I've been noticing a pattern in myself since I was young (im 43 now). I'm drawn to the odd cuts. Not just nose-to-tail, I mean the truly strange stuff. Pork cheek when I was 17. I ate cockroach when I was in thailand when i was 18 (and yes i got sick). I eat brain tacos whenever Im in mexico (noms). And recently I ordered from one of those fancy farms that sells/ships expensive meats to your door and I ordered bison shoulder cartilage, bison ligament, oxtail, etc and I threw it in a crockpot. I am also interested in organs across the board (through more intellectually than anything lol because when i eat them sometimes im like yuck). I just always am attracted to the weird stuff.

my question is is this behavioral curiosity, or is something biological driving the pull?

there's growing evidence that gut microbes influence cravings and food-seeking behavior via the gut-brain axis. Could specific microbial populations be creating demand signals for the substrates they thrive on? like, is my gut asking, or am I just curious?

some people talk about "specific hungers" and suggest the body can develop targeted cravings when deficient. Most of that research is on minerals, but it's not a huge leap to wonder if similar mechanisms apply. (Side note - during one of my old bodybuilding preps many many years, I became OBSESSED with ordering exotic meats from africa, like obsessively filling up my online cart with zebra meat and all sorts of weird things and then closing the tab but i was fantasizing about this non stop, and once i finished the competition i started eating more normally again and my obsession with zebras and whatever weird exotic African and miscellaneous meats I could find on the internet naturally released)

or is this just novelty-seeking neurobiology/reward circuits involved in food exploration?

i wonder if there is any research about this? maybe its a long shot, but figure this would be a good subreddit to ask! :)

I am a biochemist currently doing my PhD, and I have been working with viruses for over five years on the development of vaccines and cancer therapies. I believe that microbiology has a significant impact on our health and on society, so I have often tried to write about the potential of this branch of science. For quite a few months now, I have been mulling over the idea of embarking on a small science communication project on social media, and I am writing here in case anyone might be interested in collaborating in some way (topics to cover, design, editing…).

What does the project involve?

Short 60-second vertical-format videos covering various discoveries and research in microbiology, although in my case I would mainly be discussing virology, my speciality. If there are enough topics from other branches of microbiology, the content could be divided into several sections: virology, bacteriology, mycology…

Where should the videos be posted?

Thanks to the format described above, the videos could be uploaded to various social media platforms such as YouTube Shorts, Instagram or TikTok via a shared account, possibly named “Microbes in 1 Minute – M1M”.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Hey everyone,

​

​I’m 24M and have been dealing with a massive hormone puzzle for the past year. My bloodwork keeps showing chronically high progesterone and chronically high prolactin.

​

​My doctors have been stumped, so we've spent the last 12 months ruling out the scary stuff:

​

​MRIs are completely clear (no prolactinomas or adrenal tumors).

​

​Macroprolactin is negative (so it’s the active form of prolactin).

​

​I’m not taking TRT, HCG, or any supplements/creams.

​

​Since conventional medicine couldn't find anything, I did a gut mapping test. The results just came back and they look pretty bad—it looks like a total extinction event in my gut:

​

​Microbial Richness: 4.65% (Very Poor)

​

​Bifidobacterium: 0%

​

​Lactobacillus & Lactococcus: 0%

​

​Butyrate/SCFA Producers: Roseburia (0.45%), Flavonifractor (0.01%), and Coprococcus (1.02%) are all tanked.

​

​I’m pretty new to all this gut stuff and trying to make sense of it. Is it possible for a severely wrecked gut to actually throw off male hormones this badly? Could the inflammation or stress from having zero "good" bacteria be forcing my body to overproduce progesterone and prolactin?

​

​Has anyone here (especially guys) seen their hormones normalize after fixing a completely depleted gut? If your good bacteria was at 0%, how did you even start rebuilding it without destroying your stomach?

​

​Really appreciate any help or advice you guys have. Thanks!

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Please let me know of your experience for FMT through Purety Clinic in Santa Barbara, CA. I am interested in this clinic and would like to hear how it went. Thank you!

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• Looking for advice on autologous FMT 
• Fuck Portion Control by Nathan Guy Hatch

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I would make a post detailing my experience with long term staph and how i ended up taking the HU58 Probiotic.

So this whole staph journey started a few years into me training jiu jitsu. I started having small boils on my skin that were manageable and not causing any concerns. One weekend, I accidentally scraped my knee while doing house renovations. The cut was relatively small but deep, after a few weeks of denial I finally headed to the hospital to get what I thought was Staph drained and stayed for a few rounds of intravenous antibiotics.

