Sorry, Your Gut Bacteria Are Not The Answer To All Your Health Problems

[Stuart]

funny timing mt. dreams & Stuart....today it dawned on me that i may have a correlation in my body with serotonin (or bad bacteria) and my stress levels. this has always been pretty consistent that when i get super stressed, i get really bloated, retain water, etc. I have almost the same exact symptoms when i am starved. Do we know if it's that they multiply under certain conditions or just that they cause disruption?

Nicholas, I'm only talking about my experience and what I've read, but I find a fully functioning microbiome (and you may have noticed me mentioning that I eat a LOT of fermentable fiber to make that so) is a constant ally against against all forms of stress. emotional, digestive, and bacterial. Since I upped my fermentable fiber intake, I've never been sick (just under 2 yrs now) sleep better. poop better, and just don't let things get me down. I think the way I've participated in the discussions on this forum attest to that too. I don't have any of the yeast/fungus overgrowth symptoms my entire pre fiber life was plagued by. I've no doubt that I still have pathogenic populations hiding in biofilms though. Apparently they can do so for up to ten years. Let them wait.

We know already that the state of your microbiota affect your mood in myriad ways. I honestly feel like my microbiome is now shouldering the burden that used to have to be dealt with just by my brain.
That's about as unscientific as I can get.
YMMV.

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

So basically your title is a straw man... How do you expect the thread to go from there?

This isn't the debate forum Oxy.
Click here for the debate thread

You seem always very angrily dismissive.
Too much bacterial party down the GI?

Definitely not either - gotta learn how to be critical independent of emotions. Do you know what a straw man is? Now this is about my behavior or me as a person? Is the foundation for this thread a straw man or not?

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

So Xplus... still waiting for someone to have more than wilful attempts to answer why an important role of breast milk is to promote the beneficial bacteria in a tiny human's microbiome. It's amazing watching you avoiding the issue. It's a fact and it incontrovertibly shows that the health of the microbiome is THE number one priority in the list of jobs when a new human is born.
The first stage in that process happens even before the baby emerges into the world, with the innoculation by the mother's microbiome during the baby's passage through the birth canal. But sowing the seed isn't enough. Those bacteria won't flourish if they're not supplied with their favourite food - fermentable fiber.
Hang on, it's on tap - breast milk. Not just even more bacteria, but plenty of the fermentable fiber they need to grow big and strong and have lots and lots of their own kiddie bacteria to carry on the family name. If the mucus/mucins that a high carbohydrate diet (Peatarian for instance) was as good as or even better than fermentable fiber, breast milk wouldn't contain so much of it , just more lactose.
Clearly the health of your microbiome is pretty important.

And the bacteria don't just need feeding properly during breastfeeding. They only live for 20 minutes after all. Offspring of those bacteria will need to be properly looked after till your dying day.
Now you may have noticed that I'm not using my own experience with looking after my microbiome at all. If somebody specifically asks for some advice, I'll happily give it. And I'm really glad you've found something that works for you. But n=1 subjectivity is irrelevant. Sure, report it if somebody asks you for it for some diagnostic purpose.
But for the purposes of this discussion, it just gets in the way of worthwhile discussion.
And I respect that you and I have a different opinion about the importance of microbiome health to whole body health. That's totally fine by me. As long as you keep your personal experience out of a discussion about why there is so much fermentable fiber in breast milk, we might all learn something.
O.K?

You're not understanding that when looking at the results of evolution today, you're looking at environments that were present 100s of years ago. We evolved with bacteria because it was present in the environment. We now know enough about our body (thanks to Peat et al) to construct an environment to maximally optimise health, vitality, fitness etc. One of the caveats of this environment is to maintain a near sterile gut which we can do with lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic.

What you're trying to do is maximise the distance travelled while looking at the old dirt roads used by horses years ago and announcing 'see! we should use horses!' In the current environment however, we now have cars, trains and planes that we can take advantage of and increase the distance travelled.

Are you really suggesting that you just give these same inputs ("lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic") to every person, and they will all move in the right direction towards the same effects? Is the difference between traveling by car and by horse really analogous to the difference between what you're suggesting as a health optimizing diet and a diet from "years ago."

The whole "we evolved with bacteria but don't need it anymore" really needs substantiation. I don't know how you can say this with a straight face! Bacteria are very very present in our environment today...

