15 votes

Elite marathoners’ gut bacteria help mice run faster

7 comments

  1. [6]
    onyxleopard
    Link
    I don’t mean to pick on this particular article, but it’s really fascinating to me how much pop-medicine is focusing on our viscera lately. It feels like some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare. You’re...

    I don’t mean to pick on this particular article, but it’s really fascinating to me how much pop-medicine is focusing on our viscera lately. It feels like some kind of Kafkaesque nightmare. You’re not actually you, but merely a human husk. The real you—all your talents, defects, even your consciousness—is just a bunch of bugs eating poop in your digestive track. They’re pulling all the strings on your central nervous system. Sure, at first glance it seems like your brain is a big ball of intricately connected neurons from which your conscious self emerges, but actually it’s just the bugs that make you who you are. So, you better shove those probiotics down your gullet, or you might disrupt the shit factory that is you!

    I get that there is obviously some symbiosis going on with gut flora and human biology. And I can believe that there are channels by which our nervous systems get input from our stomachs and intestines. But, all these articles pushing the idea of 'fixing' the gut microbiome as a panacea is clickbait bullshit as far as I can tell. Unless you have some kind of severe IBS or some other dysfunction in your lower GI tract, I’m not convinced that you should focus on your gut flora any more than you should focus on the bacteria living under your fingernails or the mites living on your eyelashes.

    If anyone who is an expert on this can refute me, I’m willing to defer to you, but this just seems like a very strange meme that keeps proliferating and I can’t put my finger on why it bothers me. But it does.

    4 votes
    1. [3]
      Dogyote
      Link Parent
      I'm not an expert in this field, but I did earn a PhD in a loosely related field. It seems to me that the human microbiome is a ridiculously complicated system, possibly more complicated than our...

      I'm not an expert in this field, but I did earn a PhD in a loosely related field. It seems to me that the human microbiome is a ridiculously complicated system, possibly more complicated than our brains or genomes. No one seems to know for certain how the absolute mess of interactions works. Thus I don't think it's surprising that everything researchers look at has an effect on it. It's like a massive, yet loose, knot composed of thousands of different ropes. If you pull on one rope and watch the rest, you'll probably find that a hundred other ropes move. Some movement may be directly related to your actions, and some indirectly. The mentioned study was fairly straightforward based on the abstract, they pulled on one rope and knew which other ropes to monitor. Basically, Veillonella only eat lactate. A lot of lactate is produced during exercise and it crosses into the gut. Therefore it's not surprising that these bacteria divide and multiply when lactate is abundant. They turn the lactate into propionate, and that somehow increases endurance. Apparently your can get the same effect without the bacteria by squirting propionate up your butt.

      I like your Kafkaesque nightmare description. It may be accurate. Bacteria have been evolving within digestive tracks ever since they existed, and those digestive tracks have also been evolving with the bacteria. So it's not much of a surprise that communication exists between the two. The lab next to mine looks into that phenomenon. Don't quote me, but the lead investigator in that lab was suggesting that they saw evidence that bacteria were communicating directly with gut epithelial cells to request particular nutrients or something. I don't know if they really proved it, but such relationships exist in nature, for example between nitrogen fixing bacteria and plant roots. I wouldn't be surprised if someone proves that relationship exists within our guts. So yeah, what are we? Who or what is in control? Maybe this is why we sometimes crave very specific foods. Weird stuff.

      9 votes
      1. [2]
        onyxleopard
        Link Parent
        Sure, but if athletes are producing more lactate due to exercising, doesn’t it follow that there will be more bacteria that thrive on lactate in a lactate rich environment? It’s the exercise that...

        Therefore it's not surprising that these bacteria divide and multiply when lactate is abundant. They turn the lactate into propionate, and that somehow increases endurance. Apparently your can get the same effect without the bacteria by squirting propionate up your butt.

        Sure, but if athletes are producing more lactate due to exercising, doesn’t it follow that there will be more bacteria that thrive on lactate in a lactate rich environment? It’s the exercise that is important. If I got a fecal transplant from Michael Phelps, but I didn’t begin an exercise regiment similar to his, how much good is that going to do me? Are you saying that the bacteria from Phelps’ gut are possibly going to make me want to go swimming?

        1 vote
        1. Dogyote
          Link Parent
          Yes Probably not much. It seems like the bacteria enhance, but do not grant, athletic abilities. The bacteria that need lactate will not thrive, while other bacteria will out-compete and replace...

          if athletes are producing more lactate due to exercising, doesn’t it follow that there will be more bacteria that thrive on lactate in a lactate rich environment?

          Yes

          It’s the exercise that is important. If I got a fecal transplant from Michael Phelps, but I didn’t begin an exercise regiment similar to his, how much good is that going to do me?

          Probably not much. It seems like the bacteria enhance, but do not grant, athletic abilities. The bacteria that need lactate will not thrive, while other bacteria will out-compete and replace them. Sounds like you need to keep feeding them by exercising, then they provide propionate which somehow enhances your endurance levels.

          Are you saying that the bacteria from Phelps’ gut are possibly going to make me want to go swimming?

          More research needs to be done. If these bacteria can communicate with your body, then maybe, but that has yet to be determined. I suggest we get a sample from Mr Phelps and perform the transpoosion.

          3 votes
    2. Nivlak
      Link Parent
      I think you’re completely right and there is evidence that it is a meme train

      I think you’re completely right and there is evidence that it is a meme train

      2 votes
    3. Heichou
      Link Parent
      I'm in the same boat. "Gut Flora" is the most pseudo-sciencey bullshit I've ever heard and it sounds like something akin to Kombucha tea or "cleansing your body of toxins". It just seems like...

      I'm in the same boat. "Gut Flora" is the most pseudo-sciencey bullshit I've ever heard and it sounds like something akin to Kombucha tea or "cleansing your body of toxins". It just seems like another crazy miracle cure that moms in Facebook are posting about constantly

  2. DonQuixote
    Link
    I tend to see the issue of the gut biome as similar to that of the human genome, which at its beginnings was mis-characterized and misunderstood. Years later we've just scratched the surface of...

    I tend to see the issue of the gut biome as similar to that of the human genome, which at its beginnings was mis-characterized and misunderstood. Years later we've just scratched the surface of our understanding of gene expression and are even more naive on how the gut biome works. It's no accident that memes flourish when things are misunderstood. At one point in our history the general public thought Darwin asserted that man came from the apes. Cartoons portraying Darwin's portrait as that of an ape were published:

    https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Darwin_ape.png

    Humans think in symbols. And memes, however unscientific, transfer those memes rapidly. As our knowledge of the gut biome develops, the memes will change accordingly. I'm sure you're aware of other numerous examples.

    Interestingly enough, in the late 20th century several scientists generally believed that all the important things had been discovered. See this article: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/sciences-dead-end

    Upon reflection, it's obvious that scientific knowledge improves the technology that we use to do science, but that it takes time for this to happen. With all our improvements in technology, imagine what we won't know in another 20 years.

    3 votes