COVID-19 severity linked to gut bacteria in first-of-its-kind study:
A first-of-its-kind study has investigated the relationship between COVID-19 severity and the gut microbiome. The observational research suggests specific microbial patterns correlate with disease severity and those bacterial imbalances may account for some cases of "long COVID".
A growing body of study is finding a relationship between our immune system and the massive population of bacteria living in our intestines, known as our gut microbiome. These links suggest our microbiome may influence, or be influenced by, inflammatory activity in the body. And this relationship could play a role in everything from depression and obesity to Alzheimer's.
[...] One study found COVID-19 patients presented with unique microbial compositions compared to patients with influenza and healthy controls. Another small pilot study, investigating a cohort of just 15, suggested there may be signs microbiome alterations correlate with COVID-19 severity.
This new study, published in the BMJ journal Gut, offers the most detailed investigation to date into the relationship between COVID-19 severity, the gut microbiome, and general inflammatory biomarkers. The research looked at blood and stool samples from 100 COVID-19 patients admitted to hospital, compared to 78 healthy control subjects.
Journal Reference:
Yun Kit Yeoh, Tao Zuo, Grace Chung-Yan Lui, et al. Gut microbiota composition reflects disease severity and dysfunctional immune responses in patients with COVID-19 [open], Gut (DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-323020)
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @10:27AM (7 children)
Humans are just mindless meat tubes used to grow bacteria and vote for Republicrats.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @10:54AM (5 children)
While the Lizard people vote Biden?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:13AM
Biden is like the prototypical republicrat. An old white guy with 50 years in government working to take away peoples rights and increase the power of government while enriching his family and friends.
Can you think of a better example? I think he beats out the main competition: McConnell, Pelosi, Romney, Kerry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:25PM (3 children)
Jeez. Dumbfuck alt-right incel started reading "Republi . . .", flew into a rage, and didn't even read to the end of the word. With foaming mouth and trembling hands, seeing white flashes circling around, he screamed, "B . . . b . . . but BIDEN!11!11!1" It sure doesn't take much to trigger some of the more nutty types around here.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @01:32PM
So you think it has come to this, a battle between three-chamber hearts and four-chamber hearts?
In the three court we have simplicity while the four-chamber design offers efficiency at the expense of complexity?
I think this was settled eons ago...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:04PM
Guy makes joke and you go off all triggered and nutty. Okay got it. What was that about the pot and the kettle...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:28PM
Snowflake triggered by apparent and obvious lack of humor. You people are so sad. Vote Kang! ... or Kodos ... of Biden ...
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday January 15 2021, @12:39AM
That's the future [youtu.be] of us, anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:30AM (1 child)
And TFS offers zero content.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:37PM
New ambiguously-advertised allegedly Covid19-defeating probiotic supplements coming in 5.... 4.... 3....
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:43AM (6 children)
Any infection will change the composition of the microbiome. It would be strange if there wasn't a difference in those that caught covid.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @11:55AM (2 children)
The null hypothesis of zero effect/correlation is always false, the only reason to not get statistical significance is your measurements are noisy and sample size low.
All "science" measures anymore is how much money you can raise for your project. Bring back scientists testing their own theories and we will have a new golden age.
(Score: 4, Touché) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:20PM
Well, a reasonable approach to medical science is
1. Look for correlation in test populations
2. Identify mechanism that can explain correlation
3. Do lab experiments to verify mechanism
4. Develop medicines to address mechanism
5. Push medicines to patients
6. Look for change in correlations in test populations
It is correct to grumble that stage 1 is insufficient, but it is probably necessary. All of the hype about "inflammatory response" and "gut microbes" may fail at 3, or 4. Worst case the process fails at 6; but how many times have you had a bug in production code?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:54PM
The original scientists were rich people with nothing better to do.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:24PM (2 children)
Actually, that was what I wondered about. They show a correlation, but did they show a direction of interaction. I'm not even asking for a direct causal link. (Well, it might be very indirect.) But *if* there is a causal connection, which was does the arrow of causation point? (Of course it could be cyclical.)
To me this sounds like "evidence that further investigation is necessary". It should eventually be significant, but the causal loop is probably too indirect to be easy to trace, and it doesn't sound as if they yet know which direction causal connections flow.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:16PM
A strong and stable native microbiome should be very helpful for avoiding and fighting infections, but sedentary hygiene and antibiotic-fattening of livestock may be a major cause of instability. Environmental hazards like PFAS, lead, pesticides and herbicides, fertilizers, and industrial waste are almost criminally neglected by regulators and media. When there are research developments or legal battles about these issues that effect almost every living being on this planet, they are barely reported on.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:28PM
This is a lot of modern pseudo-science studies. They take two things, see a correlation, and word it like causality.
