Chewing gum sure beats the hell out of a fecal transplant.
gut flora in hospitals
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rich01
Well-known member
What kind of gum do you think he was chewing?
AnnieP
Member
The faecal transplant I saw on a medical program ( Trust me I’m a Doctor) they put it down a Nasogastric tube and I think she was sedated.
A book I found interesting The Microbiome solution by Robyn Chutkan
A great film is microbirth missing out on a vaginal birth has long lasting effects. An on line course if you’re keen is The microbiome
The TV show you might be referring to is Gray's Anatomy (if you didn't see it on a medical program). This woman was crazy, self-diagnosing, self-treating, and zapped her microbiome using strong antibiotics that she bought online. The proposed cure was a fecal transplant, using a 'donation' from her husband. He agreed to do it on the condition that she acknowledged she didn't have whatever it was that she self-diagnosed. Yes, the 'sample' was administered, mixed with some liquids to make it transferrable, and I think it WAS administered through an NG tube.
The microbirth video you mentioned makes sense - I was born by C-Section. I didn't have the benefits of the transfer of bacteria that you mentioned. After all these years, I wonder if I can still blame being so strange on having been delivered by C-Section. Well, probably not....
dwhist
Well-known member
I did not want to take any chances and brought my own.
pellicle
Professional Dingbat, Guru and Merkintologist
Stool sample....?
I love kimchi, and I quoted this to my spouse, who said, "Good thing you won't have any roommates!"
ScribeWithALancet
Well-known member
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- Oct 27, 2019
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Subject: RefReports - Research Bias - Ethics, Statistics - Most Research Findings Wrong
Caution - This study finding no benefit for dietary supplements is a survey study not a randomized control study with statistical controls and is not double blind. The summary article says "Zhang’s team took advantage of survey data from tens of thousands of U.S. adults". This does not mean that the study results are wrong but that it may lack much power.
As one example, it mentions "People who reported taking more than 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day were more likely to die of cancer." There have been studies on calcium. My endocronologist dropped a study on me that showed that the way to avoid these calcium cancer problems is to take time release calcium and mentioned that yogurt and other foods are effectively time release. Our son separately found research that shows that the human body can only absorb about 500 mg at a time which meant that the large doses we were taking were being wasted regardless of whether they caused cancer.
Note also that one needs to read
"Why Most Published Research Findings Are False"
by John P. A. Ioannidis. Research and research bias are much much more complicated then they appear on the surface. Follow the money is only partly true, there is the desire to do good and there is the problem that sometimes researchers already know the correct answer. And of course there are all sorts of hidden biases that the researcher may not even know that they have.
The summary also mentioned "So, it appears that people who take dietary supplements are likely to live a longer and healthier life for reasons that are unrelated to their supplement use." However, they made a number of assumptions about cause and effect to draw this conclusion. They did not have control group of identically educated and exercising people taking supplements and taking placebo for ten years. Every statin study (before the EU changed its rules to require more openness in "double blind" controlled studies) showed 50% reduction in mortality for taking statins. None since then have. None of the early statin studies showed strong links between statins and diabetes. Now, this VA study does: "https://www.research.va.gov/currents/spring2015/spring2015-19.cfm "
Also,
Analyzing tests and studies is always a problem. You have to look to see if the study design was right, you have to determine if the study subjects/locations were correctly selected according to the study design, you have to determine if the statistics used to analyze the study were correctly used and if the math in them was accurate.
Above all, you need to avoid confirmation bias such as happened with results of the 55 mph speed limit on 65 mph interstate in the USA. It was supposed to have caused declines in fatalities during the Carter administration. Accident fatalities on roads with 45 mph and 55 mph before the 55 mph speed limit reduction turned out later to have the same percentage accident fatality reduction per vehicle mile traveled as the high speed roads. Also, numerous "eating eggs causes heart disease" studies were done before the egg farmers study. The study sponsored by the egg farmers showed that egg farmers that ate 6 or more eggs a day had the same rate of heart disease as the non egg farmers. This difference was probably a confirmation bias problem as all the previous researchers knew that eggs had cholesterol and that cholesterol caused heart disease. A land grant university set out to prove the egg farmers study wrong and when it could not, examined the other studies and found that they all had statistics problems in them.
Also, numerous studies showed that ulcers were caused by too much tension at work or at homea. Then that nutcake Australian doctor drank the bacteria he believed caused ulcers at a medical conference, got an ulcer and cured it with antibiotics. They finally published his paper. My father was cured of his twenty year long ulcer the month after publication of the study. His doctor told him, well, the guy may be a nutcake or a quack but the antibiotics can't hurt you that much.
Hidden assumptions/study design factors, of which the study designer is unaware, can radically influence study outcomes An example was when two independent studies on whether coffee drinking influenced heart disease both involved ten thousand patients for several years and came up with diametrically opposite results. Both study’s results were incontestable, with a power of around .001 of being wrong. However, one study used exclusively percolated coffee and the other used exclusively filtered coffee and neither study design team realized that they had an extra variable in their study.
“Check the Numbers-The Case for Due Diligence in Policy Formation” by B.D. McCullough, “The Flaw of Averages” by Jeff Danziger, and “Studying a Study and Testing a Test: How to Read the Medical Evidence” (Core Handbook Series in Pediatrics) by Richard K. Riegelman.
So, be careful how you analyze and trust survey studies. And remember that large double blind controlled studies over 10 or more years are inherently very very expensive which is probably why you do not see very many being successfully done.
Walk in Peace,
ScribeWithALancet,
David
Sorry, my preretirement job was in research, we had a saying that if 90% of your research did not fail, you were not doing real research. Substitute the percentage of your own choice.
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Superman
Well-known member
C. Dif. Is no joke. It’s not any more or less likely for heart patients. Even hospital workers can pick it up. Someone I know very well was going in for IV nutrition trying to battle it because no food would stay with her. Lost a lot of weight that she didn’t have available to lose.
They try to treat with antibiotics, but it’s a durable bug. The antibiotics can kill off all your “good” gut flora (they don’t discriminate), and the C. Dif. will rebound first.
The fecal transplant is an attempt to rapidly force colonize good bacteria before the bad comes back. I’m a donor
. It can be done through a nasal tube, bypassing the stomach directly into the small intestine. It can be done the opposite way, directly into the colon. Or material can be encapsulated into slow dissolving pills and taken with water.
After watching someone battling that for months, I’d rather have heart surgery again.
They try to treat with antibiotics, but it’s a durable bug. The antibiotics can kill off all your “good” gut flora (they don’t discriminate), and the C. Dif. will rebound first.
The fecal transplant is an attempt to rapidly force colonize good bacteria before the bad comes back. I’m a donor
. It can be done through a nasal tube, bypassing the stomach directly into the small intestine. It can be done the opposite way, directly into the colon. Or material can be encapsulated into slow dissolving pills and taken with water.After watching someone battling that for months, I’d rather have heart surgery again.
pellicle
Professional Dingbat, Guru and Merkintologist
There are indeed errors, however if peer reviewed stuff has its flaws, I can only imagine its worse in the areas where nobody challenges it at all. For instance I don't see any real results with homeopathic treatments of cancers (well, except they die).
Ultimately one needs to decide where one puts faith, to me I put faith in the established system more so than the fringes. Science (despite its flaws) got us where we are, faith based practice and following charismatic leaders ... not so much.
