Just reposting my original comment which may have inspired this post a few days ago for the links:
I had really bad IBS from consuming water on a tropical island in Panama one time and suffered for a few years with even my doctor friend telling me "Damn that sucks, not much you can do except manage". Pretty horrible symptoms until I discovered L. Reuteri. [1] I read that it's been a bacteria that was more commonly found in samples until around the 1950s when people started consuming more garbage processed food and was sold. Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species. [2] I can't speak personally for suffering on the level of Crohn's disease, but there's positive research out there regarding it. [3] [4]
After reading your original comment I stocked up on Biogaia. I’m 3 days into the tablet and will soon start experimenting with culturing for yoghurt. I suspect they had a decent sales bump this week.
Most people here would doubtless prefer not to science-by-anecdote, but when you’ve got this kind of condition you’re willing to try pretty much anything once.
Having experimented with introducing bacteria into my gut biome before, be prepared for potential negative outcomes - with some stuff from a local biotech startup myself and a few others suffered bloating, gas, and more disgusting outcomes that I won't bother describing.
Its kind of a crapshoot if your guts will adjust well or not, and how long it takes for the adjustment to occur.
> I’m 3 days into the tablet and will soon start experimenting with culturing for yoghurt.
I’ve heard tell of people “training” kefir grains to uptake other strains of bacteria through repeated exposure during the culturing process. I wonder if you could get a more stable culture by introducing kefir grains to that yogurt for a playdate. I’d imagine some concerted initial exposure plus a periodic Reuteri booster would give you kefir grains that’ll perpetuate the strains you want. Perhaps it would be enough to crush a few tablets in some milk before adding kefir grains, but the yogurt first approach seems easy enough if you have an instapot or other yogurt making device.
2. Heat milk to 180F (I heat on Hi to 165F while stirring then turn it down), hold it there for 10 mins. Shoot for 180F but it's not a big deal if it goes to 190F.
3. Cool while stirring in a sink of water to 110F, take it out of the sink.
4. Stir in your starter. I use a popular probiotic on Amazon: open 3 capsules for half gallon of yogurt
5. Ferment in the oven for 24 hours to ensure all sugar is used, making the yogurt lactose-free.
I´ve been making my non-dairy yoghurt (I'm allergic to Casein) for some time. One recommendation I always emphasize is that the first batch of yogurt you make with probiotics direct from the capsules will be "just ok". You should reuse some of the yogurt from the previous batch as a "starter" for a new batch. Once you do this for 3 or 4 times, the consistency of the yogurt improves considerably.
I use a combination of things: Sometimes liquified almonds (thick almond milk?) sometimes Cashews, sometimes oats. The best results I've had is with a combination of those three.
One thing that might interest people on the FODMAP diet is that the first ingredients on the list are isomalt (probably ok) and xylitol (an artificial sweetener). Hopefully the amounts are small enough not to trigger symptoms.
There's also 'Bacilac Femina' which contains reuteri and has less FODMAPs.
Xylitol isn't 'artificial'[1] (but it is bad for dogs). In small amounts I would be surprised if it would affect anyone negatively, I often have 5-10g in my oats, but all the sugar alcohols make your guts unhappy in large doses (I find erythritol is the worst, but sorbitol from pears is famous for doing that to babies).
Perhaps 'less digestible sweetener' would be a better way of putting it.
It's a shame you don't believe it would affect people with chronic digestive issues.
I'm sure plenty of my beliefs are shameful, this one seems pretty mild by comparison... but clearly anyone who's worried about eating them should start small, and discontinue if they react badly?
It seems outrageous that a probiotic should contain xylitol, which is often catastrophic for people with IBD/IBS. Can anyone recommend a probiotic without sweetener or filler?
I suffered from terrible IBS-C for over 20 years, and just about 6 months ago I stumbled upon some probiotics called Xaviax [1] (specifically their Mexican brand, called Pavia). Since taking them, my life has changed. I had taken other kinds of probiotics, prebiotics and done everything you can imagine in the 20 years I've had this condition. Now I feel way way better.
Just got a box of L. reuteri, hopefully it will make me feel even better.