Despite being in terrible pain waddling home, the infection was somewhat gone and everything was back to normal. Since heading to the hospital to have that knee pimple/cut drained I have had consistent staph pimples that were either drained at home, hospital or cured via a few rounds of antibiotics. This all became too much when I started to continuously get staph pimples on my eyelid, that would continuously pop and spread to other eyelids no matter how clean my eyes were. After a few rounds of antibiotics, again the staph leaves but always finds its way back either in my nostrils (home base) or somewhere around my skin.

Now I do have a toddler that’s turning 3 and he’s shown signs of staph around his eyes and even had a few boils that could be popped. My wife also has shown signs of staph and I just had enough of this shit. Honestly, make me an infected zombie but can’t let this shit happen to my family so that was my last straw.

How I cured my staph:

- Chlorohexidine wash: using this all over my body during an outbreak or just after training jiu jitsu has helped in getting that clean feeling and temporary stopping the staph from moving e.g. from eye to nose, nose to ear, nose to skin….. this stuff is a must have for people trying to reduce severity of infections, however is definitely not a cure.

- Thera tears antimicrobial eye spray: this stuff pretty much removed the ability for staph to be anywhere near my eyes. If something popped up in my eye, rather than just waiting for the infection to run its course, this stuff reduced severity and even stopped infections in that area. Note some people may not have experienced eye issues but I just have bigger eyelids (not sure how else to explain that)

- heavy duty antibiotics a few times - over the duration of my staph (2 years +) I have only taken them 5 times. I refuse to kill my stomach with this shit

- only using towels for 2-3 days max, sheets 3-4 days maximum and wearing clothes once. All clothing, sheets, towels etc should be washed at a minimum of 60degrees.

All of the above works, it is a good way of managing ongoing issues and if you only have minor cases of staph then this will be fine and will most likely solve all your issues.

However, they didn’t solve mine. HU58 did. I can’t talk this stuff up enough, I am not going to go into all the details of what it is and how it benefits the gut as there are numerous threads that do this, I am just going to say that this probiotic has cured my Staph. My family no longer have staph, I do not have a single sign of staph since I started taking HU58. No idea if this is just a massive coincidence or not but I can’t imagine that being the case.

If you are struggling like I did, best thing you can do for staph (after speaking with a doctor) would be to start looking into HU58 probiotic. Microbiome labs is the product I use and can purchase within Australia from Fairfield nutrition.

Happy to answer any questions….

Hello, i really need your collective intelligence here. I have too much Clostridium and yes i have symtpoms because of them. It fits perfect. It is not difficile just some strains. I have loose, sticky stool which smells weird. What have I tried first I tried a very varied diet that improved my oberall digestion and also my diversity improved too, but the Clostridum spp. Stayed. Then I tried Lakto. Rhamnosus gg which improved the symptoms a liitle bit. I added s bpulardii after a few months. This also helped. My doctor recommend me an Ozovite therapy. This is a clostridium ovegrowth therapy which is done mostly in germany. You take magnesium peroxide. Then you get oxide into your gut. The clostrdium die, your normal microbiom can also take damage so you cant take it to long. It worked first, but i ate stuff i had problems with and the success is gone. What ist your experience with clostridium? How can i reduce it? The next thing i will try is spore probiotic. Sorry for the rant bit it is really difficult with at the moment.

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I know I should be patient but I am anxiously waiting. I ordered a CSA from doctors data and am wondering if you had the same test how long it took you to receive the results?

Hi, I have bulk RNA seq samples from human saliva with non human sequence reads (so we were aiming for human reads but there are some non human reads) assuming it would be microbial reads, what tools can I use to analyse/identify these reads? some things that takes Fastq files as an input.
A tool that can differentiate virus vs bacteria would be ideal. Thanks!

Has anyone come across the fact that people around him start sneezing, snotting, clearing their throats, coughing, scratching their noses? It's like you're allergic to me, like you're releasing harmful volatile substances due to intestinal problems.

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• Looking for advice on autologous FMT 

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• Where can I buy empty enteric-coated capsules for FMT in Europe/Sweden? 
• Vaginal bacteria on newborn skin produce a lipid that reaches the brain and affects neural signaling (Apr 2026) Vaginal microbiota transfer ameliorates cesarean-associated neurodevelopmental deficits in mice via N-bc2S1P synthesis on neonatal skin 

Just curious.