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The "good bacteria," or probiotics, that fill the pomegranate drink are everywhere these days, in pills and powders marketed as super supplements. Probiotics are said to improve digestive and immune health. They're touted as potential treatments for conditions ranging from inflammatory bowel disease to eczema to tooth decay. Some marketing campaigns even hint that they can prevent the flu.
Scientific evidence, however, does not necessarily support those claims.
Studies in rodents and small groups of humans point to possible health benefits of consuming probiotics. But there have been only a few large human trials — in large part because Food and Drug Administration rules have dissuaded food companies and federally funded researchers from conducting the types of studies that could confirm, or refute, the proposed benefits of consuming "good" microbes.
http://www.statnews.com/2016/01/21/probiotics-shaky-science/
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Wednesday January 27 2016, @07:15PM
Here is the idea. Gut bacteria of a certain type like certain types of food. Other types like other types of food. Some break down sugars, others fiber, and so on. If you eat poorly (McDonalds) then you are selecting bacteria of certain types. But there is potentially a feed back loop. There are nerve receptors in the gut that signal reward centers in the brain, and gut bacteria produce a number of known neurotransmitters in their life-cycles, which may influence activity in the brain in reward centers.
A reasonable hypothesis then is that biotics in the gut would have a selective advantage if they could convince the host to eat foods that it prefers. If your diet tends to be laden with fats and sugars, then you are selecting a monoculture of fat and sugar digesting microbes, whom then produce neurotransmitters that activate reward centers for eating fats and sugars. However, those microbes that process vegetable fibers should have a similar interests in manipulating host eating behaviors to eat more vegetable fibers...but if you have a mcdonalds mnoculture of microbes the vegetable fiber microbes can not control the host effectively. On the other hand, if you have a balanced diet, or a balanced population of microbes, no single group can effectively manipulate your eating behaviors to their particular advantage.
I can't find the review paper right now that this cam from....but it is a fascinating hypothesis.