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Just reposting my original comment which may have inspired this post a few days ago for the links:
I had really bad IBS from consuming water on a tropical island in Panama one time and suffered for a few years with even my doctor friend telling me "Damn that sucks, not much you can do except manage". Pretty horrible symptoms until I discovered L. Reuteri. [1] I read that it's been a bacteria that was more commonly found in samples until around the 1950s when people started consuming more garbage processed food and was sold. Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species. [2] I can't speak personally for suffering on the level of Crohn's disease, but there's positive research out there regarding it. [3] [4]
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5917019/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reuterin
After reading your original comment I stocked up on Biogaia. I’m 3 days into the tablet and will soon start experimenting with culturing for yoghurt. I suspect they had a decent sales bump this week.
Most people here would doubtless prefer not to science-by-anecdote, but when you’ve got this kind of condition you’re willing to try pretty much anything once.
Having experimented with introducing bacteria into my gut biome before, be prepared for potential negative outcomes - with some stuff from a local biotech startup myself and a few others suffered bloating, gas, and more disgusting outcomes that I won't bother describing.
Its kind of a crapshoot if your guts will adjust well or not, and how long it takes for the adjustment to occur.
> I’m 3 days into the tablet and will soon start experimenting with culturing for yoghurt.
I’ve heard tell of people “training” kefir grains to uptake other strains of bacteria through repeated exposure during the culturing process. I wonder if you could get a more stable culture by introducing kefir grains to that yogurt for a playdate. I’d imagine some concerted initial exposure plus a periodic Reuteri booster would give you kefir grains that’ll perpetuate the strains you want. Perhaps it would be enough to crush a few tablets in some milk before adding kefir grains, but the yogurt first approach seems easy enough if you have an instapot or other yogurt making device.
Yogurt is easy to make in an ordinary pan too:
1. Turn your oven light on
2. Heat milk to 180F (I heat on Hi to 165F while stirring then turn it down), hold it there for 10 mins. Shoot for 180F but it's not a big deal if it goes to 190F.
3. Cool while stirring in a sink of water to 110F, take it out of the sink.
4. Stir in your starter. I use a popular probiotic on Amazon: open 3 capsules for half gallon of yogurt
5. Ferment in the oven for 24 hours to ensure all sugar is used, making the yogurt lactose-free.
6. Refrigerate
Thank you for your post. I bought the product you used and had my first tablet 10 minutes ago.
https://www.biogaia.com/product-country/biogaia-protectis-ch...
One thing that might interest people on the FODMAP diet is that the first ingredients on the list are isomalt (probably ok) and xylitol (an artificial sweetener). Hopefully the amounts are small enough not to trigger symptoms.
There's also 'Bacilac Femina' which contains reuteri and has less FODMAPs.
Thanks again!
Xylitol isn't 'artificial'[1] (but it is bad for dogs). In small amounts I would be surprised if it would affect anyone negatively, I often have 5-10g in my oats, but all the sugar alcohols make your guts unhappy in large doses (I find erythritol is the worst, but sorbitol from pears is famous for doing that to babies).
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol#Structure,_production,...
Perhaps 'less digestible sweetener' would be a better way of putting it.
It's a shame you don't believe it would affect people with chronic digestive issues.
It seems outrageous that a probiotic should contain xylitol, which is often catastrophic for people with IBD/IBS. Can anyone recommend a probiotic without sweetener or filler?
I suffered from terrible IBS-C for over 20 years, and just about 6 months ago I stumbled upon some probiotics called Xaviax [1] (specifically their Mexican brand, called Pavia). Since taking them, my life has changed. I had taken other kinds of probiotics, prebiotics and done everything you can imagine in the 20 years I've had this condition. Now I feel way way better.
Just got a box of L. reuteri, hopefully it will make me feel even better.
There was once a research group in a university that found a specific diet helping/curing crohn's. However a food/health conglomerate with a product in the market for the disease paid the professor to shelf the research and it never saw the light of day.
Speaking with one of the researchers he keeps telling me that food diversity and gut microbiome are extremely important for all shorts of things. So your comment doesn't surprise me, I am glad you became better.
The relationship between diet, microbiome, and health is fascinating.
