11 ms·
Popular gut probiotic craps out in randomized controlled trial
- zdw 2y agoThe headline is some of the best output I've recently seen.
- itronitron 2y agoIt's a solid and well-formed contribution.
- hanniabu 2y agoBoth of you sound like bots
- projektfu 2y agoThat was the wrong criticism and your model will need to be retrained. The correct response is "this isn't Reddit".
- exe34 2y agogood bot
- zdw 2y agoAh, I'm not definitely not todsacerdoti , who automated reposting all of lobste.rs to HN. My pithy comment was actually inspired by Sir Patrick Stewart's interview about his role in the Emoji movie: https://youtu.be/CgAIqP6hNlQ?t=215 https://youtu.be/CgAIqP6hNlQ?t=215
- Ekaros 2y agoI prefer these bots to those that prose profusely generating larger than human piles of crap...
- hedora 2y agoYeah, but the register is more regular. This one’s been ripening for a decade and is as fresh as the day it was produced: https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/20/haribo_gummy_bears_implicated_in_gastric_exorcism/ https://www.theregister.com/2014/01/20/haribo_gummy_bears_im...
- morkalork 2y agoBeth Mole is as consistent as ever
- ramesh31 2y agoEvery so often you get the chance to make something perfect. Must have been a good day.
- the_sleaze_ 2y agoBest gut related health I ever had was living in France and eating stinky raw cheeses and different fermented foods. Like clockwork.
- m3kw9 2y agoGotta hit up the cheese fests now
- darth_avocado 2y agoThere’s two different effects hidden in that statement > living in France I have had similar experience where my gut health was immediately, noticeably better in Europe. I was eating the same foods and somehow it was better. > Eating stinky raw cheeses and different fermented foods Raw and fermented foods in cultures across the world are linked to better gut health. However, industrial fermentation and packaging won’t help you as much because the diversity of microbes drops and packaging often kills most of them. We need to bring back the culture of home fermentation.
- waihtis 2y ago> my gut health was immediately, noticeably better in Europe Its because a lot of the weird artificial junk that are allowed to be put into your food is illegal in Europe. Even things like popular sweeteners have been shown to have a negative effect on your gut health.
- hedora 2y agoMost sweeteners also have been shown to cause more weight gain than sugar (they screw up your metabolism). Unless you’re diabetic, there’s literally no reason to consume them.
- cenamus 2y agoI'd like to see a source on that, because (excessive) sugar literally causes diabetes. And of course high sweetener consumption is must be strongly linked with in general high calorie input and overweight people trying to reduce calorie consumption.
- trilbyglens 2y agoShould be noted that constipation relief is far from the only benefit that probiotics provide to your gut biome. Healthy gut biome has been linked to lower levels of depression and lots of other things seemingly unrelated.
- raincole 2y ago> Should be noted that constipation relief is far from the only benefit that probiotics provide to your gut biome. You mean claimed to provide.
- hanniabu 2y agoAnecdotal but I'm on a very strict diet, to the point where I have the same thing every meal, every day. There's certain probiotics I take that help bowel movements and some that slow things down. It's very repeatable and given I eat the same thing every meal every day and I'm on a regular eating and activity schedule that leaves very little other variables. My guess is that for regular people the benefit is insignificant but it's greater for people with issues (dysbiosis). And the type of dysbiosis you have will determine the effect of the probiotics. For some it can slow motility or cause constipation and others increase motility or cause diarrhea. There's so many internal variables with your gut microbiome and there's a general lack of reliable methods to test your microbiome. This makes tests like these really difficult and also makes it difficult to treat digestion issues. Because of this, all gastro doctors can really do is slap on IBS/IBS label but not really have a course of action with any decent success rate.
- homebrewer 2y agoRead the article, placebo was just as effective as these "probiotics".
- ecef9-8c0f-4374 2y agoWasn't this only about supplementation?
- spants 2y ago[flagged]
- loeg 2y agoThere's absolutely no evidence that a vegan diet provides a benefit for gut health relative to a diet including meat.
