The goal of the first phase of the HMP was to identify the microbial makeup of a healthy microbiome. And, in a study published earlier this year, researchers made an important discovery—that there is no such thing. Even among people who were examined and found to be perfectly healthy, each persons microbiome was unique. Eisen says that one of the most common errors in studies is confusion between correlation and causation. The microbiome has 400 million different variables that you can measure about it, Eisen explains. The different sites, the different species, the relative abundance of those species, the variation—if you have that many variables, I can guarantee statistically that some of them will be perfectly correlated with Crohns disease and have nothing to do with it. Worse, the growing popularity of untested and unregulated therapies based in microbiome research—such as probiotics and DIY fecal transplants—could pose health threats to the public. There is a certain pace at which things can happen and it is such a brand new area that there is a lot yet to be understood. motherjones/environment/2014/10/microbiome-health-gut-bacteria?utm_content=buffer9437e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 20:51:16 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015