 

[tara]

I think when Peat is talking about a sterile gut, he doesn't mean 100% sterile. I think he means just under control. And if your digestion and bowel transit are poor because of lowered metabolism, then his suggestions to minimize endotoxin become really useful (carrot salad, charcoal, etc). But once your metabolism/digestion is much more robust than all of this becomes unimportant to be conscious of.

I agree with this, except that I don't think I've come across Peat recommending anyone have a sterile gut. I think he favours keeping the numbers/volume down if they are giving you trouble, and he points out some ways they can cause trouble for some people, primarily via endotoxin and maybe serotonin.

 

[cantstoppeating]

So Xplus... still waiting for someone to have more than wilful attempts to answer why an important role of breast milk is to promote the beneficial bacteria in a tiny human's microbiome. It's amazing watching you avoiding the issue. It's a fact and it incontrovertibly shows that the health of the microbiome is THE number one priority in the list of jobs when a new human is born.
The first stage in that process happens even before the baby emerges into the world, with the innoculation by the mother's microbiome during the baby's passage through the birth canal. But sowing the seed isn't enough. Those bacteria won't flourish if they're not supplied with their favourite food - fermentable fiber.
Hang on, it's on tap - breast milk. Not just even more bacteria, but plenty of the fermentable fiber they need to grow big and strong and have lots and lots of their own kiddie bacteria to carry on the family name. If the mucus/mucins that a high carbohydrate diet (Peatarian for instance) was as good as or even better than fermentable fiber, breast milk wouldn't contain so much of it , just more lactose.
Clearly the health of your microbiome is pretty important.

And the bacteria don't just need feeding properly during breastfeeding. They only live for 20 minutes after all. Offspring of those bacteria will need to be properly looked after till your dying day.
Now you may have noticed that I'm not using my own experience with looking after my microbiome at all. If somebody specifically asks for some advice, I'll happily give it. And I'm really glad you've found something that works for you. But n=1 subjectivity is irrelevant. Sure, report it if somebody asks you for it for some diagnostic purpose.
But for the purposes of this discussion, it just gets in the way of worthwhile discussion.
And I respect that you and I have a different opinion about the importance of microbiome health to whole body health. That's totally fine by me. As long as you keep your personal experience out of a discussion about why there is so much fermentable fiber in breast milk, we might all learn something.
O.K?

You're not understanding that when looking at the results of evolution today, you're looking at environments that were present 100s of years ago. We evolved with bacteria because it was present in the environment. We now know enough about our body (thanks to Peat et al) to construct an environment to maximally optimise health, vitality, fitness etc. One of the caveats of this environment is to maintain a near sterile gut which we can do with lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic.

What you're trying to do is maximise the distance travelled while looking at the old dirt roads used by horses years ago and announcing 'see! we should use horses!' In the current environment however, we now have cars, trains and planes that we can take advantage of and increase the distance travelled.

Are you really suggesting that you just give these same inputs ("lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic") to every person, and they will all move in the right direction towards the same effects? Is the difference between traveling by car and by horse really analogous to the difference between what you're suggesting as a health optimizing diet and a diet from "years ago."

The whole "we evolved with bacteria but don't need it anymore" really needs substantiation. I don't know how you can say this with a straight face! Bacteria are very very present in our environment today...

We don't need to wonder and 'debate' about it for pages and pages.

Simply take some doxycycline for a few weeks then continue with carrots, coconut oil, charcoal etc and see how you feel. As a bonus, take some blood tests (serotonin, c-reactive protein, WBC etc) and note changes.

After that, introduce some feces (aka 'organic soil') into your diet, however much you like, and again note changes.

 

[XPlus]

He may have not discussed this matter in details but contrary to what people sometimes suggest here that doesn't make him wrong.

Narouz,

Your comments have a great discussion potential and I promise I'll be back very soon after I finish my reporting period. I don't want to do this in a rush.

 

[XPlus]

Definitely not either - gotta learn how to be critical independent of emotions. Do you know what a straw man is? Now this is about my behavior or me as a person? Is the foundation for this thread a straw man or not?

Enough of the objective bigtorey.
I sometimes use oxymorons to disintegrate bacteria zealots such as yourself, Oxy.
But I don't have to, the bugs will take care of it.

