4 ms·

I will never understand this bizarre obsession with gut flora. We don't know what is normal, what is a beneficial ratio or when a change happens if that is good

by ottah 5mo ago

I will never understand this bizarre obsession with gut flora. We don't know what is normal, what is a beneficial ratio or when a change happens if that is good or bad thing. No one besides the people who study these things should be much attention to gut microbiomes. We just don't have enough information to let this be an influence on decision making.

rpmisms 5mo ago
We know that it's really important to neurological function, which is enough reason to be careful.
- tptacek 5mo ago
  By itself, it's simply an argument that proves too much. Anything you ingest impacts your gut flora. There can be gut microbiome hypos about glyphosate! But you have to actually have them; you can't stop at "it impacts gut flora".
  - rpmisms 5mo ago
    Well, I didn't intend that as a conversation-ender, but it is true. This particular substance inhibits a particular function of certain gut flora that seems important. I think it's safe to call that significant.
    - tptacek 5mo ago
      What "particular function" is that? If it's "the part that influences neurological function", you don't have a complete argument. If you can't be specific about this, your argument falls apart, because almost everything we eat potentially "inhibits" (or accelerates) different areas of our gut flora.
      - rpmisms 5mo ago
        I'm not trying to make a complete argument, I'm trying to raise a flag. This issue is not well-studied and has very large corporate sponsors who would like to keep selling Roundup-Ready™ crops. One particular measurable function is inhibition of the shikamate pathway in many different bacteria (the majority of the volume of your gut flora is affected). Here's a decent paper that shows an adverse effect: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10330715/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10330715/ I understand that this is the realm of crunchy weirdos, but thinking holistically doesn't mean you need to lobotomize yourself. Here's another paper examining some brain effects of chronic gut inflammation, which could be reasonably inferred as a potential consequence of long-term glyphosate exposure: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10661239/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10661239/
        tptacek 5mo ago
        You haven't raised a flag! You've observed (and cited a paper that shows in mouse models under relatively high human dosages) that glyphosate can impact certain gut bacteria species. That's plausible! But all sorts of things do that, and you haven't presented evidence that connects that to an adverse human health outcome. In particular: you haven't cited a source showing glyphosate is causative of gut inflammation. "It impacts the gut biome" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for these arguments; if it were, you could knock down all sorts of things, including specific diets (and most abrupt changes in diet).
        rpmisms 5mo ago
        Call it (pun intended) a smell test. I have cited a study that shows biomarkers of gut inflammation strongly correlated with glyphosate exposure. Perhaps you should have read it. I have raised a flag. Lowering your exposure to a novel chemical agent that directly impacts a massive and poorly-understood symbiotic system within the body isn't a bad response. Glyphosate exposure certainly isn't beneficial, so I'll treat it like Pascal's wager: avoiding this has more upside than downside.
        tptacek 5mo ago
eagsalazar2 5mo ago
Your comment seems a little flippant honestly. I know what "disrupted" is, trust me. I developed a gluten sensitivity about 10 years ago but only figured it out 5 years ago. "Healthy" is "feels healthy" and "doesn't die young", that is pretty simple. It sounds like you think this is about hypothetical and marginal health benefits but people have very acute and immediate physical (and cognitive) issues because of disrupted gut biome that are objectively improved by cutting out, in particular, gluten. This isn't just some weird obession.
- array_key_first 5mo ago
  Gluten intolerance is a real thing but I don't think that necessarily means that your gut flora is damaged or whatever. Plenty of people are lactose intolerant, and their gut flora is fine, they're just lactose intolerant. I don't think you could solve gluten intolerance but just improving your gut microbiome, so they're probably not related.
  - onlypassingthru 5mo ago
    Why not? A fecal transplant seems to work for C. difficile sufferers.
    - array_key_first 5mo ago
      A fecal transplant definitely doesn't work for celiac disease, which is the only gluten intolerance you have to worry about. Other gluten intolerance is probably not gluten, gluten is just a close enough proxy. Could be FODMAP + IBS or maybe some other sensitivity.
      - mint5 5mo ago
        Why are you narrowly focusing on gluten intolerance when this line of comments appears to be denying whether gut biome is worth caring about due to having impacts on health?
mint5 5mo ago
“I don’t understand it well enough in my opinion so we shouldn’t care about it”? I’m pretty sure there’s hundreds of things we rightly understood are detrimental centuries before we knew how it worked. Aka pretty much everything bad before 1900.