- hanniabu 2y agoSome people have dysbiosis which makes it impossible to have most vegetables
- shermantanktop 2y agoPeople who have things which are exotic, rare, or complicated don’t present some kind of existence proof against advice directed at a general population which doesn’t have those conditions.
- hanniabu 2y agoPeople that are healthy don't need probiotics either, sooo ....
- bryant 2y agoIf the concern is just meat, why not go vegetarian instead?
- CapitalistCartr 2y agoWearing this leather belt is what's causing my constipation.
- hinkley 2y agoGet a bigger belt, friend.
- 2y ago
- njtransit 2y agoIt’s interesting that both groups had their number of bowel movements double or more. Perhaps a lot of constipation is actually dehydration.
- mirekrusin 2y agoLike this magic pill to loose weight that you need to take before every meal with large glass of water, where pill is optional.
- Nifty3929 2y agoIf you take one of these little pills with a large glass of water for every alcoholic beverage you drink, then it will prevent hangovers.
- datavirtue 2y agoBingo. These finding probably aren't much of a surprise to many. Hydration is huge, as is having a well functioning and diverse biome that you feed regularly with raw fruits and vegetables. I have had my biome die back to the point of medical emergency and had to restore it. Keifer, various Greek yogurts, etc did nothing to help. I took half a bottle of a few pills that were loaded with different strains. Not only did it restore bowel function to its former glory, it improved my health overall and I feel like a teenager again (46). I was deficient and suffering for decades and just thought it was normal. It dawned on me that most people are likely suffering. I'm far too overweight for my liking but now I don't feel fat. Restoring the biome made me stronger and more resilient (my muscles stay stronger between workouts). I just feel good all the time now. Before this I had psychologically written myself off as dying and was ready to accept my fate.
- XorNot 2y agoThis is about Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis. Personally I take L. Reuteri supplements, which for me have made an unbelievable difference in suffering from IBS symptoms (and have some clinical evidence to support having an effect). This was a result a recommendation somewhere else on HN about 2 years ago now, so I'll pass it forward whenever the topic comes up. In my experience it took about 3 months to see effects (during which time I did feel somewhat worse), and currently if something happens - i.e. I get sick - then there's a bit of reversion towards feeling bad. But: I was also able to stop taking them for about 6-9 months before it seemed like the effect was diminishing.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- graeme 2y agoWhich version of L. Reuteri did you take?
- XorNot 2y agoI use Biogaia Protectis by brand.
- bloopernova 2y agoThis has helped some folks' IBS symptoms: https://www.vsl3.com/ https://www.vsl3.com/ Contains: Streptococcus thermophilus Bifidobacterium breve Bifidobacterium lactis (previously classified as B. longum) Bifidobacterium lactis (previously classified as B. infantis) Lactobacillus acidophilus Lactobacillus plantarum Lactobacillus paracasei Lactobacillus helveticus (previously classified as L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus) I'll have to research L Reuteri, thank you for mentioning it.
- eth0up 2y agoMight include b. subtilis on your list.
- silisili 2y ago
- jonnycomputer 2y agoFor what it's worth, I always thought that yogurts, etc. are better at slowing down digestion/dealing with diarrhea than constipation.
- guilhas 2y agoThat is my experience too. Although *google says this probiotic is associated with both diarrhea and constipation, by improving gastrointestinal health And would probably depend on what caused their constipation
- AlbertCory 2y agoWhenever some theme gets broad advertising, I get suspicious. "Helps boost the immune system!" -- WTF does that mean? "Probiotics for gut health!" -- yeah, right. Get back to me in 10 years when you have some actual evidence.
- mg 2y agoThere is a lot of confusion on how to interpret studies. The reasoning of this article seems to be "The study did not produce a significant result, therefore the treatment is ineffective". But that is not how to think about significance. Otherwise, you could show for any treatment that it is ineffective. By simply doing a study small enough to produce an insignificant result.
- loeg 2y agoTrue, but in this case the study sponsor is financially motivated to find a non-null result, not a null result.
