Interesting article about bacteria's and our health..

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That was a nice article to read. Thanks for sharing.

Yesterday I was surprised reading an article about an up coming probiotic meeting. The piece mentioned that the probiotic market was worth around 24 billion euros and expected to grow by 50% in the coming years! Made me wonder if I read the article correctly, or if there was a misprint. It does seem though that probiotics are becoming more and more popular. I see them sold everywhere in stores now. I just wish that they helped my condition better.
 
"Last year, however, researchers led by Peer Bork, of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, in Heidelberg, discovered that people can be classified by the type of bacterial species that dominate their guts. The group found that humans fall into one of three categories—called enterotypes—none of which correlate to age, race, or gender. The finding, analogous to the discovery, a century ago, that there are four blood types, could eventually help lead to treatments. “Some things are pretty obvious already,’’ Bork told the Times when the research was published. “Doctors might be able to tailor diets or drug prescriptions to suit people’s enterotypes.” He added that, instead of prescribing antibiotics, a doctor might, on the basis of these categories, restore bacteria that had been destroyed. As many as forty per cent of children treated with a broad-spectrum antibiotic will develop a condition called pediatric antibiotic-associated diarrhea. Several clinical trials have now indicated that the use of probiotics during antibiotic treatment might prevent this disease."
---Further individualizing treatment to genetics and probiogenomics is the way to go. This makes me think of us further categorizing our Crohns-enterotypes by: firstly, in an ideal future medical setting, mapping out bacteria populations-especially considering specific areas of inflammation; and secondly, perhaps, directly attribute certain problem-foods-lists that could be associated with said populations and intestinal segments.

"The American Academy of Microbiology, for example, has reported that although Lactobacillus GG (Culterelle's dominant strain) appears to reduce the risk of eczema in babies, it can worsen the condition of people with Crohn’s disease, and in rare cases it could cause endocarditis, a potentially deadly inflammation of the inner layers of the heart."
---Surprising and deserving of more investigation.

"...Complete Probiotics contains ten strains of bacteria, and Mercola’s logic, shared by many other manufacturers, seems to be that if each of the strains is beneficial on its own it will be that much more powerful when combined with others. "

“That argument is fallacious, and potentially very troublesome,” Michael Fischbach, of U.C.S.F., told me. He noted that although some antibiotics, taken together, enhance each other’s effectiveness, the opposite is also true: some common drugs are deadly when combined. “Therapeutics based on bacterial cells will never take off until physicians feel confident that they can prescribe them as medicine, without problems,’’ Fischbach said. “Right now, the standard for evidence is disgustingly low. If we expect the knowledge we gain from the microbiome to transform human health, that will have to change. If not, probiotics will be nothing more than snake oil.”
---While I'm all for documentation and studies surrounding benefits/negatives/efficacy, I can't help but notice how overly critical medical establishments are of "natural", unpatentable, cheaper supplements while simultaneously allowing pharmaceutical companies to push killer prescriptions that in some cases are based on completely fraudulent data and send tens of thousands to their untimely death. However, it stands to reason that changing up strains/mixes of probios is a good idea instead of taking the same one day in and out. Too much of any one thing isn't good.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/22/121022fa_fact_specter#ixzz2O6XJHGfZ

In any event, probiogenomics--as well as endeavors like Metagenomics of the Human Intestinal Tract Project, known as MetaHIT--is a field that I hope advances quickly.
 
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