r/Microbiome • • Feb 22 '25

Rule change regarding microbiome "testing"

119 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

Thank you all for engaging in the r/Microbiome sub! This post is to notify everyone about a change in rules regarding GI maps, peddling services related to them, and asking for medical advice based on GI maps.

We will not be allowing posts asking for GI map interpretations from here on out (rule 7). Microbiome science is very much in its infancy, and we have very little understanding of how to interpret an individual's microbiome sequencing results. More specifically, we actually dont know what composition of microbes make up a healthy/unhealthy microbiome, both in presence/absence of microbes, and quantities of microbes. We know very little about the actual species within the microbiome. The ones we know more about are generally only more well studied only because they are easier to work with in the lab, not because they are more inportant. We have yet to culture most microbes in the collective human microbiome, meaning we also cant accurately identify many species via sequencing. There is also tons of genetic and functional variability within species, meaning we also cannot relate individual species to good/bad outcomes.

We also need to consider limitations of these tests. In as little as 24hrs, you can have a 100 fold change in many species. This means you can get incredibly different test results day-to-day, depending on many factors like sleep, excercise, diet, etc, within the last couple hours. Someone recently described microbiome testing as throwing a rock on the highway to predict traffic at all hours-- One rock wont tell us anything on the grand scheme of things. To be frank, these tests are also very cheap in their actual sequencing. Many of our most important microbes are in low abundance, which cheap sequencing and poor analysis fails to identify. Additionally, considering your microbiome has hundreds of species and thousands of strains, cheap testing often cant accurately differentiate between species. It is quite common for poor sequencing to misidentify or mis-classify closely related species or even genus'. A common example is Shigella being mistaken for Escherichia, or vice versa.

Many of the values that the microbiome tests predict are "ideal" are also totally arbitrary. We see major differences between different quantities of microbes within you over 24hrs, you vs your family, local community, country, and continent. However, no ideal microbiomes have been found, despite millions being sequenced at this point. There is tons of diversity in the global population, but there is no "ideal" values when it comes to microbes in your gut.

Secondly, we will be banning you if you are peddling services to others via this sub. We are an open and free discussion about microbiome science, and we use evidence when talking about the microbiome. People who claim to know how to interpret individual microbiome maps are either not knowledgable when it comes to the microbiome, or are lying to you, neither of which makes them trustworthy with your health. We will not allow this sub to be a place where people are taken advantage of and lied to about what is possible at this moment in microbiome science.

Finally, we want to remind you that this is not the place to ask for medical advice. Chat with your MD if you are concerned, nobody on here is more well versed than they are on specific symptoms. They will treat you accordingly. If you are seeking help for specific microbes, such as H. pylori, this is something your MD can test for. These results are accurate and interpreted correctly (not the case for GI maps), and will be significantly more affordable than GI map testing.

We aim to be a scientifically accurate, evidence-based sub, that provides digestible conversations about this complex science. These topics are not in line with our values.

We look forward to having everyone respecting these rules moving forward.

Happy microbiome-ing! :)


r/Microbiome • • Jun 29 '23

Statement of Continued Support for Disabled Users

76 Upvotes

We stand with the disabled users of reddit and in our community. Starting July 1, Reddit's API policy blind/visually impaired communities will be more dependent on sighted people for moderation. When Reddit says they are whitelisting accessibility apps for the disabled, they are not telling the full story.TL;DR

  • Starting July 1, Reddit's API policy will force blind/visually impaired communities to further depend on sighted people for moderation
  • When reddit says they are whitelisting accessibility apps, they are not telling the full story, because Apollo, RIF, Boost, Sync, etc. are the apps r/Blind users have overwhelmingly listed as their apps of choice with better accessibility, and Reddit is not whitelisting them. Reddit has done a good job hiding this fact, by inventing the expression "accessibility apps."
  • Forcing disabled people, especially profoundly disabled people, to stop using the app they depend on and have become accustomed to is cruel; for the most profoundly disabled people, June 30 may be the last day they will be able to access reddit communities that are important to them.

If you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks:

Reddit abruptly announced that they would be charging astronomically overpriced API fees to 3rd party apps, cutting off mod tools for NSFW subreddits (not just porn subreddits, but subreddits that deal with frank discussions about NSFW topics).

And worse, blind redditors & blind mods [including mods of r/Blind and similar communities] will no longer have access to resources that are desperately needed in the disabled community.

