The Other Side of the Gut Microbiota Craze - [Research]

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I'm beginning to become a little skeptical of the recent hype on the gut microbiota and how important a diet plenty in plant foods is critical to health; I might be biased because of my following of the ketogenic diet though. But I cannot turn my head in the other direction when I read papers that go against convention.

What I will not deny is that the gut microbiota impacts our health. Many authors, gurus, and even researchers shout out in favor of a diverse gut flora, even in the face of little to no solid human studies on the matter. However, this doesn't mean that we should ignore animal data. On the contrary, we should seek ways to understand how it is relevant to our own health.

Another thing we might be very confident about is that dysbiosis is more often than not associated with disease. But what about the complete lack of microbes? What about human populations thriving on the extremes of the diet spectrum, such as people on plant only diets or people on plant free diets (like for example some populations living in arctic conditions?). All of these are worth exploring...

Even though we have some human data on the microbiota showing that diversity may be beneficial and that proliferation of certain strains causes disease, we don't know that a complete lack of it is pathogenic. Reason being that some very good researchers argue that we cannot derive practical conclusions from 'diversity => beneficial', in that of supplement with certain families of bacteria.

All I'm saying is stop for a moment, pause, and think, instead of promoting unnecessary hype.

And for that matter, I'm going to suggest reading a paper by Thevaranjan and colleagues (2017) in which they observe how germ-free mice (lacking a microbiota) are protected from age-associated inflammation compared to wild-type mice. Long quote, but it gives a good idea of their intervention:

"Herein we report that intestinal permeability increases with age in mice due to age-related microbial dysbiosis. We demonstrate that microbial products enter the bloodstream of aged mice where they trigger systemic inflammation (i.e., elevated levels of serum interleukin 6 [IL6]). Chronic exposure to inflammation alters macrophage function, rendering these cells poor killers of bacteria but potent producers of inflammatory cytokines, which ultimately contributes to the inflammatory state of the aged host.

Using old (18–22 months) germ-free mice, which do not have age-associated inflammation, we demonstrate that colonization with the microbiota from old mice drives the inflammation that accompanies aging." [source]

Instead of trying to derive conclusions from this, we should begin asking more questions as it might lead us much further ahead. I, for one, know that I'm going to look at and read research and also anecdotal reports that are similar to this and don't push a message like a broken record. Full paper freely available below:

The Other Side of the Gut Microbiota Craze - [Research]

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Cristi Vlad Self-Experimenter and Author