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There is a study that would really annoy you then, the subjects were pairs of identical twin children throughout Africa. They would find twins where one was pe
by throwawaycities 3y ago
There is a study that would really annoy you then, the subjects were pairs of identical twin children throughout Africa. They would find twins where one was perfectly healthy and the other was malnourished. The reasoning is both nature (genetics) and nurture (diet) were nearly identical. The difference is nearly all cases was the makeup of the microbiome leading to one child being healthy & the other malnourished with all other things being equal. Per your comment it would seem no amount of dietary changes would makeup the difference, plus it probably also highlights a possible bias that a bunch of malnourished kids around the world can simply make “healthy” dietary changes.
10 years really isn’t a significant period of time to study something as complex as the microbiome. Don’t be surprised if it continues to be studied for decades, just as we have been studying genetics for decades and despite all the incredible advancements and understanding we still have more questions than we have answers.
- elmomle 3y agoThat's interesting--it's certainly plausible, even probable, sense that good diet is necessary but not sufficient to ensure that the microbiome is in a personally-optimal state. Please give a citation if you can!
- throwawaycities 3y agoI don’t think this is the study I was referencing but it’s on point (317 pairs of twins 1-3 yrs old, 1 healthy & 1 malnourished) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000
- jay_kyburz 3y agoDid the study suggest what had damaged one of the twins biome? I can only assume it was antibiotics.
- DANmode 3y agoStarvation can severely alter the microbiome in a negative way. Haven't read much into the how. Acids and such possibly.
- throwawaycities 3y agoReading a second study a bacteria was present in the malnourished twin but not in the healthy twin. I’m not certain but it seems the bacteria was just an unfortunate roll of the dice.
- brainbag 3y agoI haven't been able to track this study down, do you have a link or a name?
- throwawaycities 3y agoThere must be another, but this one is dominating my search result https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000