Sorry I didn't notice these posts sooner. I have a copy of the Sampson et al article from Cell on "Gut Microbiota .....". I would be happy to email to anyone who is interested. Just DM your email address to me.

kiwi33 writes:

"My take on it is that we need to learn a lot more about which of the vast number of different kinds of commensual human gut bacteria are linked to health problems before we can use that knowledge to intervene clinically."

I certainly agree that there is much to learn. But, I don't think PwP have to wait until more is known before taking action. As I see it, we don't have the luxury of waiting years until everything is totally understood. That doesn't, of course, mean that we should be reckless in our investigations. We should focus on inherently safer rather than less safe therapies. We should take account of the literature, especially, where it exists, on epidemiological data. We should slowly increase the dose. We should measure the impact. We should change only one variable at a time. We should report the results, both good and bad. Etc..

jeffreyn reports of a discussion on PubPeer. I found it very interesting. Normally, when we speak of science we think of it as a "fact", but as the PubPeer discussion shows much of it is conjecture. Even when the results of research appear in a peer reviewed journal, they may prove to be incorrect.

John