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Role of Lactobacillus Reuteri in Human Health and Diseases
- jimbru 4y agoFor anyone interested in L. Reuteri, you can buy it in the U.S. as Gerber probiotic drops (https://medical.gerber.com/products/supplements/soothe-colic-drops-probiotic-supplement https://medical.gerber.com/products/supplements/soothe-colic...). Marketed for babies but obviously works on adults too. Last I checked Gerber had an exclusive license on U.S. distribution of this bacterium—there’s a Swedish company, BioGaia, that IIRC is the original patent holder.
- parhamn 4y agoThanks, I came to ask this. It seems like the probiotic market is largely a hit or miss. Reviews online are filled with people claiming their purchases failed milk culturing tests (I don't know if testing as such even works), claims that these bacteria can't survive on warehouse shelves, etc.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThat’s why Visbiome ships in insulated packaging with ice packs. There’s even a color indicator that turns red if the contents exceed a temperature during shipping (and refunds are granted if this indicator is red when it receive the product). You then store in the freezer. Unfortunately, the product does not contain L. Reuteri.
- parhamn 4y agoHave you used it? Are you satisfied?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoYes I use it regularly. But I don’t have IBS, Crohns, or any other GI disorder. I use it to periodically populate my gut. So to answer “am I satisfied” is difficult. I don’t notice a difference with or without it, because none of us are consciously aware of our gut micro biome. I could say “well I haven’t been sick in years”, but who knows what else contributes to that.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago> none of us are consciously aware of our gut micro biome The chronically ill are. I know people who feel when they don't have their Danone.
- supertofu 4y agoI used it for six months. I have UC. It did not help my symptoms one bit, ufortunately. I heard they changed the formula :/ Nowadays I just eat kimchi and kraut and hope for the best.
- candiddevmike 4y agoYou mean the ones on Amazon are fake?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- milofeynman 4y agoWhy can you patent a naturally occurring bacteria?
- folli 4y agoYou usually patent the use of such bacteria, not the bacteria per se.
- sooheon 4y agoThe strain itself (and its specific genome) can be patented. Not as it's found "in the wild", but with genetic modification. The thing is this "genetic modification" includes not just techniques like CRISPR, but also just letting the bacteria mutate in a vat. I think it's total nonsense, but the law allows it. If wild bacteria growing on your skin happens to mutate into the exact same genetic code as a patented strain, you could technically be in infringement. [1] https://internationalprobiotics.org/focus-on-probiotic-patents-usa/ https://internationalprobiotics.org/focus-on-probiotic-paten...
- reuteriq 4y agoIs it possible to introduce this to the body without buying it specifically? Or put another way, how did people get L. Reuteri without pharmaceutical/supplement companies growing it in labs?
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThe article says breast milk is one source. Don’t wean your babies to formula too early! You can buy breast milk from lactating mothers on Craigslist. Good luck.
- folli 4y agoBreast milk is inherently sterile (unless the mother has a severe bacterial infection). It usually gets contaminated with the skin microbiota during feeding. So no, I wouldn't count on L. reuteri being found in a random sample of breast milk.
- joe-collins 4y agoBreast milk is not sterile. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643565/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2643565/
- folli 4y agoThat's hotly debated. Even the study you cite cannot rule out skin contamination. But unequivocally showing the existence of entero-mammary pathway (translocation of maternal gut bacteria from the gut to the mammary glands) would be very exciting news indeed.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoThe article says that L. reuteri is present in other places in the body besides the gut.
- bawolff 4y ago
- cvg 4y agoThis probiotic at Costco also has reuteri, “trunature Advanced Digestive Probiotic”. 15$ per 100 caps https://www.costco.com/trunature-advanced-digestive-probiotic%2C-100-capsules.product.100387855.html https://www.costco.com/trunature-advanced-digestive-probioti...
- m463 4y agoalso costco has "garden of life" probiotics with it too
- fasteo 4y agoThat's correct for BioGaia. In Europe, it is rather easy to buy. "BioGaia Gastrus" contains 2 strains of L. Reuteri (DSM 17938 and ATCC PTA 6475) I crush the tablets to make yogurt following Dr. Davis recipe in SuperGut [1] [1] https://www.amazon.com/Super-Gut-Four-Week-Reprogram-Microbiome-ebook/dp/B096RTDMXV https://www.amazon.com/Super-Gut-Four-Week-Reprogram-Microbi...
- oigursh 4y agoI have questions, please. How long have you been eating the yoghurt? Do you use any other tablets/pills/etc to make it? Why make the yoghurt instead of just eating the pills? What do you think it's done for you?
- fasteo 4y ago>>> How long have you been eating the yoghurt? About 3-4 months now >>> Do you use any other tablets/pills/etc to make it? No, but there are other recipes in the book than combine different bacteria >>> Why make the yoghurt instead of just eating the pills? To increase bacterial count; often like x1000 (from millios to billions) >>> What do you think it's done for you? I did not take it for any particular reason, so I was not expecting much. Most definetively, improved mood after 3 weeks.
- password4321 4y agoDiscussed further in the top comment and others 3 days ago: Childhood antibiotics as a risk factor for Crohn's disease: Cohort study https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32037105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32037105 > Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species.
- chasebank 4y agoI've been in deep research after reading that comment. Thought it was interesting this story popped up today. Coincidence or astroturf? Been dealing with gastro issues for 4+ years now. I'll report back after I take the stuff for a month.
