Instagram, like Facebook, will often remind you of the pictures you posted on your feed years ago. This one is from 2014 when I attended the See Jane Write bloggers conference organized by the one and only Javacia Harris Bowser. What a fun time in blogging that was! I was a newbie, talking all things sartorial and very much still finding my footing in academia.

2014 is when I started my faculty position, and hadn’t yet found the confidence to share all things science. I felt more comfortable talking about fashion and lifestyle, how they related to life in academia, and some about my journey as a woman and person of color in academia as well.

I’m glad that this blog’s focus has evolved and I’m now talking about public health and health topics generally, with sprinkles of fashion and lifestyle here and there. 🙂

Today, I’m covering probiotics because I was recently introduced to the scientific work of Dr. Patricia Hibberd, Infectious Disease specialist and Chair of Global Health at Boston University. Together with information I’ve read, here are some points that you should consider if you are or want to take probiotics. Some, even I found surprising!

• Is there convincing evidence that commercially available probiotics have been found to be beneficial to
  • treat or prevent the diarrhea after taking antibiotics?
    • No
  • decrease allergies?
    • No
  • treat irritable bowel syndrome
    • No
  • improve gut health in babies (via baby food and baby formula?)
    • No

• Is this better than that?
  • Cold probiotics vs room temp
    • yes; and you’re not consuming good bacteria just because you’re eating yogurt. All yogurts with live bacteria contain Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, but some manufacturers add other probiotic bacteria after pasteurization, such as L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, L. rhamnosus and L. casei.
  • Probiotics vs medication
    • probably not. There is no evidence that taking a probiotic over medication for any illness is proven more effective than the medication intended to treat the problem.
  • Prebiotics vs probiotics
    • apparently not mutually exclusive. In order for probiotics to be most effective, you need to have good representation of prebiotics in your daily nutrition. What does that mean?
      • “Prebiotics are specialized plant fibers. They act like fertilizers that stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in the gut. Prebiotics are found in many fruits and vegetables, especially those that contain complex carbohydrates, such as fiber and resistant starch. These carbs aren’t digestible by your body, so they pass through the digestive system to become food for the bacteria and other microbes.”
        • https://www.mayoclinic.org/prebiotics-probiotics-and-your-health/art-20390058

Even I, a scientist, was convinced that taking probiotics while taking antibiotics would help prevent diarrhea. Wow!

Interestingly, two other scientists in the field – Eran Elinav and Eran Segal found at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science – carefully studied the effects of probiotics on the gut and collected samples from a small group of volunteers. What did they find:

Strikingly, in about half the people, the probiotics went in and went right back out. In the other half, they did appear to stay in the gut:

“Although all of our probiotic-consuming volunteers showed probiotics in their stool, only some of them showed them in their gut, which is where they need to be,” says Segal. “If some people resist and only some people permit them, the benefits of the standard probiotics we all take can’t be as universal as we once thought. These results highlight the role of the gut microbiome in driving very specific clinical differences between people.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906141640.htm

Their second study “questioned whether patients should be taking probiotics to counter the effects of antibiotics, as they are often told to do in order to repopulate the gut microbiota after it’s cleared by antibiotic treatment. “

“Contrary to the current dogma that probiotics are harmless and benefit everyone, these results reveal a new potential adverse side effect of probiotic use with antibiotics that might even bring long-term consequences,” Elinav says. “In contrast, replenishing the gut with one’s own microbes is a personalized mother-nature-designed treatment that led to a full reversal of the antibiotics’ effects.”

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180906141640.htm

So, what does this mean?

Well, I think it means you’re probably better off eating a healthy diet and saving that money you’re spending on off-the-shelf probiotics, on something else! Sure, there seems to be no harm in consuming yogurt with live cultures, for example. But there is certainly greater benefit to eating – as my registered dietician colleague, Dr. Amanda Willig, says – other gut-health foods like “beans, oatmeal, and vegetables”.

Until we have better studies and better understand the gut biota, continue to learn about the products being thrown your way, but for now save that extra money for a rainy day.

References:

1. Niv Zmora, Gili Zilberman-Schapira, Jotham Suez, Uria Mor, Mally Dori-Bachash, Stavros Bashiardes, Eran Kotler, Maya Zur, Dana Regev-Lehavi, Rotem Ben-Zeev Brik, Sara Federici, Yotam Cohen, Raquel Linevsky, Daphna Rothschild, Andreas E. Moor, Shani Ben-Moshe, Alon Harmelin, Shalev Itzkovitz, Nitsan Maharshak, Oren Shibolet, Hagit Shapiro, Meirav Pevsner-Fischer, Itai Sharon, Zamir Halpern, Eran Segal, Eran Elinav. Personalized Gut Mucosal Colonization Resistance to Empiric Probiotics Is Associated with Unique Host and Microbiome Features. Cell, 2018; 174 (6): 1388 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.041
2. Jotham Suez, Niv Zmora, Gili Zilberman-Schapira, Uria Mor, Mally Dori-Bachash, Stavros Bashiardes, Maya Zur, Dana Regev-Lehavi, Rotem Ben-Zeev Brik, Sara Federici, Max Horn, Yotam Cohen, Andreas E. Moor, David Zeevi, Tal Korem, Eran Kotler, Alon Harmelin, Shalev Itzkovitz, Nitsan Maharshak, Oren Shibolet, Meirav Pevsner-Fischer, Hagit Shapiro, Itai Sharon, Zamir Halpern, Eran Segal, Eran Elinav. Post-Antibiotic Gut Mucosal Microbiome Reconstitution Is Impaired by Probiotics and Improved by Autologous FMT. Cell, 2018; 174 (6): 1406 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2018.08.047

