HOPE

[joeylynn]

I was surfing the web and found this and thought I should share.
<H1 id=art>She Is Wedded To Bacteria Because She Doesn't Want To Live With Stomach Flu</H1>
<DIV id=bylineDateBox>
By TAMMY HANSEN SNELL
May 25, 2006</DIV>
Losing my car keys down a gutter grate; having my computer freeze while I’m working on an unsaved document; finding a bug crawling on the lettuce in my salad – all of these are things I dislike, but none of them even come anywhere close to how much I hate the stomach flu. That’s a whole other realm entirely.
Which is why when I saw an article about how a person could make it less likely they would get the stomach flu, I read it twice.
It was all about a particular bacterium found in the digestive tract of healthy humans, Lactobacillus reuteri. It said people who take a supplement of Lactobacillus reuteri on a daily basis are less likely to get gastrointestinal illnesses. On the second read-through I noticed it mentioned the bacteria are beneficial against respiratory illnesses, too.
A Google-search later, I had 52,800 articles on Lactobacillus reuteri. Ten minutes later I was immersed in numbers with hordes of zeroes. Humans have billions of this kind of bacteria, billions of that kind, trillions altogether.
In his article from April 2003, “Aliens Inside Us: A (Mostly Friendly) Bacterial Nation,” James Gorman points out that each “human being has 10 times as many bacteria as human cells.” We get to keep looking human, apparently, only because bacteria are ever so much smaller than human cells.
Some bacteria are friendly, some are not. One vitamin website told me I should have a ratio of 85 percent helpful bacteria to 15 percent nasty. Perfectly respectable information – but how on earth would I know where I stood, ratio-wise, unless I added to the ranks of the good-guy bacteria by using their product? Which is of course the conclusion they wanted me to come to.
Seeing as how they might be helpful in pursuing my personal goal of getting the stomach flu as few times during my life as is humanly possible, I was forgiving of their blatant commercialism.
Of course, they pointed out, their statements of “L. reuteri’s helpfulness” have not been evaluated by the Food &amp; Drug Administration.
This does not bother me. The FDA will look into L. reuteri as soon as things slow down with evaluating medical implants, figuring out which supplements currently have the steroids popular with athletes, and learning just what the deal is with Ritalin. Maybe 2032. In the meantime, I’m willing to give it a shot. Especially since everyone agrees it’s safe.
A chapter in The Secret Life of Germs by Philip Tierno Jr., Ph.D., talks about probiotics being a major player in

[qpaulina42]

Didn't Alvin say that probiotics do nothing to help with fighting off viral stomach bugs?

[joeylynn]

Who is Alvin?

[qpaulina42]

Oh, Sage's son in law, I think. He had this Q&amp;A session in the Q&amp;A section. He is a biologist, I believe. It's an interesting post, you should check it out.
I think it is definately true though that probiotics can help with food poisoning.

[joeylynn]

You know -- we are always searching for a cure. I thought it might be worth a try (can hurt, right?).


I thought it was interesting that this woman (who is most likely an emet) found a glimmer of hope for herself (and perhaps others).

[qpaulina42]

Oh I agree. I'm a huge fan of probiotics. I especially make sure to take them when I take antibiotics and when I travel. I read that book that she mentions - by Dr. Tierno. Quite interesting and inspiring.