
The Gut Microbes of African Hunter-Gatherers - rosser
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/hadza-hunter-gatherer-gut-microbiome/
======
Mz
Excerpt:

 _In westerners, Bifidumbacterium is a microbe that many nutrition scientists
thought was essential to good gut health, but it is almost completely absent
in the foragers. Likewise, high counts of the bacteria Treponema have been
linked to maladies like Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome. Neither
of these diseases exist among the Hadza, but their guts contain abundant
Treponema._

As someone who has consciously and intentionally altered my gut so it would
work closer to normal, to me, this suggests a lot of questions that I do not
see being asked.

1) Perhaps modern diets are the problem and the biochemistry they foster
rather than microbes per se. How can that be tested?

2) What actually causes "disease"? This implies to me that germs per se are
not really the explanation.

3) I would be interested in seeing some data on biochemistry and cell
structure of this group as compared to people with modern/Western diets.

4) I would be interested in seeing information related to genetics and how
that impacts how their bodies deal with gut flora, etc.

~~~
vacri
2) A "disease" really means just that: "dis"/not (at) "ease". It's a generic
catch-all for something that makes you not at ease. It can have many causes,
from microbial or viral sources (eg common cold), to inorganic toxins (eg lead
poisoning), to genetic abnormalities (eg psoriasis), malnutrution and bad
nutrition (eg fatty arteries), even social problems are sometimes considered a
disease (eg gambling addiction). While there are some things that don't fall
into the catch-all term, such as damage done by physical trauma, 'disease' has
a great variety of causes and does not have to be communicable.

You seem to be intentionally looking for confirmation bias, trying to find a
way to place blame on 'modern'.

~~~
Mz
No, I am not looking for confirmation bias. I am wondering about something
complex that we don't seem to have good language for -- or perhaps that I
don't personally have good language for.

I have spent a lot of years reversing symptoms of my genetic disorder as well
as reversing issues in my special needs sons. Altering my diet is a very big
part of that. Humans have been around a long time. Some of the issues my sons
and I have are relatively "new." I spend a lot of time wondering how much that
is a product of "new" environments rather than "new" biological issues within
humans themselves, if that makes any sense.

My dad was old enough to be my grandfather. He grew up on a farm, without the
constant noise of modern life. When I lived with my parents during my divorce,
I realized my oldest son had many things in common with my father. I had never
before realized. The sensitivity to noise that is viewed as pathological and
worthy of labeling as ASD or as having sensory issues is something both my
parents had. They were just old, grew up in a different era, and expected the
house to be kept quiet. No on acted like their preferences were a "special
need" requiring a label...etc.

Sorry if that is not very clear. I wonder a lot at how much our modern "ills"
are really a product of our modern lives -- of environments that did not exist
until recently but which we view as something "normal" that "everyone" should
be capable of coping with. It isn't looking for confirmation bias. It is
wondering how much bias exists in some of the assumptions we make in how we
frame certain kinds of problems.

~~~
vacri
_I wonder a lot at how much our modern "ills" are really a product of our
modern lives_

This is why I caution you against confirmation bias. The modern life also
allows plenty of people who weren't previously viable to achieve adulthood.
I'm not talking about Spartan exposure of sick infants (which is an outlier),
but that people with sensitive constitutions were more easily taken young by
disease in the first place. The high infant mortality of the past is a
significant example.

~~~
Mz
I am quite well aware of that, in part because I and my oldest son are both
individuals who could have easily died quite young without ...quite a lot of
things modern peoples take for granted. I don't see how that rebuts any of my
questions. Wondering about -- call it "side effects" of modern life -- in no
way dismisses the benefits we do have.