- jessriedel 2y agoThis mistake is so unbelievably frequent. Need a concise quip like “correlation isn’t causation”.
- mg 2y agoYes, that might be helpful. First attempt: Insignificant does not mean ineffective Not as good as "correlation isn't causation" though. I wonder if there is a better quip. Or if the concept is too complex to wrap in a catchy statement.
- jessriedel 2y ago“Insignificance isn’t ineffectiveness”
- manoweb 2y ago[flagged]
- Texasian 2y agoDid… you really just use the term Chinamen in 2024?
- surgical_fire 2y agoWould chinaperson be better?
- ramesh31 2y ago>Did… you really just use the term Chinamen in 2024? Yeah it's really not the preferred nomenclature.
- secondcoming 2y agoAlmost as bad as using ellipses in a sentence for dramatic effect...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- spondylosaurus 2y agoLactose tolerance is a fluke, not the norm. Unless you're of European (+ non-Jewish) descent, you probably won't be able to digest most dairy products as an adult.
- pfdietz 2y agoLactase persistence is also common in many parts of Africa.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoThere are a billion plus South Asians that eat a ton of dairy. Cows are even sacred. Lactose tolerance is a very wide scale, from zero tolerance to even cheese to being able to drink multiple glasses of milk without getting diarrhea. Based on anecdotal evidence and the seeming popularity of pizza, a lactose intolerance so great that cheese is an issue seems to be rare.
- samuraijack 2y agoWhy is it interesting to just test one brand of probiotic with a single strain of bacteria? Surprised to see it on arstechnica and HN.
- loeg 2y agoThe companies selling products containing that bacteria would like to sell more units. Agree that the null result is not super interesting.
- SammyStacks 2y agoYeah, both the title and content of the arstechnica are spreading misinformation. The mainstream media has always been terrible at accurately representing the findings of a given academic study, but this is disappointing. The study was conducted with people who had chronic constipation as measured by complete spontaneous bowel movements (CSBMs). A bowel movement qualifies as a CSBM if the individual had not used a laxative within the last 24 hours. Prior to intervention, participants had a mean of 0.77 CSBMs/week with an SD of 1.0. That is quite extreme so the results of the study cannot be generalized to the general public. Additionally, both the probiotic group and control group experienced positive effects, even if the probiotic group didn't outperform the control group. That's extremely meaningful and requires further investigation. Perhaps the belief of taking a digestive supplement caused individuals lower stress and/or motivated other healthy lifestyle changes? Science shouldn't be viewing the placebo effect as evidence that something else is BS; we need to view the placebo effect as a psychological tool to effect positive change. Finally, the study tested only one bacteria strain. I have not seen any recommended probiotic supplement that includes only one strain of bacteria. More research is needed; the title is clickbait and the article doesn't sufficiently emphasize the major limitations of the study. Really a shame to see that type of reporting.
- gojomo 2y agoI'd never heard a single strain could affect constipation, so these results unsurprising. Where attention to the gut biome has really saved lives is when a person has massive Clostridium difficile overgrowth – which is more associated with uncontrollable diarrhea than constipation. This state of extreme illness is typically only possible because prior antibiotic use cleared out the natural variety of commensal bacteria that normally keeps this particular strain at bay (or totally absent). In such cases, people near death can bounce back after a full-spectrum "fecal microbiome transplant" (FMT) where all of the hundreds-or-more of distinct bacterial species are transferred from a healthy donor to the patient. It's quite hard to package all those sensitive, beneficial, adapted-just-to-the-human-gut strains for reproducible evaluation & administration – so FMT is hard to fit into standard medical studies & FDA approval processes. But sometimes a mere dot's worth of a healthy person's feces can be a miracle cure for someone else! So, a company has driven an approval of their particular $10k-per-treatment shit-pill through FDA processes, and partially as a consequence, the FDA has been cracking down on people arranging FMTs in less-formal & far-cheaper ways – despite a great record of safety and effectiveness. A well-informed & highly-opinionated rant on this topic: "A Monopoly on Poop" https://stephenskolnick.substack.com/p/a-monopoly-on-poop https://stephenskolnick.substack.com/p/a-monopoly-on-poop
- rbattula 2y agoim over ars
- ptsneves 2y agoIt also became a site I rarely visit compared to some years back when I did several times a day and even subscribed. They have some good writers in house but otherwise it has descended into politics and pop culture movies and gadgets, with the odd ode to violence like monkey torture stories or Viking eviscerations. The space news are maybe the best online.