The ideas that I propagate here are indeed shocking to those soaked with bacterial nonsense.
That's why you'll find them crying for objectivity.
Because every potential this field ever had for improving human health is turning out to be a joke and now the research is funded by Monsanto and the bunch.

Your credibly is severely at risk, so you'd rather worry less about my emotions and start thinking about finding a way out of it with some dignity.

 

[mt_dreams]

funny timing mt. dreams & Stuart....today it dawned on me that i may have a correlation in my body with serotonin (or bad bacteria) and my stress levels. this has always been pretty consistent that when i get super stressed, i get really bloated, retain water, etc. I have almost the same exact symptoms when i am starved. Do we know if it's that they multiply under certain conditions or just that they cause disruption?

With a lot of things, I tend to think more vibrationally than scientifically, so this may not be accurate. The population size is not always the more pressing issue, rather which bacteria are dictating the vibrational signal. This signal dictates your observed emotional reality, which helps write the script for your word processor & post signing. If the battle for gut domination is excessive, or the good guys are loosing the ongoing battle, it will manifest itself through negative emotions & observations, to shape your reality. It's why one's perception towards any observation can change drastically when there's a change in the bacterial symphony.

So the question becomes, what's activating stress when it comes into perception. Is your observation being filtered through past emotional memories of similar events, or is it, in real time, through the symphony (be it bacterial, or hormonal) via the gut/brain connection. If there's chaos in the gut, stress will manifest itself even if there's no past emotional experience to warrant the current stress. It's why people sometimes experience stress regarding something they previously experienced without stress.

When emotion is stressed, bacteria harmonizes to that vibration, so the two can dance in-sync with each other. The same is true with an internal stress like hunger, just it happens in reverse. A healthy mind is a healthy gut, they're one in the same. When stress occurs to either, the other mimics the change of the stronger vibration. Using a stoic experience as an ex, even in the prescience of a stressor, the stronger harmony will be able to absorb the stress vibration without blinking an eye. Someone with a weaker internal vibration will easily be overcome by the new stress vibration. One can assume certain external stressors dictate a specific gut experience. This can be anything from waking up dormant bacteria, to changing the real time war game plan against other fellow bacteria, etc.

If stress (war) occurs, ideally you want to end the war victoriously, and as quick as possible. The longer the excessive stress (war) continues, the more damage your body will endure. Fixating on how large the armies are (bacteria counts) or how many weapons (bacteria food) you supply only come into context in a situation where the length of the war is excessive. In all situations be it low/high bacteria & food supply, there is a vibration that will limit the amount of stress (war) that goes on within the body. My guess would be if you limit serotonin, and a couple other things, your gut bacteria will harmonize beautifully no matter the total population size & eating conditions of said bacteria.

 

[XPlus]

Definitely not either - gotta learn how to be critical independent of emotions. Do you know what a straw man is? Now this is about my behavior or me as a person? Is the foundation for this thread a straw man or not?

Oh and in case your smartypantiness still doesn't get it, here's a big link to the article on top of the thread:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/10/microbiome-health-gut-bacteria

The rest is my commentary.

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

You didn't answer any of my questions. I'm not attacking you... I'm attacking the way you represented the article. I think calling me a bacteria zealot is ironic considering there's no evidence that you have less on & in your body that myself and others do.

 

[oxidation_is_normal]

So Xplus... still waiting for someone to have more than wilful attempts to answer why an important role of breast milk is to promote the beneficial bacteria in a tiny human's microbiome. It's amazing watching you avoiding the issue. It's a fact and it incontrovertibly shows that the health of the microbiome is THE number one priority in the list of jobs when a new human is born.
The first stage in that process happens even before the baby emerges into the world, with the innoculation by the mother's microbiome during the baby's passage through the birth canal. But sowing the seed isn't enough. Those bacteria won't flourish if they're not supplied with their favourite food - fermentable fiber.
Hang on, it's on tap - breast milk. Not just even more bacteria, but plenty of the fermentable fiber they need to grow big and strong and have lots and lots of their own kiddie bacteria to carry on the family name. If the mucus/mucins that a high carbohydrate diet (Peatarian for instance) was as good as or even better than fermentable fiber, breast milk wouldn't contain so much of it , just more lactose.
Clearly the health of your microbiome is pretty important.