Another metabolite of L. reuteri is ergothioneine, which is hypothesized to be a "longevity vitamin"[1] by biologist Bruce Ames[2]. Plants and animals cannot synthesize it, only fungi and bacteria, but it is found in every cell in our body including in high concentrations in mitochondria. It appears to be important enough that mammals have evolved a specialized transporter for uptake of this compound (SLC22A4), and mutations in this gene are associated with Crohn's disease.
Low levels of it have been linked to cognitive impairment, CVD, even depression and sleep disorders[3].
Macros aren't everything when it comes to diet, there's a whole universe of micronutrient interactions ongoing in our cells every day. Since we are in a position of relatively near total ignorance, I agree that we should pursue food diversity by default.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1809045115 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ames#Notable_awards [3] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-020-0855-1
Why is the parent comment not being downvoted to oblivion? It is making specific, deterministic claims and providing absolutely no sources whatsoever.
How does the OP know? Which university was it? Which research group? If "a research group" "found something worked" then there would be a trail of research papers leading up to whatever the patentable invention is.
This anecdote is a complete fabrication: events like this plain do not happen and shouldn't pass the snifftest for anyone: "a professor was paid off" - oh okay, well what about his graduate students? Honors students?
This reads like a classic "Big Pharma" conspiracy tale without further substantiation.
Well... what was the diet? I have UC. I've found that the less I eat, the better my symptoms are, but I can't eat exclusively protein smoothies and kimchi forever.
For anyone interested in L. Reuteri, you can buy it in the U.S. as Gerber probiotic drops (https://medical.gerber.com/products/supplements/soothe-colic...). Marketed for babies but obviously works on adults too. Last I checked Gerber had an exclusive license on U.S. distribution of this bacterium—there’s a Swedish company, BioGaia, that IIRC is the original patent holder.
This probiotic at Costco also has reuteri, “trunature Advanced Digestive Probiotic”. 15$ per 100 caps https://www.costco.com/trunature-advanced-digestive-probioti...
also costco has "garden of life" probiotics with it too
That's correct for BioGaia. In Europe, it is rather easy to buy.
"BioGaia Gastrus" contains 2 strains of L. Reuteri (DSM 17938 and ATCC PTA 6475)
I crush the tablets to make yogurt following Dr. Davis recipe in SuperGut [1]
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Super-Gut-Four-Week-Reprogram-Microbi...
I have questions, please.
How long have you been eating the yoghurt? Do you use any other tablets/pills/etc to make it? Why make the yoghurt instead of just eating the pills? What do you think it's done for you?
Why can you patent a naturally occurring bacteria?
You usually patent the use of such bacteria, not the bacteria per se.
Is it possible to introduce this to the body without buying it specifically? Or put another way, how did people get L. Reuteri without pharmaceutical/supplement companies growing it in labs?
It is found all over the place in nature: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limosilactobacillus_reuteri
> It appears to be essentially ubiquitous in the animal kingdom, having been found in the gastrointestinal tracts and feces of healthy humans,[7] sheep, chickens,[8] pigs,[9] and rodents.[10] It is the only species to constitute a "major component" of the Lactobacillus species present in the gut of each of the tested host animals,[11] and each host seems to harbor its own specific strain of L. reuteri.[10][12] It is possible that L. reuteri contributes to the health of its host organism in some manner.[13]
The labs got it from nature, not the other way around.
The article says breast milk is one source. Don’t wean your babies to formula too early!
You can buy breast milk from lactating mothers on Craigslist. Good luck.
I know lactos are in the environment naturally. When I ferment peppers or other vegetables I lightly rinse them to make sure some bacteria is left. Eating raw fruits and vegetables would certainly pass some bacteria to the gut.
Labs usually get them from bacterial strain collections, e.g https://www.atcc.org/search#q=lactobacillus%20reuteri&sort=r...
They know someone who knows someone who swears their cousin had the best kefir, or a proper “Tibetan mushroom” complex. Supplement companies aren’t the devil.
Thanks, I came to ask this. It seems like the probiotic market is largely a hit or miss. Reviews online are filled with people claiming their purchases failed milk culturing tests (I don't know if testing as such even works), claims that these bacteria can't survive on warehouse shelves, etc.
That’s why Visbiome ships in insulated packaging with ice packs. There’s even a color indicator that turns red if the contents exceed a temperature during shipping (and refunds are granted if this indicator is red when it receive the product). You then store in the freezer. Unfortunately, the product does not contain L. Reuteri.