There was once a research group in a university that found a specific diet helping/curing crohn's. However a food/health conglomerate with a product in the market for the disease paid the professor to shelf the research and it never saw the light of day.
Speaking with one of the researchers he keeps telling me that food diversity and gut microbiome are extremely important for all shorts of things. So your comment doesn't surprise me, I am glad you became better.
The relationship between diet, microbiome, and health is fascinating.
Another metabolite of L. reuteri is ergothioneine, which is hypothesized to be a "longevity vitamin"[1] by biologist Bruce Ames[2]. Plants and animals cannot synthesize it, only fungi and bacteria, but it is found in every cell in our body including in high concentrations in mitochondria. It appears to be important enough that mammals have evolved a specialized transporter for uptake of this compound (SLC22A4), and mutations in this gene are associated with Crohn's disease.
Low levels of it have been linked to cognitive impairment, CVD, even depression and sleep disorders[3].
Macros aren't everything when it comes to diet, there's a whole universe of micronutrient interactions ongoing in our cells every day. Since we are in a position of relatively near total ignorance, I agree that we should pursue food diversity by default.
Why is the parent comment not being downvoted to oblivion? It is making specific, deterministic claims and providing absolutely no sources whatsoever.
How does the OP know? Which university was it? Which research group? If "a research group" "found something worked" then there would be a trail of research papers leading up to whatever the patentable invention is.
This anecdote is a complete fabrication: events like this plain do not happen and shouldn't pass the snifftest for anyone: "a professor was paid off" - oh okay, well what about his graduate students? Honors students?
1. I don't win anything by accusing a conglomerate with names on the internet. I don't mind being downvoted "to oblivion". I think I haven't because anyone interacting with such organisations imagines that this is not conspiracy, its business
2. I want to clarify that the company didn't say "we pay you X to keep it unpublished" they said "Oh thats interesting, we want to buy it to develop something based on it" and then they did nothing with it because it would canibalize their market.
3. Students that worked on this knew it, but they did nothing about it, the one I know the story from told me "what could I do? I finished my thesis and left, it was above me" and he actually works on a pharma now. I imagine being a vocal ethicist in this field would have left him without a job. Not something many people can afford.
"Oh thats interesting, we want to buy it to develop something based on it"
But it's a diet. There's nothing to sell with a diet, so again, what are you talking about?
But you know what let's run with this for a moment because it comes up a lot: you know what happens when a research group has an exciting new X, sells the patent on it and then nothing appears to happen? It doesn't actually work.
This story comes up a lot and frankly, HN should realise it: products are hard, hardware is even harder, try doing bio-anything even more so
There's not a conspiracy, which you are still trying to push with your comments here, the answer is just that it turns out not to work that well. Or that "revolutionary" actually means "minor overall improvement we generally expect from the market".
I appreciate your scepticism. I would probably do the same. Unfortunately I can't provide more information because its second-hand story and I just trust this person. Hence I did not verify everything they said. I do not know what kind of product they could develop from a diet (or if they ever wanted to). I know they had a product out for this and its an obvious conflict of interest.
I am not pushing any conspiracy here, my main points here was that gut microbiome is cutting edge research, and its actually a multi-disciplinary one since most nutritionists don't know a lot about the gut, and most gut doctors don't know a lot about nutrition (at least where I live). IBD is a prime candidate that I know of (but unfortunately I don't have a paper about it, because of whatever conspiracy or corporate greed reason) that can be helped with nutrition. But i've seen papers around talking about mental effects of the gut health too.
Why must we "downvote it to oblivion" just because the comment doesn't provide the particular info you want? I'd like more info, too, but I'm OK with just leaving the comment as it is instead of throwing a polemic fit over it.
It wouldn't be the first time Big Pharma did something harmful to society in order to protect its profit margins. You don't seriously think there is a moral stance that leads one to conclude Big Pharma is benevolent and always looking out for humanity?
I would say that Big Food hiring food scientists to specifically tune the flavor profile of mass manufactured foods to never trigger satiation so that people would not stop eating them even when they are mechanically full is pretty evil.