And the bacteria don't just need feeding properly during breastfeeding. They only live for 20 minutes after all. Offspring of those bacteria will need to be properly looked after till your dying day.
Now you may have noticed that I'm not using my own experience with looking after my microbiome at all. If somebody specifically asks for some advice, I'll happily give it. And I'm really glad you've found something that works for you. But n=1 subjectivity is irrelevant. Sure, report it if somebody asks you for it for some diagnostic purpose.
But for the purposes of this discussion, it just gets in the way of worthwhile discussion.
And I respect that you and I have a different opinion about the importance of microbiome health to whole body health. That's totally fine by me. As long as you keep your personal experience out of a discussion about why there is so much fermentable fiber in breast milk, we might all learn something.
O.K?

You're not understanding that when looking at the results of evolution today, you're looking at environments that were present 100s of years ago. We evolved with bacteria because it was present in the environment. We now know enough about our body (thanks to Peat et al) to construct an environment to maximally optimise health, vitality, fitness etc. One of the caveats of this environment is to maintain a near sterile gut which we can do with lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic.

What you're trying to do is maximise the distance travelled while looking at the old dirt roads used by horses years ago and announcing 'see! we should use horses!' In the current environment however, we now have cars, trains and planes that we can take advantage of and increase the distance travelled.

Are you really suggesting that you just give these same inputs ("lysine, antibiotics, carrots, charcoal, coconut oil, vinegar, garlic") to every person, and they will all move in the right direction towards the same effects? Is the difference between traveling by car and by horse really analogous to the difference between what you're suggesting as a health optimizing diet and a diet from "years ago."

The whole "we evolved with bacteria but don't need it anymore" really needs substantiation. I don't know how you can say this with a straight face! Bacteria are very very present in our environment today...

We don't need to wonder and 'debate' about it for pages and pages.

Simply take some doxycycline for a few weeks then continue with carrots, coconut oil, charcoal etc and see how you feel. As a bonus, take some blood tests (serotonin, c-reactive protein, WBC etc) and note changes.

After that, introduce some feces (aka 'organic soil') into your diet, however much you like, and again note changes.

We don't need to discuss things, I just need to take antibiotics and get before and after blood tests? I'm not going to get antibiotics when I'm in fine health. If you know this from blood tests, then would you mind posting them? How do we know that the people who feel better after antibiotics aren't doing so because they killed or reduced and infection or overgrowth - not because they actually have fewer bacteria?

 

[messtafarian]

Seems like this conversation has been meandering on for quite a while. But I was inspired to mention that I used to work for an exclusive research group that worked specifically on the microbiome and was one of the first to start cataloging the DNA of those bacteria.

All of their funding comes from food companies for the most part.

NONE of them believed probiotics were particularly effective, or necessary, and they certainly could not link certain bacteria strains with health conditions in human beings. All of that, they were absolutely certain, was a LONG way off even if turned out to be the right avenue. They sort of snickered over big grants from those companies that were trying to create mass probiotic preparations. Anyone who took on something like that was basically a Company Man, bending data to a product.

 

[narouz]

Narouz,
Your comments have a great discussion potential and I promise I'll be back very soon after I finish my reporting period. I don't want to do this in a rush.

 

[XPlus]

The long wait is over Mr. Bond

He may have not discussed this matter in details but contrary to what people sometimes suggest here that doesn't make him wrong.

Yeah, doesn't make him wrong.
But...kinda hard though to see it as a good argument for him being right on the subject. :)

Absolutely. No matter how we trust Peat's thoughts, we should always acknowledge his limitations as a human.
No one ever posses the holy grail of all knowledge.
The argument to whether Peat is right on the subject is something we can only relate to through experience.

It is a kind of balancing act you hover around in your discussion, XPlus,
and you make some good points.
I've noted that some relate to the forum and to Peat
as like The Ray Peat Belief Forum.
Others relate to it as something more like
A Peat-centered Questioning Forum.

I appreciate how Peat laid down pretty good and elegant analysis of the pieces of knowledge available to him. There's no doubt that his ideas helped many while many others struggle with them.
I think it's good to see some healthy skepticism and further exploration of Peat's ideas.