>those bacterial imbalances may account for some cases of "long COVID"
well, let's see here... someone with a bacterial imbalance means they're not as healthy as someone with a good bacteria. would being already not healthy mean a worse case of COVID? who would have thought an unhealthy person would be hit by covid worse than a healthy person?
I was working on a huge data warehouse 20 years ago. We dumped all kinds of data into it, built a bunch of cubes with completely random cartesian joins, and boom - so many correlations. For example, did you know chlorine causes people to drink more soda? I'm not kidding here. Whenever someone buys a bunch of chlorine products, they end up buying more soda.
of course what was really happening was it was hot and people needed chlorine for the pool. they also drink more soda in the summer, because you drink soda cold, and in the winter you drink more hot drinks. duh.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 14 2021, @12:17PM
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by legont on Thursday January 14 2021, @01:30PM (9 children)
Such as why covid is so severe in developed countries where antibiotics use is the real issue.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:20PM
Could be. Who's going to be brave enough to fund, and perform that study? I hope someone is.
Refined sugars are often blamed for gut microbiome problems, including thrush, candida, other yeasts.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Spamalope on Thursday January 14 2021, @02:38PM (3 children)
We know the gut plays a regulatory roll for many body systems, but it's not so easy to pin it on antibiotics with certainty. There are other candidates. (i.e. Scratch cooked meals could be the difference maker, or cultural differences in diet.)
High (relative to paleo diet) sugar intake changes the balance of the gut biome.
So can food we're not evolved to eat, like cows milk and corn. Intolerance to those two are common, and they're everywhere in US packaged foods as are fillers.
Eating foods you're at least mildly intolerant of increases inflammatory regulation, and pushing the inflammatory part of the immune system into feedback loop redline is one way Covid kills so it's not surprising there appears to be a correlation. Causation with a mechanism so the info is useful might be challenging to conclusively determine.
Side note for antibiotics; If they cause an imbalance, fasting for ~48 hours (to wipe out overpopulation of wrong types), then probiotics with the 6-7 key ones (these have to be refrigerated so look in that section of the supermarket - mine has a refrigerated supplements section) and a lower sugar diet for a few. Somewhere in the 12-20 hour range of fasting my lower abdomen pain will flair, then once I'm good I'm not even hungry and don't hurt. The pro-biotics and lower sugar diet (for long enough that a healthy balance develops) keeps the symptoms from returning. (I know this because I have an immune system regulatory disorder that screws up my gut when it flares, and I found the 'after antibiotics' gut protocol works for that too)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by helel on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:50PM
What I wonder is if we have a bunch of overlapping studies that all point to the same group of people suffering long COVID? Just from memory here we have over weight, diabetic, vitamin deficient, and now a different gut flora. That's quite the Venn diagram right there.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:11PM
I've been Paleo for years, and perhaps that's why I tested negative even though I was clearly exposed [soylentnews.org].
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @04:22PM
The microbiome is what allows us to eat things "we didn't evolve to eat". Probiotics are a scam. If you want to adjust your microbiome, just change your diet. The bacteria are already present, just at differing ratios, and are being introduced all the time.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:21PM (3 children)
I thought it was Vit D?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday January 14 2021, @03:30PM (2 children)
Well, patients with a bad case of COVID tend to have low levels of vitamin D in their blood, but the causal direction in that hasn't been demonstrated either. Which caused/faciltated which? Or is it a mild statistical fluke? (AFAIK it hasn't been compared against population blood serum levels.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Friday January 15 2021, @01:04AM (1 child)
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-14/qld-vitamin-d-supplement-colds-flus-qimr-research/13057290 [abc.net.au]
"Vitamin D supplements will not protect Australians from catching colds, flus and other respiratory infections, new research has found."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 15 2021, @11:43PM
the first few lines in that story said "the trial found that unless the patients were deficient vitamin d supplements won't help". so being 100% on vitamin d helps. what is your point?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 14 2021, @07:35PM
COVID-19 is. A one-size fits all. It causes anything and everything, and perhaps nothing whatsoever and whatnot. It can be prevented and cured by almost everything, and perhaps maybe anything, and maybe even something else, or nothing whatsoever.