- Natsu 4y agoWe're trying it too since there's just not a lot you can do for IBS.
- ls15 4y agoIsn't the general advice to ingest a large variety of lactobacilli, as opposed to large quantities of just one bacillus? When I made kefir in my kitchen, I read that the cultures can contain up to 80 different genetics. Whenever I research lactobacilli, the term diversity comes up.
- stephen_g 4y agoDiversity does seem to be a good thing, but that said, some of the reported properties of this particular strain seem especially interesting. I think taking a single strain is not something you'd want to do long term, I'd assume it's better just as a short course to try and improve your gut bacteria balance, if you're having problems or have just had antibiotics. With a good balanced diet (prebiotic fibre etc.) I don't think people should really need to constantly be taking probiotic tablets, but kefir and yoghurt seem good generally.
- peatmoss 4y ago
- flobosg 4y agoJust a pedantic nitpick since I couldn’t stop the biologist in me: It’s “reuteri”, all lowercase.
- bawolff 4y agoEven in title case? Its not like we would normally capitalize "Human" or "Health" either?
- sohkamyung 4y agoIt's Binomial nomenclature [1]. The name should also be in italics, but not sure how that would be enabled in HN headlines. > In modern usage, the first letter of the generic name is always capitalized in writing, while that of the specific epithet is not, even when derived from a proper noun such as the name of a person or place. Similarly, both parts are italicized in normal text (or underlined in handwriting). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binomial_nomenclature
- bawolff 4y agoThat's kind of irrelavent though. Its capitalized because its in a title like any other word that would not normally be capitalized.
- flobosg 4y agoIt is not irrelevant. Check out the capitalization of the article’s title in its website.
- bawolff 4y agoInteresting. You're right, it is not capitalized in the original article. Although i still think the passage you are quoting is talking about normal text and not title case. Which is kind of confusing to me as when i tried to look it up in style guides, they seem to indicate that all nouns should be capitalized in a title, e.g. https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitalization/title-case https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/capitaliza...
- jamal-kumar 4y agoJust reposting my original comment which may have inspired this post a few days ago for the links: I had really bad IBS from consuming water on a tropical island in Panama one time and suffered for a few years with even my doctor friend telling me "Damn that sucks, not much you can do except manage". Pretty horrible symptoms until I discovered L. Reuteri. [1] I read that it's been a bacteria that was more commonly found in samples until around the 1950s when people started consuming more garbage processed food and was sold. Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species. [2] I can't speak personally for suffering on the level of Crohn's disease, but there's positive research out there regarding it. [3] [4] [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917019/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917019/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuterin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuterin [3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7270012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7270012/ [4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468961/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468961/
- v4dok 4y agoThere was once a research group in a university that found a specific diet helping/curing crohn's. However a food/health conglomerate with a product in the market for the disease paid the professor to shelf the research and it never saw the light of day. Speaking with one of the researchers he keeps telling me that food diversity and gut microbiome are extremely important for all shorts of things. So your comment doesn't surprise me, I am glad you became better.
- adrianN 4y agoThis reads like a classic "Big Pharma" conspiracy tale without further substantiation.
- boffinAudio 4y agoIt wouldn't be the first time Big Pharma did something harmful to society in order to protect its profit margins. You don't seriously think there is a moral stance that leads one to conclude Big Pharma is benevolent and always looking out for humanity?
- dade_ 4y agoSo eat fermented food. Brine pickles, olives, and sauerkraut, but not their vinegar-based counterparts which are usually sold in grocery stores. I suspect this use of vinegar could be causing us a great deal of problems. I also see a list that includes sourdough bread, wine, beer, certain cured meats, kimchi, kombucha tea, miso soup.
- wil421 4y agoNothing wrong with vinegar and the PH can help keep the bad stuff out. Most of the on the shelf (not refrigerated) pickled items have been pasteurized, the contents have been heated to kill any remaining bacteria including the good ones. Not sure about wine I thought they didn’t something to stop the yeast fermenting. I know once bottled the process has stopped for wine and beer.
- nibbleshifter 4y agoMost yeasts die off at a certain %ABV. There are also ways to remove them entirely by using clearing agents/finings followed by racking (siphoning from the primary fermentation container to a new container) - this is the normal process. If you are doing natural carbonation or "secondary fermenting" in the bottle by leaving some yeast in and back sweetening, you can kill the yeast by pasteurizing in-bottle (basically by putting the bottles into a pot of hot water for a while). Though this does sometimes lead to explosions.
- orangetuba 4y agoI just went and bought this stuff. I hope it works wonders.
- harvie 4y agoI've been googling for user experiences with supplements containing Lactobacillus Reuteri and i've found weirdly disturbing forums where people were reporting 50% increase in testicular size, hair growth and testosterone level after few weeks of usage. It felt like someone is trying to sell these supplements to teenagers with low self esteem by creating fake reviews or something... Some of these were on reddit. What the hell?
- mikenew 4y agoAfter having the same WTF reaction I came across this mouse study: Probiotic Microbes Sustain Youthful Serum Testosterone Levels and Testicular Size in Aging Mice. Sounds like the L. reuteri supplement made a pretty dramatic difference in preventing hypogonadism as the mice aged. Quite a jump from that to "2 weeks to make your balls bigger", but still, it's pretty interesting. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3879365/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3879365/