There is a study that would really annoy you then, the subjects were pairs of identical twin children throughout Africa. They would find twins where one was perfectly healthy and the other was malnourished. The reasoning is both nature (genetics) and nurture (diet) were nearly identical. The difference is nearly all cases was the makeup of the microbiome leading to one child being healthy & the other malnourished with all other things being equal. Per your comment it would seem no amount of dietary changes would makeup the difference, plus it probably also highlights a possible bias that a bunch of malnourished kids around the world can simply make “healthy” dietary changes.
10 years really isn’t a significant period of time to study something as complex as the microbiome. Don’t be surprised if it continues to be studied for decades, just as we have been studying genetics for decades and despite all the incredible advancements and understanding we still have more questions than we have answers.
That's interesting--it's certainly plausible, even probable, sense that good diet is necessary but not sufficient to ensure that the microbiome is in a personally-optimal state. Please give a citation if you can!
Reading a second study a bacteria was present in the malnourished twin but not in the healthy twin. I’m not certain but it seems the bacteria was just an unfortunate roll of the dice.
Comments
There is a study that would really annoy you then, the subjects were pairs of identical twin children throughout Africa. They would find twins where one was perfectly healthy and the other was malnourished. The reasoning is both nature (genetics) and nurture (diet) were nearly identical. The difference is nearly all cases was the makeup of the microbiome leading to one child being healthy & the other malnourished with all other things being equal. Per your comment it would seem no amount of dietary changes would makeup the difference, plus it probably also highlights a possible bias that a bunch of malnourished kids around the world can simply make “healthy” dietary changes.
10 years really isn’t a significant period of time to study something as complex as the microbiome. Don’t be surprised if it continues to be studied for decades, just as we have been studying genetics for decades and despite all the incredible advancements and understanding we still have more questions than we have answers.
That's interesting--it's certainly plausible, even probable, sense that good diet is necessary but not sufficient to ensure that the microbiome is in a personally-optimal state. Please give a citation if you can!
I don’t think this is the study I was referencing but it’s on point (317 pairs of twins 1-3 yrs old, 1 healthy & 1 malnourished)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000
Did the study suggest what had damaged one of the twins biome? I can only assume it was antibiotics.
Reading a second study a bacteria was present in the malnourished twin but not in the healthy twin. I’m not certain but it seems the bacteria was just an unfortunate roll of the dice.
Starvation can severely alter the microbiome in a negative way.
Haven't read much into the how. Acids and such possibly.
I haven't been able to track this study down, do you have a link or a name?
There must be another, but this one is dominating my search result
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1229000