by ottah 5mo ago

rpmisms 5mo ago

We know that it's really important to neurological function, which is enough reason to be careful.

tptacek 5mo ago
By itself, it's simply an argument that proves too much. Anything you ingest impacts your gut flora. There can be gut microbiome hypos about glyphosate! But you have to actually have them; you can't stop at "it impacts gut flora".
- rpmisms 5mo ago
  Well, I didn't intend that as a conversation-ender, but it is true. This particular substance inhibits a particular function of certain gut flora that seems important. I think it's safe to call that significant.
  - tptacek 5mo ago
    What "particular function" is that? If it's "the part that influences neurological function", you don't have a complete argument. If you can't be specific about this, your argument falls apart, because almost everything we eat potentially "inhibits" (or accelerates) different areas of our gut flora.
    - rpmisms 5mo ago
      I'm not trying to make a complete argument, I'm trying to raise a flag. This issue is not well-studied and has very large corporate sponsors who would like to keep selling Roundup-Ready™ crops. One particular measurable function is inhibition of the shikamate pathway in many different bacteria (the majority of the volume of your gut flora is affected). Here's a decent paper that shows an adverse effect: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10330715/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10330715/ I understand that this is the realm of crunchy weirdos, but thinking holistically doesn't mean you need to lobotomize yourself. Here's another paper examining some brain effects of chronic gut inflammation, which could be reasonably inferred as a potential consequence of long-term glyphosate exposure: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10661239/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10661239/
      - tptacek 5mo ago
        You haven't raised a flag! You've observed (and cited a paper that shows in mouse models under relatively high human dosages) that glyphosate can impact certain gut bacteria species. That's plausible! But all sorts of things do that, and you haven't presented evidence that connects that to an adverse human health outcome. In particular: you haven't cited a source showing glyphosate is causative of gut inflammation. "It impacts the gut biome" isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for these arguments; if it were, you could knock down all sorts of things, including specific diets (and most abrupt changes in diet).
        rpmisms 5mo ago
        Call it (pun intended) a smell test. I have cited a study that shows biomarkers of gut inflammation strongly correlated with glyphosate exposure. Perhaps you should have read it. I have raised a flag. Lowering your exposure to a novel chemical agent that directly impacts a massive and poorly-understood symbiotic system within the body isn't a bad response. Glyphosate exposure certainly isn't beneficial, so I'll treat it like Pascal's wager: avoiding this has more upside than downside.
        tptacek 5mo ago

eagsalazar2 5mo ago

Your comment seems a little flippant honestly. I know what "disrupted" is, trust me. I developed a gluten sensitivity about 10 years ago but only figured it out 5 years ago. "Healthy" is "feels healthy" and "doesn't die young", that is pretty simple. It sounds like you think this is about hypothetical and marginal health benefits but people have very acute and immediate physical (and cognitive) issues because of disrupted gut biome that are objectively improved by cutting out, in particular, gluten. This isn't just some weird obession.

array_key_first 5mo ago
Gluten intolerance is a real thing but I don't think that necessarily means that your gut flora is damaged or whatever. Plenty of people are lactose intolerant, and their gut flora is fine, they're just lactose intolerant. I don't think you could solve gluten intolerance but just improving your gut microbiome, so they're probably not related.
- onlypassingthru 5mo ago
  Why not? A fecal transplant seems to work for C. difficile sufferers.
  - array_key_first 5mo ago
    A fecal transplant definitely doesn't work for celiac disease, which is the only gluten intolerance you have to worry about. Other gluten intolerance is probably not gluten, gluten is just a close enough proxy. Could be FODMAP + IBS or maybe some other sensitivity.
    - mint5 5mo ago
      Why are you narrowly focusing on gluten intolerance when this line of comments appears to be denying whether gut biome is worth caring about due to having impacts on health?

mint5 5mo ago

“I don’t understand it well enough in my opinion so we shouldn’t care about it”? I’m pretty sure there’s hundreds of things we rightly understood are detrimental centuries before we knew how it worked. Aka pretty much everything bad before 1900.