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Can someone interpret my vegetable-heavy microbiome for me?


InquilineKea

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Gordo is right. While no doubt the microbiome has impact on human physiology, at this point science knows far too little to make definitive conclusions about any particular person. I've seen claims made for certain strains of bacteria, negative and positive, that don't seem to be borne out in different populations - so a given strain might be associated with good outcomes in Africa, but not in Europe and so on. It's still a giant mess, and as science not ready for prime time. We're in the early-early-early stages of understanding, and little of what we know so far about the microbiome is actionable. Even the old nostrums about consuming fermented dairy (and other fermented foods) show equivocal outcomes when clinically examined. I don't worry overmuch about priobiotics and prebiotics, I figure if I consume a diet that has enough fiber and F&V, the microbiome will take care of itself.

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Lots of skepticism here.

 

Since your major gut bacteria was Bacteroides, and it was the biggest absolutely distinct from Population gut bacteria, the below may inform:

 

"The Bacteroides entero-type was highly associated with animal protein, a variety of amino acids, and saturated fats (Fig. 2C), which suggests that meat consumption as in a Western diet characterized this enterotype."

 

Linking long-term dietary patterns with gut microbial enterotypes.

Wu GD, Chen J, Hoffmann C, Bittinger K, Chen YY, Keilbaugh SA, Bewtra M, Knights D, Walters WA, Knight R, Sinha R, Gilroy E, Gupta K, Baldassano R, Nessel L, Li H, Bushman FD, Lewis JD.

Science. 2011 Oct 7;334(6052):105-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1208344.

PMID: 21885731 Free PMC Article

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3368382/

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"Since your major gut bacteria was Bacteroides"

 

Or was it?  Did that species just happen to reproduce the fastest from the time he wiped his ass to the time the lab analyzed it?  And how did that particular sample compare to say 20 other samples within the same poop?  What did he eat that day?  What were the bacteria still eating when the lab looked at them?  Did the lab compensate for ex-vivo adjusted growth rates?  How well distributed are bacteria in the gut?  How representative is any given stool sample of the overall gut?

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