out one thing - a lot of fad diets were first adopted by people and then researched to see if they are helpful where as Fodmap has been specifically researched for the gut and only after it has been shown to be helpful, its now being recommended by doctors. Obviously you should talk to your doctor before adopting the diet. It may not provide all of the nutrients that your body needs and its normally only recommended for 3 to ~6 months. Its may also not work well for some variants of IBS / IBD / other gut issues and may even be a detriment - so talk to your doctor. Personally its been helpful for me. A lot of people also may not need to do fodmap and instead just do a elimination diet. For example you may not know it but may be suffering from lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance and so on. Probably easier to try that first as well.
graeme 6y ago
Check out hyperbiotics. They had a submission here a while back, and have both probiotic and prebiotic products. They were started by microbiome researchers. Also I’ve heard promising things about fecal transplants for biome restoration.
nextos 6y ago
It's starting to filter into actual treatments. I've been doing research in the field of host-microbiome interactions for the last 8-10 years. And in the last couple of years, it's gone from a fringe to a mainstream topic. I know a few places in Europe where they are already doing fecal microbiome transplants on a daily basis. For example, Quadram Institute & NHS Norwich. They have had some adverse events, so it's not totally safe, but I think the benefits already outweigh the risks if it's having a significant impact on your quality of life. New research avenues include, for example, doing a phage-only transplant. And obvious things like matching donors by HLA haplotypes. Both should improve safety. Still, I understand progress is too slow for patients. Most research institutions are pretty bad at polishing, industrializing and translating basic theories into clinical benefits. They just like to churn out small papers. I have sometimes considered to spin off as a non-profit maybe to speed things up. Theories are beginning to be understood quite well. It's mostly about cross-reactive bacterial epitopes and self antigens [1]. Plus metabolites. A very complex network, but some epitopes are central. For example, Ro60 in Lupus or insulin in T1D and their corresponding bacterial mimics. With sufficient data, we could easily throw in a personalized cocktail of phages that could halt many autoimmune disorders and tumors with high probability. That's the vision for the next 10 years, I think. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0367-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-020-0367-2
Mildlypolite 6y ago
I had Ibd for 10 years, did a microbiota transplant and, literally, the day after it was gone. I am not sure why this treatment is not being pushed for Ibd,bbut it was nothing short of miracolous.