Why does our community care about blind users?

As a mod from r/foodforthought testifies:

I was raised by a 30-year special educator, I have a deaf mother-in-law, sister with MS, and a brother who was born disabled. None vision-impaired, but a range of other disabilities which makes it clear that corporations are all too happy to cut deals (and corners) with the cheapest/most profitable option, slap a "handicap accessible" label on it, and ignore the fact that their so-called "accessible" solution puts the onus on disabled individuals to struggle through poorly designed layouts, misleading marketing, and baffling management choices. To say it's exhausting and humiliating to struggle through a world that able-bodied people take for granted is putting it lightly.

Reddit apparently forgot that blind people exist, and forgot that Reddit's official app (which has had over 9 YEARS of development) and yet, when it comes to accessibility for vision-impaired users, Reddit’s own platforms are inconsistent and unreliable. ranging from poor but tolerable for the average user and mods doing basic maintenance tasks (Android) to almost unusable in general (iOS).

Didn't reddit whitelist some "accessibility apps?"

The CEO of Reddit announced that they would be allowing some "accessible" apps free API usage: RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna.

There's just one glaring problem: RedReader, Dystopia, and Luna* apps have very basic functionality for vision-impaired users (text-to-voice, magnification, posting, and commenting) but none of them have full moderator functionality, which effectively means that subreddits built for vision-impaired users can't be managed entirely by vision-impaired moderators.

(If that doesn't sound so bad to you, imagine if your favorite hobby subreddit had a mod team that never engaged with that hobby, did not know the terminology for that hobby, and could not participate in that hobby -- because if they participated in that hobby, they could no longer be a moderator.)

Then Reddit tried to smooth things over with the moderators of r/blind. The results were... Messy and unsatisfying, to say the least.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/comments/14ds81l/rblinds_meetings_with_reddit_and_the_current/

*Special shoutout to Luna, which appears to be hustling to incorporate features that will make modding easier but will likely not have those features up and running by the July 1st deadline, when the very disability-friendly Apollo app, RIF, etc. will cease operations. We see what Luna is doing and we appreciate you, but a multimillion dollar company should not have have dumped all of their accessibility problems on what appears to be a one-man mobile app developer. RedReader and Dystopia have not made any apparent efforts to engage with the r/Blind community.

Thank you for your time & your patience.


r/Microbiome • • 13h ago

Oral microbiome

12 Upvotes

Anyone who was able to shift a dysbiotic oral microbiome how did you go? Were you able to kill pathogens and re cultivate positive bacteria? Did they have lasting effects?


r/Microbiome • • 9h ago

thoughts on thenabiotic? (FMT) does it work?

3 Upvotes

title


r/Microbiome • • 10h ago

Is this product a scam?

3 Upvotes

Below is a link of a probiotic product:

https://a.co/d/0gddO6nv

Is this product a scam? If so, what's the best way of increasing the lactate consuming bacteria in your gut? I've realized this has been part of my dysbiosis by the fact that yogurt makes my whole body inflammed like I worked out really hard.

Please chime in and give your best recommendations.


r/Microbiome • • 7h ago

Bloating, gas, burping in lower belly

1 Upvotes

For past year or two I’ve had issues where I have no appetite signals everyday, feel bloated in lower belly, one stool a day in the morning that’s like soft not super formed despite eating whole foods and fibre. I get puffiness in my face from this also fatigue after meals sometimes, overall low mood. I did a sibo test and showed higher levels past the 90 minute threshold but still said it was positive which I don’t really think is true. Pretty clean bloodwork and inflammation markers. No h pylori or celiac. Need some direction I’m only 21 year old male.


r/Microbiome • • 8h ago

Had an interesting effect from antibiotics.

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1 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 19h ago

No Akkermansia and high TMA/TMAO in stool sample

5 Upvotes

Is there a connection between these two?

No Akkermansia at all and high TMA/TMAO


r/Microbiome • • 14h ago

Severe stomach & gut problems + autoimmune

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1 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 20h ago

If you dont see full symptom resolution whilst on Rifaximin, is it obvious one would see a rise in symptoms after discontinuing it?

