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Pseudoscience involving human microbiome seems to be very popular here in HN. Whatever health articles gets posted, someone starts touting their favourite inter
by vjk800 3y ago
Pseudoscience involving human microbiome seems to be very popular here in HN. Whatever health articles gets posted, someone starts touting their favourite internet theory on how it is all completely determined by the human microbiome, using getting a lot of upvotes. I would advice those people to carefully read the caption on Figure 2 in the article:
> Changes in faecal microbiota have been associated with a range of diseases in humans. Interestingly, despite the diverse nature of these conditions, and the organs they affect, there are some broadly common recurring microbiota features, such as reduced diversity and increases in facultative anaerobes like Enterobacteriaceae. One common theme amongst these conditions is that they often result in increased levels of inflammation, at local and systemic levels. Such inflammation can, in turn, deplete the gut microbiota (and consequently microbial gene diversity), and allow facultative anaerobes such as Enterobacteriaceae to proliferate. This directly impacts the metabolic output of the microbiota, and its interactions with the host. Additionally, there are other host factors that contribute to disease and gut microbiota composition, such as age, BMI and medication, as well as host metabolism and immune response. This makes it very difficult to distinguish cause from effect in correlation-based studies.
In short: it is all much more complicated than you think and separating the cause and effect is something no-one has managed to do convincingly yet. It's possible that the microbiome health really is as important as some people think, but it's also possible that the role is more minor and the changes in it associated with various diseases is just incidental.
- thenerdhead 3y agoThe whole point is that we are constantly finding causal, not casual relationships with our microbiome. Just last week there were two significant discoveries: For what is being found in long Covid for example, a promising hypothesis is viral persistence in the gut causing major dysbiosis and leading to lower production of serotonin. And we even saw the transfer of Alzheimer’s symptoms from an old host to a young one. I think it just shows how important microbes are in our lives and what a strong influence they have. https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2023/october/penn-study-finds-serotonin-reduction-causes-long-covid-symptoms https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2023/october... https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/brain/awad303/7308687?searchresult=1&login=false https://academic.oup.com/brain/advance-article/doi/10.1093/b...
- rewmie 3y ago> The whole point is that we are constantly finding causal, not casual relationships with our microbiome. Both your examples cover casual relationships/correlation, and don't even try to assert causality. I think you inadvertently proved OP's point on the high frequency of pseudoscience claims regarding human microbiome.
- dimal 3y ago> It's possible that the microbiome health really is as important as some people think, but it's also possible that the role is more minor and the changes in it associated with various diseases is just incidental. You overstate your counter argument. The role of the microbiome in disease is complex and it’s hard to nail down the exact pathology, but the chances of it being incidental is vanishingly small.
- rewmie 3y ago> (...) but the chances of it being incidental is vanishingly small. I think you're misrepresenting OP's claim. OP explicitly stated there's some likelihood the influence is minor, but for some reason you're trying to refute "incidental", which is not what OP claimed.
- dimal 3y agoI agree with much of what was said. My point was that they didn’t stick the landing. They overshot the mark. They did specifically use the word “incidental” so I don’t see how I could be misrepresenting anything.