And then there is, for many I guess, a tension between those two poles.
That is where the balancing I spoke of earlier comes in.
As you say is the case with you yourself,
most here probably think a lot of Peat and his ideas
and so they tend to extend confidence or belief to just about all areas,
even the areas he treats scantily or seems not too interested in.

You bring a very good point here. We're usually hovering around these two poles you mentioned; and I think it'd be great if to discussion of ideas and experiences more than the recurring cyclical discussions of Peats vs. Mainstream. The laws of probability suggest there's at least a slight chance that neither mainstream is 100% wrong, nor Peat is 100% right. So, the discussion of different ideas and experiences widens up consciousness and refine ideas.

It's surprising to see the increasing rate at which people throw studies at every other argument everywhere.
Quick Google search and it's never difficult to find something that backs up one's ideas but it's really the good ideas that are not easy to craft. It's the one that counts in the first place and in the end. All studies are based on some fella's idea. Their robustness is highly prone to shorts in their mental circuits.

I'd say this tends to be the case with me, generally.
When in doubt, I lean toward Peat's view.
But...I will venture out sometimes, question his ideas.
Especially in areas where he simply hasn't written or commented in much detail.
I can't see that that is a bad way of operating.
It just involves some balancing,
as I described above.

I think it's wise to use those who are more knowledgeable and experienced as a frame of reference. This applies to all areas of life. I can learn a lot from someone who's much older and have been through the same path before.
Also, why not experiment with different things. It's absolutely valuable to carry around a piece of experience with you. I also think it's okay if you don't feel inclined to try something new. I personally always wish that I know what it's like to be vegetarian but I never found myself inclined to go down that path. Some experiences might not seem worthwhile because we know what outcome to expect. Just like setting fire our legs.

If I'm remembering right,
I think your personal experience is
that you've been into Peat for about 9 months
and have had great results using his approach to gut health.

I like to hear of such experiences
and I think they are valuable.

I grew up with okay health in general. A little obese. Not much trouble in a painful sense but many years of low carbing, overexercising, stressful studying and work took their toll on my health. I've been interested in sports, health and nutrition for almost 10 years. I swim, cycle, row, bodybuild, cross train, play soccer, handball, run, walk and have done this almost everyday.

I always avoided "junk" food, ate brown bread and rice, raw veges and fruits, was a good kid and took my fish oil everyday, too.

Still, never figured out why it's difficult for me to lose weight and some other annoying things like frizzy hair and perpetual acne. What broke the horse's back for me was a GI infection over 2 years ago. It's was a time whenI worked 12hrs a day and trained heavily 2hours a night.
The food quality around me was terrible at the time and I used to take in a lot of protein shakes.

One day, I felt bloated and unusually in pain. I visited the emergency doctor who prescribed me some antibiotics.

I took them for few days but have not felt better. I had severe diarrhea and couldn't eat anything without trouble. After three days, I went to visit a specialist, who told me "yours sound like the symptoms of a viral infection". He told me to stop the antibiotics, took some blood and stool samples which all returned negative.
I started trying to eat anything If I could but the only two things that seemed almost tolerable were well boiled potatoes and white bread.

When I visited the doctor again to complain about my lack of digestion, he told me to just be patient.
It might take sometime to restore full digestion, usually a month on average. Some people require more time.
So I continued like this for about 2-3 weeks and lost about 5kgs.

Things got only slightly better. I started tolerating a larger variety of foods but there were ones that send me to bathroom straight away. Milk, nuts, coffee fruits and eventually I realized that I can't tolerate any dairy.

I started to get frustrated so I decided to see another specialist. He didn't add much. Just told me that I had IBS and it's normal. He prescribed some slightly effective mint and fennel as well as some dud activated charcoal pills. Nothing that particularly put me onto the path of healing.

My problems got worse. I started developing cysts around my body. Never had a normal bowl movement. I sopped exercising because I injured my shoulder doing push ups one morning. It's when I think malnutrition took it's toll.

At that point I think when I stumbled upon paleo and microbiome ideas. So I started researching them extensively.
The paleo seemed like a very appealing choice since fat and protein make the chunk of it. Combined with antifungal treatment, I finally started to have periods of remission.

I visited a couple of good orthopedics for my shoulders and back pain, took MRIs, did physio with different kinds of equipments and exercises. Everyday I'd alternate cold and hot presses, message my shoulder but it never got better.
I visited an expert in Bali who had good ideas but claimed it's the computer that causing my posture to deteriorate.