------
shanev
This is not surprising to me at all. Pathogenic bacteria linked to diseases
such as Crohn's and IBS are only pathogenic if we get them later in life. When
we get these bacteria in childhood, before the age of 7, they grow
symbiotically with us and help ward off disease. Check out the book An
Epidemic of Absence by Moises Valesquez-Manoff [1] if you guys want to learn
more about this stuff. It's a fascinating account of a man who experiments
with altering his gut biome to overcome Alopecia areata (total hair loss). The
book is loaded with science and references a lot of other studies dealing with
the gut biome.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Epidemic-Absence-Understanding-
Allergi...](http://www.amazon.com/Epidemic-Absence-Understanding-Allergies-
Autoimmune-ebook/dp/B0061P2L5U/)

~~~
tokenadult
I would ask my friends here on Hacker News to be cautious about taking the
statements in that book at face value without a lot of careful follow-up.[1]
And I write that, with chagrin, as a participant here who previously submitted
an opinion piece by the author to Hacker News, where it reached the front page
and sparked a lot of discussion. The claims in the book are very far from
settled science, and many of the anecdotes have not been independently
verified or replicated.

[1] [http://www.emilywillinghamphd.com/2012/08/autism-immunity-
in...](http://www.emilywillinghamphd.com/2012/08/autism-immunity-inflammation-
and-new.html)

~~~
coopermor
There's a small public biotech company Coronado Biosciences that just
announced a trial to study their drug (pig whipworms) in autism
[http://ir.coronadobiosciences.com/Cache/1001185864.PDF](http://ir.coronadobiosciences.com/Cache/1001185864.PDF).

They have other studies in a couple different autoimmune diseases in various
stages [http://www.coronadobiosciences.com/research-
development/pipe...](http://www.coronadobiosciences.com/research-
development/pipeline.cfm)

So we'll have some more data regarding this soon.

------
logfromblammo
I am now curious to see what happens when you switch some of the Hazda group
to an Italian diet, and some of the Italians to a Hazdan diet.

~~~
daemin
I'm sure if you had to survive in a different environment your gut flora and
fauna would adapt to the new conditions given enough time. But unless you were
forced to adapt with your survival at stake you'd just revert to eating
whatever didn't cause you to become ill.

This does remind me of an Anthony Bourdain No Reservations episode where they
ate with the bushmen, and they gave Tony the "best" part of the hog - the anus
- unwashed, uncooked. If nothing else then eating those parts of animals with
all their attached microbes would introduce them to you over time. Tony did
get violently ill for a few days after filming the segment.

~~~
logfromblammo
And that reminds me of a This American Life, where the show's producers were
unable to actually uncover conclusive evidence that fried hog bung was being
used as imitation calamari rings, but they did find in a blind taste test that
you probably wouldn't notice if it were. So I wouldn't say it's the best part
of a hog, but it certainly wouldn't be as awful as you might think. When
prepared appropriately, of course. Nobody wants to eat raw swine manure as a
condiment.

------
VeejayRampay
A somewhat related and fascinating read is Dr Daniel Lieberman's "The Story of
the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease". He develops the concept of
mismatch diseases and goes into a lot of details about evolution and diets
across different eras and cultures (there's a part in the book dedicated to
hunter-gatherers IIRC).

------
ds9
Somewhat related: presence or absence of diseases in an area may influence
social and political systems, according to one theory
([http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/bugs-
lik...](http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/bugs-like-made-
germ-theory-democracy-beliefs-73958/))

------
davidw
Here's how to make a startup out of it: you could sell exclusive trips to
Hollywood types to Africa to get a hunter-gatherer biome "transfusion",
proclaiming the various health benefits - "slimming! rejuvinating! all
natural!".

I think I'm joking, but who knows :-)

~~~
tim333
Stranger schemes have worked. Travelling to those sorts of places and eating
with the locals often leads to effective and rapid weight loss thorough
slightly unpleasant mechanisms. On a more serious note my sister had IBS for a
couple of years and it went away completely and permanently after visiting
Indonesia - presumably some gut flora transfer thing.

------
pistle
Gut flora-related disease could have also exerted pressure on an insulated
population leading to tolerance for elevated levels of bacteria which are
observed as being related to unwanted symptoms in other populations.

It takes more than a load of crap to tell the whole story.

------
tragic
I might show this to my mother. She is of the opinion that no disease is
sufficiently severe that it cannot be cured through large quantities of
probiotic yoghurt.

------
contingencies
I wonder if there is any kind of feedback loop between long term gut flora
makeup and taste preferences?