- frereubu 2y agoAfter getting really annoyed with the pseudoscientific naming around this I built a whole site about it a couple of decades ago to get to the top of search results and got threatened with a lawsuit by Danone... https://whatisbifidusregularis.org/ https://whatisbifidusregularis.org/
- nikolay 2y agoDon't buy probiotics - eat quality grass-fed organic yogurt (such as Trimona [0]) and home-made sauerkraut - these have centuries of evidence. As a Bulgaria, we traditional make sauerkraut every year. It's pretty easy to have it, you just need a little more attention to it in the first weeks. The juice is amazing, too. You can buy it from Amazon [1]. [0]: https://trimonafoods.com/ https://trimonafoods.com/ [1]: https://amzn.to/3ZO0Sxl https://amzn.to/3ZO0Sxl
- permo-w 2y agoand by "evidence" you mean?
- nikolay 2y agoLongevity in general (don't judge by today's fully Lidl-ized & Kaufland-ized diet of modern Bulgarians). The research dates back to the 19th century and Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov [0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lie_Metchnikoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lie_Metchnikoff
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agohttps://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/food-features/yogurt/ https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/food-features/yogur...
- jessriedel 2y agoThat article says > Epidemiological research on specific health effects of yogurt is still limited but a few studies suggest a benefit. It then describes three non-randomized observational studies.
- nikolay 2y agoThat's the issue with nutrition - you can't really randomize as every person is on a different diet that's hard to control. Plus, how are you going to radomize when people know what they're eating - you can't create non-yogurt that's identical to yogurt for the controls!
- guilhas 2y agoMore specifically "probiotic X didn't work for Chinese people with constipation" But that's a typical arstechnica title
- sgc 2y agoApparently almost any strain of lactobacillus should be able to make some type of yogurt (each one with a distinct flavor). I have taken relatively expensive probiotic supplements sold in a very famous supermarket in the US known for this type of thing (yes, that one), which claim to have close to a dozen strains of lactobacillus. It was utterly incapable of even beginning to make yogurt. It was just plain milk at the end of the process, not even a discernible yogurty taste to it. On the other hand, we had great success using a cheap yogurt starter we found sitting around that had expired 5 years ago. I would love to have a full spectrum of probiotics, but can't spend the money to actually find one that works, so I have to stick to homemade yogurt.
- albertsw 2y agoHuberman [1] lists several studies emphasising mucrobiota diversity and health as the major factor. These studies seen to find that the way to get it is fermented foods, like sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir etc. and that commercial probiotics don't seem to do much. [1] https://www.hubermanlab.com/newsletter/6-key-tools-to-improve-your-gut-microbiome-health https://www.hubermanlab.com/newsletter/6-key-tools-to-improv...
- hnpolicestate 2y agoThe thing that has treated acute IBS episodes for me is ib guard. The green box. Though I'm pretty sure the primary ingredient is just peppermint oil.
- Havoc 2y agoHow does one actually go about procuring good probiotics? Short of doctor I mean
- giardini 2y agoMaybe they need to move upstream. My wife is all-enthusiastic about oral probiotics (as a cure-all). She's been watching some Chinese medical experts yak about that.
- PorterBHall 2y ago“Popular gut probiotic craps out…” My hat’s off to the copy editor who wrote that headline.
- uslic001 2y agoGastroenterologist here: Almost all probiotics are just a placebo with good marketing. There are a few that actually help like Florastor for C difficile colitis (https://florastor.com/ https://florastor.com/) and VSL#3 for Ulcerative Colitis (https://www.vsl3.com/ https://www.vsl3.com/). Stop wasting your money.