I reached a point where I was obsessed with health, I tried a bunch of probitoics and prebiotics. I started to buy everything on Mercola's website, including Krill oil, digestive enzymes, probiotics, vitamins, pans, water filters, coconut oil, bedding and a grounding kits. I mail forwarded fresh kefir grains through ultra-expensive 2-day international courier to make sure they arrive alive.

I made kefir everyday for few months. I tired making other fermented foods. Started playing with other concepts like FODMAP and exploring other diets like bulletproof. Tried the "renowned" candida crusher diet. Excluded foods, added foods. Organics, Non-organics. Played with the different ratios.

For over a year and a half I tried everything. It just seems there are few periods when the pain and cysts are not there but I don't feel I'm okay. My shoulder still unusable. My hair didn't grow back. I couldn't eat pizza or drink any coffee. With the hgih fat and protien diet, one day my digestion is okay, the next I'm on bed cramping after eating a lamb chop. It seemed as if all the superfoods and the superman gurus in the world couldn't help. Until, one day, I found Peat.

I was reteaching hair loss and stumbled upon Danny Roddy diss Dave Asprey on video. This what led me to Peat.

A quick glimpse into his ideas and I thought it's a joke. Kill the preciously marvelous bacteria. Indulge in all the white and dark evils of salt, sugar, coffee, coke milk, and ice cream. LSD, asprin, steroids?
As if didn't I just stumble upon junky land.

I had a lot of trouble comprehending Peats work and relating people's experiences it to. I had the intention of giving it a quick try for about a month and then maybe go back on a 2-year round of candida crusher so I can have the time to finish its 700 page bonus book on fermenting alfelfa while I'm waiting for the suckers to leave me alone.

One week eating after eating some sugared fattened cooked carrot dessert, a lot of ice cream and milk and I felt like new man. My digestion was so badly severed I couldn't handle the carrot salad but I was feeling better. I had better mood, better energy, and a better train of thoughts. I poped an Asprin pill and went from a 90yo man walking with a stick to 18yo jumping, wrestling and jogging again.
It took me a while and experimenting with quite few things until I got better. Now I can gladly report that I feel at least 85% normal. I'm still going through my journey but now I can eat pizza, drink milk, orange juice and coffee. I've a lot of energy, strength and the thoughts are flowing.


Few things that I find interesting and that add up to my faith in Peat:
I noticed at times when I was killing bacteria with all the "natural" antifungals like peppermint oil, that after few days my back pain disappears.

Just before the GI infection incident, I was losing a lot of hair. So I started researching hair loss along with shoulder injuries. I experimented with turmeric, emo oil, soy isovalnes, resvartrol, cillion, capasin, tea extracts, etc - everything with the good expicients in it - all are guru-approved. It was only Peat that I found to caution against these.

It's common among the microbiome nuts to ascribe antibiotics usage to ruining the gut. I agree that certain types of antibiotics have definitively bad influence on the system, after all some of them are based on bacterial toxins. However, could only be half the truth. I believe it's a process where build up metabolic stress is the main culprit and antibiotics may act as the last straw at worst.
After reading those articles blaming the problem on antibiotics, it makes sense to simply think they're the cause. However, I remember at least 3 days before the incident that I didn't feel well when doing ab workouts and I had to stop. There's already too much build up of metabolic stress at the time (i.e. low thyoid, low immunity, weak digestion) and I believe it's the final opportunistic infection actually is more likely to be final straw rather than the antibiotics. It's just easy to blame the antibiotics because most people are prescribed antibiotics after seeking medical help when the condition becomes more severe.

I've been applying Peat gut principles for over 3 years with mixed results.
But I have such confidence or belief in the whole of Peat's work,
that I continue to approach health in a strongly Peatanic way.
Again, a balancing.

My guess is that you're either a little older or have a different kind of stress to deal with.
So I hope yours is a matter of more time and persistence.
Also, don't underestimate emotional stress. Something where Peat's help has its limitations.

Your balancing act looks a little different from mine,
probably because of our different personal experiences.
That seems pretty reasonable to me.

Peat has been in this trade for a very long time and these ideas are fairly new so there's not a lot of influence of them in his views.

