This is an area where there is often strong alternative urban-myth preached. Taking Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria probiotic to increase low numbers of these two genus has been shown to not work! Despite the research, both conventional MD’s and naturopaths will preach it!

After oral consumption of probiotics, E. coli and enterococci could be detected in stool samples (57% and 67%, respectively). In contrast, with only one exception, ingested lactobacilli and bifidobacteria could not be detected in human feces.

Are probiotics detectable in human feces after oral uptake by healthy volunteers? 2007 US National Library of Medicine

Modifying the microbiome is very similar to a complex guerilla war. Often bacteria will use “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” approach.

• Sending in Lactobacillus and Bifidobacteria probiotics is like sending fresh recruits into the jungle to fight the guerillas. At the end of the day, there is just body bags full of recruits.
• Sending in battle-harden troops will end up with less guerillas, but the guerillas will still be there, just less. The best example of a battle-harden probiotics is Mutaflor, which was discovered in a few healthy soldiers in a company of troops with diarrhea in world war I.
• The way to successfully deal with guerillas is often prosperity and dealing with the gripes!

We need to supply food but also make sure that corrupt officials do not take the food and sell it on the black market. We need to restore true ‘equal opportunity’ to the bacteria. We need to be careful that we do not empower a new evil group trying to get rid of one group. For example, in World War II, supporting and providing goods to the communists in order to fight the Nazi. In short, it’s complex.

Modifier Suggestions

These are gathered from studies that reported changes in the microbiome when a study population was given something, or denied something. A lot of these studies are animal based, and frequently are from veterinary journals. It is a legitimate protest to say that they may not apply to humans, we need studies on actual humans. If you want to go down that road, you end up with a pretty empty cupboard of modifiers.

You can even go further down the legitimate protest road and correctly state that they may not apply to me unless tested on people with the same conditions that I have and near-identical microbiome. You will be 100% correct — and will have a empty cupboard with no chance of a food delivery until the next millennium.

Applying morals from fuzzy logic, I deem that these studies are better than having no studies. I apply some mathematics to the studies, the more studies that report the same result, the higher the suggestion value. Repeatability implies more certainty of the effect.

Just Suggestions

I strongly recommend that the items from the list of suggestion you decide to implement be review by a medical professional familiar with you. Many items will interact with some prescriptions that you are on.

You do not need to do all. The more suggestions that you do, the better your odds are likely to be. Do what you feel comfortable with only.