3 ms·
IMO (biochemist) the clinical relevance of these findings, when considered along with the rest of the medical literature, are vastly understated.
by epgui 3y ago
IMO (biochemist) the clinical relevance of these findings, when considered along with the rest of the medical literature, are vastly understated.
- light_hue_1 3y agoYou mean, overstated? As in, they're taking a tiny effect that many not exist, and putting it out as if it could matter? I don't see how this could be understated. The effect they found is basically zero. https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S1931312823002159-gr2.jpg https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S19313128230021... And worse, even if you buy their story, the effect goes down to zero by 6 months. This to me doesn't say "Let's make a big study there's gold here". It says "There's nothing here and we're wasting our time".
- beaned 3y agoI don't have a horse in this race but I find it odd that your dissenting opinion is down voted when you provide a reasonable rebuttal with a source, when the post you're replying to is just an opinion from authority. Would be great if those who disagree could dispassionately say why.
- epgui 3y agoI haven’t provided any references because this area of research has actually been booming over the last two decades, and there are dozens of recent high-quality review articles to be found on the subject. Which is really what my point was: no single study would make the point, but an explosion of research findings would.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- ArunRaja 3y agoCherry picking.
- epgui 3y agoNo, understated. If this study had never been done, we’d still have tons of evidence in support of the practice of vaginal fluid inoculation. The effect size for auto-immune diseases, gut microbiome, and immune system development, is surprisingly large, even for those clinical entities that develop later in life like IBD (with peak incidence in the mid 20s and mid 40s, and no clinical signs or symptoms in childhood). Caesarian births and breastfeeding status are important risk factors for food allergies too. Whether you had a vaginal or caesarian birth has some impacts on your gut microbiome that outweigh your dietary choices in adulthood— that is well-known and very surprising! That we measure any effect at all on cognitive development milestones is really remarkable as well— I wouldn’t take these specific findings too seriously (and obviously you don’t decide to not get a caesarian for the odd probability of marginally faster cognitive development, and caesarians are typically done in contexts where the risks are measured in terms of life or death), but considering the wealth of adjacent data we already have, yes there is gold to be found here. Even if it’s not what we think it is, there’s something interesting to be found, and more work in this direction is needed. Although these studies are not rare: this is a very active area of research, for good reason! To dismiss this flippantly as “needing no further investigation” is not to be a healthy skeptic: instead, it is to ignore the veritable boom in the scientific/medical literature on the subject over the last two decades or so.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- pkphilip 3y agoActually, in certain parts of the world caesarian births are becoming extremely common - not because it is medically required but because mothers are advised to go through caesarian as it fetches the hospitals more money. In India over 21.5% of all births are now by caesarian when it was just 8.5% in 2005-2006.
- epgui 3y agoI am not aware of this happening for such overtly conflicted reasons in Canada/UK/Australia/US/Europe/etc countries... That would be messed up, considering all the risks and consequences (although weighing all the risks of delivery is not something laypeople can do without expert guidance, it's really complicated and every case is different).
- blast 3y agoCould you say more about why?
- epgui 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36398764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36398764