Yeah, I think long and hard before betting against Peat.
Still...I do stop short of comments like,
"I've been following Peat for years and he's never been wrong about anything!"
or
"I've never seen anyone fail on a Peat diet"--
that sort of thing. :)

Maybe that's a little too optimistic.
Reality is we all come from different points in health and have different perceptions and attitudes towards health. It'll be only reasonable to see people having a multitude of experiences as with anything else in life.

People are approaching this thing as if it's the best next thing, the marvelous discovery of something that has been neglected for a long time but there's isn't much healthy skepticism. At least one that questions whether it's importance is mere correlation with good health.

To me, it seems like a very poor choice of priorities, one that gives people false hopes.

I really can't see anything wrong with getting interested in areas of science
where new knowledge is emerging.
I don't see a lot of longtime Peatians here
throwing Peat's ideas into the trash can
and rushing to embrace bizarre ideas about microbiome health.

Of course not.
Here I think I'm taking a role of the doing some kind of balancing act you spoke of earlier.
So when there's a lot of voices for funneling resources and efforts into something. There gotta be others who are critical. To a certain extent that can be healthy.
My personal view is that there's not a lot questioning of how this area should have been approached in the first place. Also, it's not mature enough to build factual assertions about it similar to those already in place. That's why there's a lot of misconceptions and exploitation of consumers.

Even in the case of Stuart,
when the rhetoric is toned down
and his respect for Peat's other ideas is also weighed...
his basic notion is not necessarily a bomb in the house o' Peat.
If Stuart's claim is correct--
that there is quite a lot of fermentable fiber even in an optimal Peat diet--
well...maybe not so much a bomb as just a possible tweak.
A significant tweak, yeah, but....

Exactly. You put it very nicely.

 

[XPlus]

...It would be arbitrary to be on a Peat forum trying to convince people out of his ideas.

Since you also mention few times that your views are not from experience, I see no point for arguing for them persistently.

At risk of seeming to be a Stuart fanboi...
Of course
when a new poster comes here and first thing he does is say a certain Peat idea sucks...
that's going to provoke an immune response from the forum.
Early in the thread I felt obliged to interrogate him a bit
to make sure it wasn't some typical bs--
like somebody from Perfect Health Diet Land or something just wants to come start a fight
to get his ya ya's out.
We've all seen that move.

I actually thought you taking Stu's side was a very gentlemanly balancing act.
Not everyone can do that. Maybe that's why he didn't just run away after that insoluble fibre thread.

Well, okay: maybe an excess of certitude in some of Stuart's posts.
But, taken a whole...I see it as an interesting challenge
to an area of PeatDom that might've been getting a bit overgrown and encrusted with barnacles and...
of becoming dogma, simply.



I don't know if Stuart is right, but...I've enjoyed the discussion
and I think it is valuable.

I agree. That have challenged my thoughts a little, too.

On your point about Stuart's personal experiences.
I seem to recall that Stuart did voice his personal experience about his gut health.
I don't see anything at all amiss in that.
(I do think it weird that Stuart takes you to task for voicing your personal experience, but... )

It sounds limited compared to the amount of knowledge he propagates. I think he also admitted that a couple of times. He reads a lot of theoretical work. Probes to him. I know how much time and pain to go through this but I really can't come here and claim something like that gut bacteria make a quantifiable portion of the immune system or that the purpose of HMOs is to feed bacteria based on experience .

Because my experience is always backed with competent, coherent, consistent and comprehensive theoretical frame of reference that is Ray Peat. Unlike the 14yo bro science you bring to the table.

Here you tack quite ardently
toward The Ray Peat Belief Forum pole I described just upthread.
I do think Stuart's posts rise above the bro science of a 14 year-old.

Yes, I think I was a little too excited when I wrote that.
There, I was only referring to the science as 14yo.

In 2001, Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, coined the term "microbiome,"

This is exactly how old your microbiome is.

 

[XPlus]

Seems like this conversation has been meandering on for quite a while. But I was inspired to mention that I used to work for an exclusive research group that worked specifically on the microbiome and was one of the first to start cataloging the DNA of those bacteria.

All of their funding comes from food companies for the most part.

NONE of them believed probiotics were particularly effective, or necessary, and they certainly could not link certain bacteria strains with health conditions in human beings. All of that, they were absolutely certain, was a LONG way off even if turned out to be the right avenue. They sort of snickered over big grants from those companies that were trying to create mass probiotic preparations. Anyone who took on something like that was basically a Company Man, bending data to a product.

