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In general, eating the same diet as thin/healthy people will cause your microbiome to shift toward the microbiome of thin/healthy people. This is because your m

by dlss 12y ago

In general, eating the same diet as thin/healthy people will cause your microbiome to shift toward the microbiome of thin/healthy people. This is because your microbial population is largely determined by resource availability and resource type, and adaptation happens quite quickly (ie speeds not unlike those shown in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb272zsixSQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb272zsixSQ) However, I believe it's wrong to conclude that thin/healthy people have the kind of microbiome you should be aiming for. The microbiome you want (or rather I want) is the one my ancestor's had, just like I want the food I eat to be similar to the food my ancestor's ate. Unfortunately this is basically impossible given modern farming techniques, which remove most of the food-borne microbes found on natural crops. See http://humanfoodproject.com/rebecoming-human-happened-day-replaced-99-genes-body-hunter-gatherer/ http://humanfoodproject.com/rebecoming-human-happened-day-re... for more on this from the founder of the American Gut Project.

cbd1984 12y ago
> The microbiome you want (or rather I want) is the one my ancestor's had Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? Do you think they all had the same microbiome?
- dlss 12y ago
  > Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? It's the null hypothesis. For me personally, it's more a bet against the modern microbiome than it is a bet for the ancestral one. See also paleo vs margarine, no fat, no cholesterol, no carbs, enough poly-saturated fat, enough omega 3. Really paleo vs any nutrition advice that's more than 10 years old (so the science had a chance to check the claims) IMO we don't currently know enough about nutrition or the microbiome to make a better choice than "whatever our great-great-great grandparents did" > Do you think they all had the same microbiome? They didn't, but they had way more diversity and significantly different strains than moderns do. Check out my above link to the american gut project's founder or http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0106833 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
  - msandford 12y ago
    I think it's bananas that you're advocating for historical eating and getting downvoted. The only reason we're here at all is that it worked well enough to keep people alive. Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years and the diet has changed a lot in the last 50 years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the change in diet is causative towards these outcomes rather than simply correlated. And considering how long it's going to take to sort it out definitively, you might have to go most of your life making decisions based on a hunch rather than with proven science. It sucks, but that's life.
    - genofon 12y ago
      >heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years I'm not sure about that, in the past the diagnosis were really different from now so you can't really compare them. Also the lifespan was much shorted at that time, so people had less changes to get these illnesses.
      - will_work4tears 12y ago
        So are you arguing that obesity in children is happening because we are living longer?
        DanBC 12y ago
        It's not controversial to say that cancer is a disease of old age, and that rates of cancer are higher now because people are living longer. That makes a lot more sense than a lot of the nutrition bullshit that gets posted to HN.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        will_work4tears 12y ago
filoeleven 12y ago
If you want an archaic microbiome, you may want to investigate the probiotic offered by General Biotics[1], featured a few times on HN. 100+ species of microbes that are both well-studied and missing from modern processed foods. I haven't tried it yet myself and I never got a response when I asked how long one has to take the supplement in order to feel results on average. It's an interesting idea and appears to be well-received by those who've tried it though. [1] http://www.generalbiotics.com/ http://www.generalbiotics.com/

by dlss 12y ago

cbd1984 12y ago

> The microbiome you want (or rather I want) is the one my ancestor's had Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? Do you think they all had the same microbiome?

dlss 12y ago
> Why? Do you think your ancestors were especially healthy? It's the null hypothesis. For me personally, it's more a bet against the modern microbiome than it is a bet for the ancestral one. See also paleo vs margarine, no fat, no cholesterol, no carbs, enough poly-saturated fat, enough omega 3. Really paleo vs any nutrition advice that's more than 10 years old (so the science had a chance to check the claims) IMO we don't currently know enough about nutrition or the microbiome to make a better choice than "whatever our great-great-great grandparents did" > Do you think they all had the same microbiome? They didn't, but they had way more diversity and significantly different strains than moderns do. Check out my above link to the american gut project's founder or http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0106833 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
- msandford 12y ago
  I think it's bananas that you're advocating for historical eating and getting downvoted. The only reason we're here at all is that it worked well enough to keep people alive. Maybe it's not "optimal" but considering that obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years and the diet has changed a lot in the last 50 years, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the change in diet is causative towards these outcomes rather than simply correlated. And considering how long it's going to take to sort it out definitively, you might have to go most of your life making decisions based on a hunch rather than with proven science. It sucks, but that's life.
  - genofon 12y ago
    >heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc rates have all been climbing like crazy for the last 50 years I'm not sure about that, in the past the diagnosis were really different from now so you can't really compare them. Also the lifespan was much shorted at that time, so people had less changes to get these illnesses.
    - will_work4tears 12y ago
      So are you arguing that obesity in children is happening because we are living longer?
      - DanBC 12y ago
        It's not controversial to say that cancer is a disease of old age, and that rates of cancer are higher now because people are living longer. That makes a lot more sense than a lot of the nutrition bullshit that gets posted to HN.
        deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
        will_work4tears 12y ago

filoeleven 12y ago

If you want an archaic microbiome, you may want to investigate the probiotic offered by General Biotics[1], featured a few times on HN. 100+ species of microbes that are both well-studied and missing from modern processed foods. I haven't tried it yet myself and I never got a response when I asked how long one has to take the supplement in order to feel results on average. It's an interesting idea and appears to be well-received by those who've tried it though. [1] http://www.generalbiotics.com/ http://www.generalbiotics.com/