You mean the ones on Amazon are fake?
The patent is for a particular strain that was used in experiments. I don't know how likely it is that closely related but unpatented strains that you can buy from different companies have a different effect.
> You mean the ones on Amazon are fake?
That’s unheard of!
Discussed further in the top comment and others 3 days ago: Childhood antibiotics as a risk factor for Crohn's disease: Cohort study https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32037105
> Simply stated, it changed my life. It emits a substance called Reuterin which inhibits the growth of other more harmful bacterial species.
I've been in deep research after reading that comment. Thought it was interesting this story popped up today. Coincidence or astroturf? Been dealing with gastro issues for 4+ years now. I'll report back after I take the stuff for a month.
Hi OP of the comment here. I linked a bunch of studies as well as providing my own anecdotal evidence that this stuff worked well enough that I had IBS symptoms reversed by taking this probiotic. My friends who I have introduced this to really like it, too.
I'm actually super interested in learning how to make yogurt with it now to help people I know who may be suffering out some. I hear that's a really easy way to make it even more bioavailable. Proper respects to the people who brought this up! [1]
It's not astroturf, I dunno why I'd spend like a year on this site mostly talking about tech stuff and then just drop that I've had the most horrible shits of my life cured, that's kind of a really personal thing I'm only sharing here because it was extremely helpful to me - and I only hope it works for others, but that hope is strong enough.
[1] https://www.luvele.com/blogs/recipe-blog/how-to-make-l-reute...
Isn't the general advice to ingest a large variety of lactobacilli, as opposed to large quantities of just one bacillus? When I made kefir in my kitchen, I read that the cultures can contain up to 80 different genetics. Whenever I research lactobacilli, the term diversity comes up.
I am taking a wild guess that the OP here read the previous thread and found it interesting, and thought other HN users would find this link interesting. Happens all the time.
We're trying it too since there's just not a lot you can do for IBS.
So eat fermented food. Brine pickles, olives, and sauerkraut, but not their vinegar-based counterparts which are usually sold in grocery stores. I suspect this use of vinegar could be causing us a great deal of problems.
I also see a list that includes sourdough bread, wine, beer, certain cured meats, kimchi, kombucha tea, miso soup.
Nothing wrong with vinegar and the PH can help keep the bad stuff out. Most of the on the shelf (not refrigerated) pickled items have been pasteurized, the contents have been heated to kill any remaining bacteria including the good ones.
Not sure about wine I thought they didn’t something to stop the yeast fermenting. I know once bottled the process has stopped for wine and beer.
Most yeasts die off at a certain %ABV.
There are also ways to remove them entirely by using clearing agents/finings followed by racking (siphoning from the primary fermentation container to a new container) - this is the normal process.
If you are doing natural carbonation or "secondary fermenting" in the bottle by leaving some yeast in and back sweetening, you can kill the yeast by pasteurizing in-bottle (basically by putting the bottles into a pot of hot water for a while). Though this does sometimes lead to explosions.
Just a pedantic nitpick since I couldn’t stop the biologist in me: It’s “reuteri”, all lowercase.
Even in title case?
Its not like we would normally capitalize "Human" or "Health" either?
It's Binomial nomenclature [1]. The name should also be in italics, but not sure how that would be enabled in HN headlines.
> In modern usage, the first letter of the generic name is always capitalized in writing, while that of the specific epithet is not, even when derived from a proper noun such as the name of a person or place. Similarly, both parts are italicized in normal text (or underlined in handwriting).
I've been googling for user experiences with supplements containing Lactobacillus Reuteri and i've found weirdly disturbing forums where people were reporting 50% increase in testicular size, hair growth and testosterone level after few weeks of usage. It felt like someone is trying to sell these supplements to teenagers with low self esteem by creating fake reviews or something... Some of these were on reddit.
What the hell?
After having the same WTF reaction I came across this mouse study: Probiotic Microbes Sustain Youthful Serum Testosterone Levels and Testicular Size in Aging Mice. Sounds like the L. reuteri supplement made a pretty dramatic difference in preventing hypogonadism as the mice aged. Quite a jump from that to "2 weeks to make your balls bigger", but still, it's pretty interesting.
I just went and bought this stuff. I hope it works wonders.