Great gut extinction: Has modern life destroyed our health

[Martial]

No, the argument that some people are offering is that spore-forming bacteria from the soil make safe probiotics because our ancestors living closely with the land would have naturally had these bacterial in their guts.

But the question I have always asked is: did our ancestors actually have spore-forming bacteria in their guts. It's an assumption made by those arguing for the safety of spore-forming probiotics.

If their argument is correct, you would expect the Yanomami, who live closely with the land, to have spore-forming bacteria from the soil in their guts. That's why I would like to know if they do.

Oh I see, thanks for clarifying. Well it seems based off response of people here, as well as others that it does work well. I dont see a huge risk in at least trying it and seeing how someone reacts. Yeah, it would be very interesting to look into that though! Perhaps in the future they will try and find a way to study microbiome of different peoples, and cultures raised throughout different times of civilization.

 

[Hip]

I dont see a huge risk in at least trying it and seeing how someone reacts.

I think the potential risk comes from the fact that normally, probiotic bacteria and normal gut bacteria are not spore-forming. If a bacterium can form spores, this makes it much more hardy, and resistant to antibiotics. So once you take these spore-forming probiotics, I think they are going to be part of your gut flora for life.

On the other hand, because these spore-forming soil-based organism probiotics are so hardy, it makes them effective fighters against pathogenic bacteria in your gut.

 

[Martial]

I think the potential risk comes from the fact that normally, probiotic bacteria and normal gut bacteria are not spore-forming. If a bacterium can form spores, this makes it much more hardy, and resistant to antibiotics. So once you take these spore-forming probiotics, I think they are going to be part of your gut flora for life.

On the other hand, because these spore-forming soil-based organism probiotics are so hardy, it makes them effective fighters against pathogenic bacteria in your gut.

Interesting points, I wonder how @adreno percieves this part about it.

 

[rosie26]

Neither of my parents ever had a cold, flu or even headache

I remember my maternal grandmother telling me that she had never had a headache. I remember finding it hilariously incredulous at the time. She was brought up on a farm and lived most of her married life on one and raised 10 children. She had good health all her life.

 

[adreno]

Interesting points, I wonder how @adreno percieves this part about it.

To my knowledge, SBOs, like clostridium butyricum, do not permanently colonize the human gut, so I wouldn't be too worried about taking them.

 

[Mij]

@rosie26 same here, my grandmother raised 13 children and prepared food/cooked from scratch every day. They never had days off. I've been "off" for 24yrs

 

[alicec]

As an aside: I wonder why there were so many more nasty diseases in the Old World compare the New World.

In 'Guns, Germs and Steel" Jarod Diamond discusses this issue at length. Many (maybe all - it is sometime since I read it and can't remember all the detail) of the nasties were originally animal viruses/bacteria that were transferred to and became endemic in humans over time. Initially response could have been fatal, just as we see now with newly emerging viruses such as bird-flu, but eventually immunity built up and humans were able to live with the infections.

It was intensive agriculture and close living with many domesticated animal species that created such a reservoir in the old world. New world inhabitants hadn't had these same exposures and so had no immunity to the infections.

 

[Hip]

That makes a lot of sense, @alicec.

According to the Neolithic Revolution article in Wikipedia that I just looked at, this agricultural revolution occurred as early as 11,000 BC in some places in the Old World, but only around 5,000 BC in the New World. So the Old World had a big head start in terms of accumulating nasty infectious pathogens from agricultural animals.

In fact, in that article on the Neolithic Revolution it says:

Inadequate sanitary practices and the domestication of animals may explain the rise in deaths and sickness following the Neolithic Revolution, as diseases jumped from the animal to the human population. Some examples of diseases spread from animals to humans are influenza, smallpox, and measles. In concordance with a process of natural selection, the humans who first domesticated the big mammals quickly built up immunities to the diseases as within each generation the individuals with better immunities had better chances of survival.

In their approximately 10,000 years of shared proximity with animals, such as cows, Eurasians and Africans became more resistant to those diseases compared with the indigenous populations encountered outside Eurasia and Africa. For instance, the population of most Caribbean and several Pacific Islands have been completely wiped out by diseases.

According to the Population history of American indigenous peoples, 90% of the population of certain regions of North and South America were wiped out, perhaps by contact with European trappers, before recorded contact with European explorers or colonists. Some cultures like the Inca Empire did have one big mammal domesticated, the Llama, but the Inca did not drink its milk or live in a closed space with their herds, hence limiting the risk of contagion.