Big food came into existence thanks to scientific advancements that enabled the world to meet the needs of its population, and that's a good thing. Fertilizers and industrial agriculture has been a massive boon to most of the world, but allowing companies that have private shareholders to commandeer the ship and start steering it in a way that best benefits those shareholders over the best interests of the rest of the world has, in my opinion, created a system that has turned a great good into a perfidious evil.
Sometimes the need to "win" an argument can come second. The story here is about corporate greed. I can easily imagine a team meeting where someone brought up the research and people knew it might hurt sales even if it turns out that its not replicable or anything. No one probably said "lets buy it out so people won't be cured", I assume it was an innovation manager pitching "we can make a new supplements formula based on the nutritional value of this diet". Business people agreed, knowing its a win-win. Next agenda item.
No, the key word here, is: trust. You have more of it than you should for Big Pharma, given that that the facts of historical precedent, combined with the economics of addiction that are clearly exploited by the industry, do not support such subservient trust.
Have you never thought about the Pusher and Junkie relationship, at industrial scale? Because that is what Big Pharma is all about.
I am familiar with the Oxycontin drug pushing scandal. However, that doesn't automatically mean I'm going to start trusting unsourced internet comments; that way lies ivermectin madness.
Yeah, the situation is far worse than the Oxycontin scandal alone, which is really just the tip of the iceberg and is not an outlier situation with this industry:
> American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and its subsidiary Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc. (hereinafter together "Pfizer") have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced today.
You should start being a lot, lot more suspicious of claims made by Big Pharma, and start holding them actually accountable for their very real crimes. Anything less is complicity with an industry well-known for exploiting the pusher/junkie equation.
Well... what was the diet? I have UC. I've found that the less I eat, the better my symptoms are, but I can't eat exclusively protein smoothies and kimchi forever.
For anyone interested in L. Reuteri, you can buy it in the U.S. as Gerber probiotic drops (https://medical.gerber.com/products/supplements/soothe-colic...). Marketed for babies but obviously works on adults too. Last I checked Gerber had an exclusive license on U.S. distribution of this bacterium—there’s a Swedish company, BioGaia, that IIRC is the original patent holder.
How long have you been eating the yoghurt?
Do you use any other tablets/pills/etc to make it?
Why make the yoghurt instead of just eating the pills?
What do you think it's done for you?
>>> How long have you been eating the yoghurt?
About 3-4 months now
>>> Do you use any other tablets/pills/etc to make it?
No, but there are other recipes in the book than combine different bacteria
>>> Why make the yoghurt instead of just eating the pills?
To increase bacterial count; often like x1000 (from millios to billions)
>>> What do you think it's done for you?
I did not take it for any particular reason, so I was not expecting much. Most definetively, improved mood after 3 weeks.
The strain itself (and its specific genome) can be patented. Not as it's found "in the wild", but with genetic modification. The thing is this "genetic modification" includes not just techniques like CRISPR, but also just letting the bacteria mutate in a vat.
I think it's total nonsense, but the law allows it. If wild bacteria growing on your skin happens to mutate into the exact same genetic code as a patented strain, you could technically be in infringement.
Is it possible to introduce this to the body without buying it specifically? Or put another way, how did people get L. Reuteri without pharmaceutical/supplement companies growing it in labs?
> It appears to be essentially ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, having been found in the gastrointestinal tracts and feces of healthy humans,[7] sheep, chickens,[8] pigs,[9] and rodents.[10] It is the only species to constitute a "major component" of the Lactobacillus species present in the gut of each of the tested host animals,[11] and each host seems to harbor its own specific strain of L. reuteri.[10][12] It is possible that L. reuteri contributes to the health of its host organism in some manner.[13]
The labs got it from nature, not the other way around.
Breast milk is inherently sterile (unless the mother has a severe bacterial infection). It usually gets contaminated with the skin microbiota during feeding.
So no, I wouldn't count on L. reuteri being found in a random sample of breast milk.
That's hotly debated. Even the study you cite cannot rule out skin contamination.
But unequivocally showing the existence of entero-mammary pathway (translocation of maternal gut bacteria from the gut to the mammary glands) would be very exciting news indeed.
Yes, because if you are buying breast milk from a woman who used a breast pump, then the skin contamination is very very little compared to actual breast suckling.
