test/expected/SLASHDOT/0102641010.header

   1 0Study Finds Probiotics 'Not As Beneficial For Gut Health As Previously Thought' (theguardian.com)      null/SLASHDOT/0102641010                70
   2 i  Thursday September 06, 2018 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
   3 i  from the contrary-to-popular-belief dept.
   4 i
   5 i    An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:
   6 i
   7 i    >   The   gut   microbiome   is   the  sum  total  of  all  the
   8 i    micro-organisms  living  in  a person's gut, and has been shown
   9 i    to  play  a  huge  role in human health. New research has found
  10 i    probiotics  -- usually taken as supplements or in foods such as
  11 i    yoghurt,  kimchi  or  kefir  --  [1]can  hinder a patient's gut
  12 i    microbiome   from   returning  to  normal  after  a  course  of
  13 i    antibiotics  ,  and that different people respond to probiotics
  14 i    in  dramatically  different ways. In the [2]first of two papers
  15 i    published   in   the   journal   Cell,   researchers  performed
  16 i    endoscopies  and  colonoscopies  to  sample  and  study the gut
  17 i    microbiomes  of  people  who  took antibiotics before and after
  18 i    probiotic  consumption.  Another  group  were  given samples of
  19 i    their   own   gut   microbiomes   collected   before  consuming
  20 i    antibiotics.  The  researchers  found  the microbiomes of those
  21 i    who  had  taken  the  probiotics  had  suffered  a "very severe
  22 i    disturbance."  "Once the probiotics had colonized the gut, they
  23 i    completely  inhibited  the  return of the indigenous microbiome
  24 i    which  was  disrupted  during  antibiotic treatment," said Eran
  25 i    Elinav,  an  immunologist  at the Weizmann Institute of Science
  26 i    in Israel and lead author on the studies.
  27 i
  28 i    >
  29 i
  30 i    >  The  scientists also compared the gut microbiomes of the gut
  31 i    intestinal  tract  of  25 volunteers with that of their stools.
  32 i    They  found  that stool bacteria only partially correlated with
  33 i    the  microbiomes  functioning inside their bodies. "So the fact
  34 i    that  we all almost exclusively rely on stool in our microbiome
  35 i    research  may  not be a reliable way of studying gut microbiome
  36 i    health,"  said Elinav. In the [3]second paper , the researchers
  37 i    examined  the  colonization  and  impact  of  probiotics  on 15
  38 i    people  by  sampling  within their gastrointestinal tract. They
  39 i    divided  the  individuals  into  two  groups:  one were given a
  40 i    preparation   made   of   11  strains  of  very  commonly  used
  41 i    probiotics  and  the  other  were given a placebo. Of those who
  42 i    were   given   probiotics,   he   said,  "We  could  group  the
  43 i    individuals  into  two  distinct groups: one which resisted the
  44 i    colonisation   of   the   probiotics,  and  one  in  which  the
  45 i    probiotics  colonized  the  gut and modified the composition of
  46 i    the gut microbiome and the genes of the host individual."
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  49 i
  50 i    [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/sep/06/probiotics-
  51 i    not-as-beneficial-for-gut-health-as-previously-thought
  52 i
  53 i    [2] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)31102-4
  54 i
  55 i    [3] https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(18)31108-5
  56 i