Yours is a very valuable contribution Mr Farian.
I would love to hear more if you don't really mind.

 

[narouz]

The long wait is over Mr. Bond...

Finally!

I really enjoyed that, X.
It really added a lot of vividness and depth to your pov on this topic.
It's funny about people's different experiences, isn't it?
You find Peat and make a dramatic recovery.
Stuart finds baobob powder and does likewise.

Both of you guys post very thoughtfully,
and I tend to believe both of your accounts.
Now where the hell does that leave me?!

Ms. Galore beckons from the shower now...she doesn't like to be kept waiting!

But I enjoy these threads and wiil return....

 

[Stuart]

Seems like this conversation has been meandering on for quite a while. But I was inspired to mention that I used to work for an exclusive research group that worked specifically on the microbiome and was one of the first to start cataloging the DNA of those bacteria.

All of their funding comes from food companies for the most part.

NONE of them believed probiotics were particularly effective, or necessary, and they certainly could not link certain bacteria strains with health conditions in human beings. All of that, they were absolutely certain, was a LONG way off even if turned out to be the right avenue. They sort of snickered over big grants from those companies that were trying to create mass probiotic preparations. Anyone who took on something like that was basically a Company Man, bending data to a product.

I think this is so true.
The reason for having a healthy microbiome is not to 'fix' a specific health problem. And the notion of trying to promote a particular species or strain of bacterria for that purpose is ridiculous. You want a healthy microbiome in which the commensals are promoted over the pathogens. 24/7 every day of your life. Nothing more, nothing less. So doing will make ALL health problems less likely to develop in the first place. Which could take decades after all.
People who chug down probiotic pills and fermentable fiber and when their health problems don't resolve quickly think a healthy microbiome 'doesn't work' in my view are missing the point of why a healthy microbiome is so integral to optimum health.
Which as some other commenter pointed out, makes the title of the article in the OP a bit of a straw man.
Another example is that you can be perfectly healthy with only one kidney. But two does the job kidneys are designed to do a whole lot better. So why would you want to have a microbiome where the commensals weren't in full flight at the expense of pathogens? Every single one of us has a microbiome our whole lives. Isn't it a better idea to ensure that there are relatively fewer pathogens to produce endotoxins?
And if endotoxins are your concern, eat plenty of raw carrot salads, and let your microbiome get on with the job it is designed to do.
Ah ***** Galore!

 

[Nicholas]

i started noticing a trend. For the week, i will make a big batch of roasted turnips and parsnips. Stays in the fridge all week. By the fourth day, i notice that things become more optimal than before and my digestion feels better....receive a clear energy from the roots - but only by like the 4th day. Like things become very good - seems almost like better blood sugar regulation. looked it up, and apparently there might be a "retrograded starch" connection. Also, roasted parsnips seem to have more resistant starch than any of the root vegetables. There also seems to be quite a few diabetics finding real healing from this.

 

[Stuart]

i started noticing a trend. For the week, i will make a big batch of roasted turnips and parsnips. Stays in the fridge all week. By the fourth day, i notice that things become more optimal than before and my digestion feels better....receive a clear energy from the roots - but only by like the 4th day. Like things become very good - seems almost like better blood sugar regulation. looked it up, and apparently there might be a "retrograded starch" connection. Also, roasted parsnips seem to have more resistant starch than any of the root vegetables. There also seems to be quite a few diabetics finding real healing from this.

That's interesting. You know you can 'speed up' the development of the retrograded starch by freezing rather than just refrigerating cooked (gelatinized) starch. One day in the freezer is as good as four in the fridge. And also, when you reheat the veges from freezer or fridge (even frying) you don't destroy the resistant starch. Repeated cooling/heating cycles increase it even more, but the returns are diminishing.
I stopped feeding my dog any grains when I learnt about phytates. She now eats a lot of potatoes and rawhide -for her teeth at first, But now I realize raw hide is collagen and gelatin. Most days she gets a small piece of muscle tissue too.

And I didn't know that about parsnips, which are probably my favourite vegetable, above or below ground. My goats love them too, but the horses HATE them with a fierce passion - but adore carrots. Go figure.