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Comment by ngruhn | Hacker News Reader

This is gonna go viral as: just eat more yogurt to stop being awkward or whatever.

Yoghurts probably won't help, but Fecal Microbiota Transplantation might.

A team at the University of Calgary is currently recruiting participants with Major Depressive Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder:

https://research.ucalgary.ca/participate/clinical-trial-eval...

https://research.ucalgary.ca/participate/focused-study-fmt-o...

Damn, that's my city and I have been struggling with some other stuff

I don't fall under the umbrella of Major Depressive or OCD but if they were doing trials to help anxiety or something I would probably sign up

Eat more poop?

You have to boof the poo for it to work right.

Eating more prebiotics in the form of unprocessed plants is much more effective at improving gut health than probiotic supplements or even probiotic foods. (Of course you can do both.)

Lotta yogurts people buy are chock full of added sugars.

The experiment looked to be the other way around. If you introduced new microbiota from patients with SAD this caused SAD in mice.

So introducing new microbiota won’t solve the problem. The theory that needs to be tested is that we know microbiota can switch SAD on, but does removal of said microbiota turn it off? It needs to be an antibiotic cleansing. It can even be DIY. People can try this on themselves. I think the unknown factor here though is whether or not a persons diet is introducing the SAD causing microbiota.

Do we get gut bacteria from the people around us? Where does a newborn get their gut bacteria from?

The entry point to the gut is from the mouth so because of that, I think food is where most of the gut bacteria comes from.

Sure, as long as you hold your mouth and nose closed when not eating.

You have a back door as well for the gut that tends to open at least once a day. We know fecal matter is in the air in most bathrooms. It wouldn't surprise me if you got an infusion of community fecal biome right into your anus every time you used a restroom that isn't your own.

Yes but usually when the back door opens things are exiting the gut rather then going in. So I don’t think that counts.

There are cases where things do enter the back door but I think that’s just humans getting creative and it wasn’t designed for entry.

Its not like there is positive air flow keeping any microbes in the air out and away. If something lands on there it can probably colonize then spread to the inside slipping through the sphincter.

we can from kissing

It's not just food as many commenters are pointing out. It could be from what people are drinking, even water, if oral delivery is not sanitized.

So if the choice is between unsanitary water or sterile and containing chlorine, etc., which has the effect of strengthening the microbiota so that the resulting population increases perceived wellness in the host organism’s sociopolitical fitness, its simple enough, we all stop eating and drinking for ultimate safety and maximum paperclips.

Chlorine is not the only way to sterilize water. Ultraviolet sterilization is a chemical-free option suitable for many use cases: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_germicidal_irrad...

Newborns get a lot from their mother. They have very little stomach acid, so whatever they are getting goes straight through to their gut.

Heh, if so, I wonder if there is a correlation between social anxiety and babies who relied on formula instead of breastfeeding.

Introducing new microbiota will put competitive pressure on the old one, so I wouldn't write it off with out trying.

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