You've put more confidence in your statement than the scientific consensus allows.
A brain microbiome is hotly debated, no concrete proof (yet?). I personally also have a hard time believing in a healthy bacterial blood microbiota, but it's also proposed.
I know lactos are in the environment naturally. When I ferment peppers or other vegetables I lightly rinse them to make sure some bacteria is left. Eating raw fruits and vegetables would certainly pass some bacteria to the gut.
They know someone who knows someone who swears their cousin had the best kefir, or a proper “Tibetan mushroom” complex. Supplement companies aren’t the devil.
Thanks, I came to ask this. It seems like the probiotic market is largely a hit or miss. Reviews online are filled with people claiming their purchases failed milk culturing tests (I don't know if testing as such even works), claims that these bacteria can't survive on warehouse shelves, etc.
That’s why Visbiome ships in insulated packaging with ice packs. There’s even a color indicator that turns red if the contents exceed a temperature during shipping (and refunds are granted if this indicator is red when it receive the product). You then store in the freezer. Unfortunately, the product does not contain L. Reuteri.
Yes I use it regularly. But I don’t have IBS, Crohns, or any other GI disorder. I use it to periodically populate my gut. So to answer “am I satisfied” is difficult. I don’t notice a difference with or without it, because none of us are consciously aware of our gut micro biome. I could say “well I haven’t been sick in years”, but who knows what else contributes to that.
The patent is for a particular strain that was used in experiments. I don't know how likely it is that closely related but unpatented strains that you can buy from different companies have a different effect.
I've been in deep research after reading that comment. Thought it was interesting this story popped up today. Coincidence or astroturf? Been dealing with gastro issues for 4+ years now. I'll report back after I take the stuff for a month.
Hi OP of the comment here. I linked a bunch of studies as well as providing my own anecdotal evidence that this stuff worked well enough that I had IBS symptoms reversed by taking this probiotic. My friends who I have introduced this to really like it, too.
I'm actually super interested in learning how to make yogurt with it now to help people I know who may be suffering out some. I hear that's a really easy way to make it even more bioavailable. Proper respects to the people who brought this up! [1]
It's not astroturf, I dunno why I'd spend like a year on this site mostly talking about tech stuff and then just drop that I've had the most horrible shits of my life cured, that's kind of a really personal thing I'm only sharing here because it was extremely helpful to me - and I only hope it works for others, but that hope is strong enough.
+1 on making the yogurt. I have been making L. reuteri yogurt (or fermented milk, technically) for a few months. I started with some BioGaia Gastrus tablets in batch 1 and now just use a tablespoon or two of batch n - 1.
I recommend getting a sous vide device for precise temperature control. Initially, I used a the "Yogurt" function on an Instant Pot pressure cooker and about half of the batches failed, separating into whey and curds.
The article linked by parent says to use new BioGaia Gastrus tablets every 4-5 batches so as not to grow unwanted bacteria. Have you had any trouble reusing the same batch indefinitely?
The yogurt has the same taste and consistency as it did in the beginning, so I haven't had any trouble in that sense. However, it does seem prudent to restart periodically.
I started with Dr. Davis' recipe. It's described in his book "Super Gut" and is also available on his website [1]. My current method is a bit simpler:
- I buy full fat milk in a glass bottle so that I can make the yogurt directly inside without having to sterilize another container. I have had more success with UHT milk than pasteurized milk.
- I add two tbsp. (~40g) of my previous batch to one liter of milk. Close lid and shake.
- Put bottle in a pot of water, submerging most of the milk bottle. I leave the lid on, but untightened so that gas can escape.
- I add a sous vide "wand" to the pot and leave it for 24 hours at 38°C (100°F)
I deviate from Dr. Davis' recipe by not adding inulin to the milk and fermenting for a shorter duration. This probably results in fewer bacteria present in the final product, but the above takes me less than 5 minutes to prepare.
Isn't the general advice to ingest a large variety of lactobacilli, as opposed to large quantities of just one bacillus? When I made kefir in my kitchen, I read that the cultures can contain up to 80 different genetics. Whenever I research lactobacilli, the term diversity comes up.
