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