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Comment by zemvpferreira | Hacker News Reader

...in mice.

Edit: not to say I don't believe the effect might be present in humans but the significance of this study should not be overrated.

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The observed effect is caused by changes to gut microbiota composition. While there are differences in our flora compared to mice, the reactions happening at that scale should be the same.

Whether those changes to human gut would cause these symptoms may be up for debate, but that does not make this irrelevant or useless in any way.

Grapes are poisonous to mice as well. Dose makes the poison is very relevant here.

Any diet change induces changes in gut microbiota. Eating tomatoes? Less Mucispirillum in rodents. Eating potato starch? More Rikenellaceae. Eating chicken? More Lactobacillus.

It's result of simple natural selection - species better at digesting your food will reproduce faster.

It is one thing to look for parallels in biochemistry, but I think it takes some healthy imagination to speculate on parallels in behavior and psychology. The findings describe:

"...enhanced anxiogenesis, increased behavioral despair, and impaired social interactions..."

...however, does not mean it doesn't work similarly in hoomans.

Also doesn't mean that it does.

More importantly probably, this test was a standard diet vs. a "junk food" diet, so it makes many more changes vs. the control than just swapping sucrose for HFCS. It doesn't (and wasn't intended to) really reveal effects of HFCS specifically. Obviously you could look more at the specific differences between the diets used here in future research.

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