I gather that kefir grains are like big balls of mud, picking up lots of varieties of microbes. Over time, however, I’d guess that the number of strains might deteriorate due to more homogeneous growing medium and controlled kitchen environment.
I’ve had a lot of kefir grains from different sources over the years, and many that you order online seem to be weak and not thrive. By contrast, I’d gotten some big healthy grains from a friend of a friend who’d been culturing them in raw milk in rural MT for a lot of years, and those things were monsters that grew large and divided often. They led me on an on- again off-again quest to find such excellent grains.
I’ve heard of people introducing their grains to e.g. Icelandic skyr cultures, which results in the permanent colonization of the kefir grains by particular microbes. The skyrified kefir being qualitatively different. I could see getting a lab strain of reuteri and similarly training kefir grains to incorporate this as part of the colony.
Diversity does seem to be a good thing, but that said, some of the reported properties of this particular strain seem especially interesting.
I think taking a single strain is not something you'd want to do long term, I'd assume it's better just as a short course to try and improve your gut bacteria balance, if you're having problems or have just had antibiotics. With a good balanced diet (prebiotic fibre etc.) I don't think people should really need to constantly be taking probiotic tablets, but kefir and yoghurt seem good generally.
I am taking a wild guess that the OP here read the previous thread and found it interesting, and thought other HN users would find this link interesting. Happens all the time.
So eat fermented food. Brine pickles, olives, and sauerkraut, but not their vinegar-based counterparts which are usually sold in grocery stores. I suspect this use of vinegar could be causing us a great deal of problems.
I also see a list that includes sourdough bread, wine, beer, certain cured meats, kimchi, kombucha tea, miso soup.
Nothing wrong with vinegar and the PH can help keep the bad stuff out. Most of the on the shelf (not refrigerated) pickled items have been pasteurized, the contents have been heated to kill any remaining bacteria including the good ones.
Not sure about wine I thought they didn’t something to stop the yeast fermenting. I know once bottled the process has stopped for wine and beer.
There are also ways to remove them entirely by using clearing agents/finings followed by racking (siphoning from the primary fermentation container to a new container) - this is the normal process.
If you are doing natural carbonation or "secondary fermenting" in the bottle by leaving some yeast in and back sweetening, you can kill the yeast by pasteurizing in-bottle (basically by putting the bottles into a pot of hot water for a while). Though this does sometimes lead to explosions.
It's Binomial nomenclature [1]. The name should also be in italics, but not sure how that would be enabled in HN headlines.
> In modern usage, the first letter of the generic name is always capitalized in writing, while that of the specific epithet is not, even when derived from a proper noun such as the name of a person or place. Similarly, both parts are italicized in normal text (or underlined in handwriting).
Interesting. You're right, it is not capitalized in the original article. Although i still think the passage you are quoting is talking about normal text and not title case.
> When an animal name is part of a journal article title, it is conventional to provide the animal’s scientific name (genus and species). Genus is always capitalized and species is not. Notice that the scientific names are also italicized
I've been googling for user experiences with supplements containing Lactobacillus Reuteri and i've found weirdly disturbing forums where people were reporting 50% increase in testicular size, hair growth and testosterone level after few weeks of usage. It felt like someone is trying to sell these supplements to teenagers with low self esteem by creating fake reviews or something... Some of these were on reddit.
After having the same WTF reaction I came across this mouse study: Probiotic Microbes Sustain Youthful Serum Testosterone Levels and Testicular Size in Aging Mice. Sounds like the L. reuteri supplement made a pretty dramatic difference in preventing hypogonadism as the mice aged. Quite a jump from that to "2 weeks to make your balls bigger", but still, it's pretty interesting.
I had really bad IBS from consuming water on a tropical island in Panama one time and suffered for a few years with even my doctor friend telling me "Damn that sucks, not much you can do except manage". Pretty horrible symptoms until I discovered L. Reuteri. [1] I read that it's been a bacteria that was more commonly found in samples until around the 1950s when people started consuming more garbage processed food and was sold. Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species. [2] I can't speak personally for suffering on the level of Crohn's disease, but there's positive research out there regarding it. [3] [4]
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917019/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuterin
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7270012/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468961/