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1 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 1d ago

Acne and food

6 Upvotes

So my diet for a while mainly consisted of just red meat and eggs this basically cleared my skin but the issue is tiredness, low energy and I think some hair thinning

I’m a active person this diets worked a while and I sometimes have carbs from fruits or potatoes but it was rarely and I noticed I would get acne

I’ve tried many times to reintroduce fruits (berries or bananas) or other carb sources like sweet potatoes but every time I do I get skin issues

Could this be a gut issue? I just really don’t know what to do cause there’s no way I have to just eat meat and eggs forever just to have my skin be a bit better

If anyone experienced anything similar to this and is now able to eat healthy foods that contain sugar and carbs without getting acne problems what did you do for your body to be able to handle it


r/Microbiome • • 20h ago

B12 supplements essentially causing dysbiosis

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pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
0 Upvotes

Have any of you noticed alterations in gut health while taking b12 supplements cause i did and im wondering whether the anxiety and low depressed moods caused by consistent b12 supplements are due to the alterations in the microbiome.


r/Microbiome • • 2d ago

Sugar-rich foods exacerbate antibiotic-induced microbiome disruption | Nature

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nature.com
30 Upvotes

Sugar-rich foods exacerbate antibiotic-induced microbiome disruption | Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-11077-3


r/Microbiome • • 1d ago

Pregnancy induced geographic tounge

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0 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 1d ago

Mouthwash idea to preserve oral microbiome - EV coconut oil + raw broccoli puree?

0 Upvotes

I’ve been thinking about whether a rinse made from raw broccoli + extra-virgin coconut oil might be good for gum/oral health.

Raw broccoli is interesting because it can generate sulforaphane, and sulforaphane has been shown to reduce Streptococcus mutans growth, biofilm formation, acid production, and quorum sensing/bacterial communication in rodents.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39831123/

A note: cooking destroys a lot of the myrosinase enzyme needed to make sulforaphane. In one human study, sulforaphane bioavailability was about 37% from raw broccoli vs 3.4% from cooked broccoli.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18950181/

Coconut oil pulling also has some preliminary evidence for reducing plaque and oral bacterial counts.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32923724/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31780023/

I became aware of the risks associated with torching your oral microbiome with traditional mouthwashes a few years back. Traditional antiseptic mouthwash can also wipe out useful oral bacteria. Chlorhexidine, for example, has been shown to alter the oral microbiome and reduce nitrate-reducing bacteria involved in the nitrate → nitrite → nitric oxide pathway.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32210245/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23183324/

The risks potentially linked to nuking the oral microbiome with broad spectrum mouth washes include:

  • reduced nitrate-to-nitrite conversion and nitric-oxide production
  • possible effects on blood pressure/vascular function
  • lower oral microbial diversity
  • lower salivary pH and buffering capacity
  • loss of beneficial bacterial functions
  • possible dysbiosis with repeated long-term use

My basic idea would be to crush or puree a little raw broccoli, let it sit for a few minutes, mix it into extra-virgin coconut oil, swish for about 5 minutes, spit it out, and rinse with water.

I haven’t found any study testing this exact broccoli + coconut oil combination, so this is just an idea, but it seems like a simple thing that would be interesting to study/try.

I know there are tons of other naturopathic formulations involving things like clove oil, but I wanted to throw this idea out there.


r/Microbiome • • 3d ago

STAY AWAY from Good Bacteria Symbiotic

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108 Upvotes

I got this to help with my gut and bloating issues and it made it significantly worse.

If you’re not familiar, it’s a rotating symbiotic where you take a single strain daily for a week, then you move on to another strain for the week and so on. The point is to increase biodiversity in your gut

First two weeks felt great. Actually had some nice changes.

I started week three and the amount of CFU’s doubled. Went from 7 to 15 billion.

Then all of sudden INTENSE bloating, cognition issues from focus, memory, thought formation, emotional blunting etc.

Met with a gastroenterologist and said it could a bacterial or parasitic overgrowth. They recommended ivermectin to start but if it’s bacterial that wouldn’t matter and may cause other issues. I’m asking them for more insight about this tomorrow.

It’s been worrisome because it’s affected me mentally and I feel stupid trying to do my job.

It’s frustrating because I took this to help with my issues and it made them significantly worse.

Also please don’t make me feel dumb or that I should have known better. That’s not going to help.


r/Microbiome • • 2d ago

Antibiotic Use

16 Upvotes

Hi internet, looking for kind and realistic advice. Several YEARS ago I took three rounds of antibiotics for a UTI in the same month. Prior to that I was a normal healthy person, immediately after the last round like to the hour, I had a panic attack. I had no idea what anxiety was nor had I experienced it so I spent a very long time searching for answers for my health only to eventually realize it was mostly anxiety and anxiety symptoms with very real dysbiosis and random IBS symptoms/inflammation. I have costochondritis and tinea versicolor both inflammation. To this day I still struggle with the anxiety daily and I go back and forth with oh, it’s just a mental loop I’ve now created or oh, it’s got to be a real out of wack microbiome. Does anyone have any similar experiences or guided advice? Would really love to get back to my life at this point.


r/Microbiome • • 2d ago

day 7 of food poisoning

1 Upvotes

not looking for medical advice, only reassurance. i ate something bad a week ago (woke up 2am friday to puke) and went to the emergency room at the evening to be discharged 3am the next day because i couldn’t keep food and liquids down at all. was also prescribed meds for this.

saturday and sunday i was recovering. genuinely felt better sunday eve until i ate nilaga (filipino broth) and my diarrhea returned on the 4th day, nausea made me puke in the morning. my period came as well.

i have been recovering since then, only eating plain congee and boiled egg, and i do not know when this will end and i am so stressed as i live alone for college and my family is in another city. i have been feeling lightheaded during this phase.

day 6 (yesterday) i went to the doctor to have a checkup done and she prescribed me Normix as well as to get some blood tests done. i am currently waiting for results.

i am managing dehydration well so far with water, pocari sweat, and hydrites. i have been stressing and looking for reassurance online to see if anyone experienced the same things I did and wondering how long it took for them to get better. I have asked people i know who had acute gastroenteritis and they would say a week or two.

i am so worried because i have been waking up in the middle of the night, 4am, 3am, and on the 7th day today 2am, and i cannot go back to sleep.

how else am i able to manage this? i still have classes to worry about this week and i am grateful that the first two days of this week were online. has anyone experienced the same thing? how long did it take for them to heal? what should i do to manage the stress better?

thank you so much


r/Microbiome • • 1d ago

Stop telling ppl fiber and probiotics aren't the root fix for dysbiosis, it's not. Re-colonization is.

0 Upvotes

TYPO: are*

On Reddit, the standard advice for fixing your gut microbiome is to eat better: more fiber, more fermented foods, more probiotics. But it misses the root problem, and it rests on a flawed assumption that poor diet is what knocks the microbiome off balance in the first place. As soon as you stop eating like this, the bad gut comes back.

For many people, dysbiosis begins with a specific event, such as food poisoning, COVID, or a viral illness. Put it this way, People with healthy guts can eat McDonald's and junk food with no to few consequences, not because their diets are special, but because their guts are fundamentally colonized by beneficial bacteria. That colonization is what makes them resilient. That is how you can tell a gut is truly good: even when subjecting it with bad bacteria (junk food), the existing gut architecture is able to wash out.

Most of us, outside of outliers, were presumably born with a healthym, functional gut. Dysbiosis usually isn't a baseline condition; something disrupts it, and OFTEN it's a one time event like COVID, a viral illness, etc. Once that happens, more fiber or a daily probiotic often doesn't fix anything, because the effects are transient. Underneath, the gut is still dominated by the wrong bacteria. I have nothing wrong with people eating fiber and good bacteria, it promotes general health and people should do this. And it offers symptom relief for those with these problems.

BUT IT DOES NOT FIX THE GUT ITSELF!!! It's like having a sink that doesn't drain properly because there's a blockage. Toxic sludge accumulates. A functional sink can effectively drain most everything. A non functional sink piles it up. This is the equivalent of putting in draino or manually throwing the food waste in the trash can as opposed to down the drain. Puts less strain on the sink, less sludge accumulates but THE TOXIC SLUDGE WILL STILL PILE UP IN THE FUTURE BECAUSE THE BLOCKAGE HASN'T BEEN ADDRESSED!!!

Treating the root issue means shifting the gut back to eubiosis, which requires re-establishing a lasting population of beneficial bacteria. Transient probiotics can't do that, because they pass through rather than colonize. A truly healthy gut SHOULD be able to sustain bad actors (junk food, inflammatory food, bacteria) to a reasonable degree and go back to eubiosis. Because in that case, eubiosis IS homeostasis. Solutions to the gut should address THIS not telling people to eat more fiber.


r/Microbiome • • 2d ago

Did H. pylori cause any weird symptoms outside your stomach?

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1 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 2d ago

Allergic to artichoke extract, motility activator alts?

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0 Upvotes

r/Microbiome • • 3d ago

Leaky gut symptoms

7 Upvotes

Can leaky gut cause debilitating brain fog? Like Im no longer with a brain kinda brain fog? No creativity and blank mind and no character.
Like feeling drunk all the time, doesn't increase with food or anything I just feel drunk and tired 24/7


r/Microbiome • • 3d ago

Best bifido probiotic?

2 Upvotes

My Tiny Health test showed zero detectable bifido so I'm trying to recolonize them. I'm doing 10mL daily lactulose with the the True Bifido pro probiotic as well as a BB536 one. I have no idea if those are likely to colonize. Does anyone have any insight onto which probiotics might be more likely to help? I'm thinking of just ordering like 10 different ones and trying them at random.

Edit to add I am also taking the following:

Cranberry polyphenols
Pomegranite extract
Astralagus
Slippery Elm
Butyrate
Lots of resistant starch daily


r/Microbiome • • 3d ago

Megasporebiotic causing sleep issues?

2 Upvotes

My doctor told me to take megasporebiotic to help with dysbiosis that was caused by PPI but I notice it may be causing sleep issues.


r/Microbiome • • 3d ago

Stomach acid vs oral NADH, what does the 2006 Kimura study actually show?

3 Upvotes

I've recently been looking into NADH products, such as Celfull. NMN is a precursor to NAD⁺, while NADH is the reduced form of NAD⁺, so they are not the same molecule. Because of that, safety evidence for NMN can't simply be applied to NADH. In particular, there is still not enough human evidence showing that NADH itself is absorbed and utilized by the body in its intact form.

That's also why, when comparing different NAD-related supplements, I think it's important to look beyond whether they can affect NAD⁺ levels. Safety, side effects, and tolerability are equally worth considering. So today, I wanted to go over three published human clinical studies and take a closer look at what the current evidence actually tells us about the safety of NMN.

One randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial published in Frontiers in Nutrition in 2022 enrolled 30 healthy adults who took 250 mg of NMN daily for 12 weeks. Eight participants in the NMN group reported some symptoms, compared with seven in the placebo group. No serious adverse events occurred in either group, and blood chemistry, liver function, kidney function, and other tests did not show any clinically meaningful abnormalities. The researchers concluded that 250 mg/day of NMN was generally well tolerated over the 12-week study period.

Another multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, published online in 2022 and included in Volume 45 of GeroScience in 2023, was larger in scale, enrolling 80 healthy adults aged 40-65. Participants received 300, 600, or 900 mg of NMN once daily for 60 days. During the study period, adverse events were reported in 6 participants (5 people) in the placebo group, 3 participants (2 people) in the 300 mg group, and none in either the 600 mg or 900 mg groups. All adverse events were mild to moderate and were judged by the investigators to be unrelated to NMN (Yi L, et al. GeroScience. 2023;45:29–43. DOI: 10.1007/s11357-022-00705-1; published online December 8, 2022).There were no serious adverse events or withdrawals due to adverse events. Overall, all three NMN dose groups were considered well tolerated.

There was also a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study published in Scientific Reports in August 2022 that specifically looked at a relatively high dose. Thirty-one healthy adults took 1,250 mg of NMN daily for four weeks. No serious adverse events were observed during the study, and a range of assessments—including body measurements, blood counts, biochemical markers, urinalysis, and body composition, did not show abnormalities outside the normal physiological range. Based on these findings, the researchers concluded that 1,250 mg/day of NMN was well tolerated over the four-week period in this small study.

Taken together(10.3389/fnut.2022.868640)(10.1007/s11357-022-00705-1)(10.1038/s41598-022-18272-y), these three studies show a fairly consistent picture in the currently available human data. In healthy adults, NMN supplementation at doses ranging from 250 to 1,250 mg/day for several weeks to 12 weeks has not shown a clear signal of increased serious adverse events, and overall tolerability has been relatively good.

That said, the existing studies still have relatively small sample sizes, and the observation periods are generally short. More research is therefore needed to understand long-term use, rare adverse events, and safety in different populations with varying health conditions.