5 facts about the infamous 2019 Coronavirus outbreak

1.     Is this a new virus? It is in fact a new virus, but it has already been identified and sequenced (aka the DNA strand or sequence, has been studied). That work suggests that it is a relative of other coronaviruses like SARS. In case you’re wondering, the family of viruses called “coronavirus” is responsible for causing things like the common cold, but each virus within that family can cause illness that varies from not too serious to life threatening. The official name, btw, is 2019-nCoV. This virus, the 2019-nCoV appears to have originated late last year in a seafood market Wuhan, China. That seafood market is believed to have been selling wildlife illegally. This virus is believed to have originated or come from an animal source.

2.     How easily is it transmitted from human to human? We don’t yet fully understand how “infectious” or how easily it is transmitted from human to human. As scientists collect data, we will know more. Currently, the scientific data suggest that it is more infectious than the flu, but how infectious will depend on a number of factors and those factors change on a daily basis. As scientists gather more information about it, we will have a better idea about how easy it will be to contain it, create a vaccine for it, prevent others from getting it, how sick it will make people, etc. It’s still, simply, too early to tell.

3.     Do you need to worry if you’re in the US? That’s a tricky question. As I write this, there are a total of 5 cases reported in the US. There are 2062 reported in mainland China. It is most certainly a greater public health emergency in China than it is in the US, or anywhere else in the world for that matter. If you’re in the US, you currently have more reason to worry about the flu and getting sick from that, than getting infected with 2019-nCoV. That said, it is helpful to keep up with information about this new outbreak. I’ve listed a number of great resources at the end of this post. Bottomline: We are not facing a pandemic. Not yet at least.

4.     Is the disease deadly?? When reports first came out, there was concern that the high rates of pneumonia meant that the disease was super harmful, possibly deadly. As days have passed, scientists and physicians have seen milder cases appear, suggesting that the 2019-nCoV virus does not seem to be as deadly as it first seemed, and maybe less deadly than SARS, which killed 11% of the people it infected. It is STILL VERY EARLY to say this with absolute confidence, though, so scientists continue to monitor cases and the virus itself before making more concrete statements about it. Many of the cases of death due to 2019-nCov appear to have occurred in people with other illnesses or conditions which weakened their immune system.

5.     I’m traveling to China soon; should I be worried?? China has put a quarantine in place (sort of like a mandatory isolation of a group or persons or area), meaning that they have encouraged people not to travel, go places, etc., including travel, until they figure out what’s going on. There are questions about how effective the quarantine will be, given that every province in China has had cases of the virus. The timing of the Chinese New Year and all the travel and proximity of groups to one another likely has not helped transmission of the virus in China. We currently know that the virus is transmitted from human-to-human and that a person can be infected with the virus 7-12 days without showing symptoms. If you are traveling to China, you should practice hygiene and self-protection measures like you would against other respiratory infections, like washing your hands and covering your mouth/nose with a mask during travel or when around others.

To keep up with the latest numbers of cases, follow along here: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Additional sources of evidence-based information:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00166-6?utm_source=fbk_nnc&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=naturenews

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/25/how-to-tell-whats-really-happening-with-the-wuhan-virus/

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-latest-updates/2020/01/26/4603266c-3fa8-11ea-afe2-090eb37b60b1_story.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health/china-scrambles-to-contain-strengthening-virus-idUSKBN1ZP02B

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/coronavirus-china-latest-updates/2020/01/26/4603266c-3fa8-11ea-afe2-090eb37b60b1_story.html

https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/26/containing-new-coronavirus-may-not-be-feasible-experts-say/

There are so many questions out there about science and health, and so many people willing to share misinformed and/or non-evidence based information, that I decided to create a ‘Science Says’ Sunday series. I polled the Instagram Community and came up with this series to share evidence-based information with you on a number of science and health-related topics. There will be one posted every Sunday, so stay tuned!

In today’s post, we are talking about the flu and the flu shot. Lots of misconceptions out there, so here are some myths and facts:

MYTH: You can get the flu from the flu shot/vaccine.

1. You CANNOT get the flu from the flu vaccine. People who get sick after the flu vaccine were going to get sick anyway. It takes 1-2 weeks to be fully protected from the flu after getting the vaccine, so it is still possible to get sick during that time. That’s why it’s important to get the flu shot as early as possible when it’s offered every fall (usually Sept/Oct).

 

MYTH: Getting the flu is better than getting the flu vaccine.

False. The flu a serious viral infection and can be especially serious in children and older adults, not to mention people who are immunocompromised (eg people undergoing chemotherapy) or babies who are too young to be vaccinated against the flu. The vaccine works best if everyone gets it; it minimizes the amount of people who get sick and can transmit disease to others.

 

MYTH: The flu shot contains harmful ingredients.

Vaccine skeptics have centered on this and cited Thimerosal (preservative) and formaldehyde (used to kill the virus) among the harmful chemicals used in the making or preservation of the flu vaccine. REPEATED, peer-reviewed studies have shown that these substances are not harmful in the tiny amounts contained in flu vaccines.

 

MYTH: You don’t need to get a flu shot every year.

The influenza virus changes (mutates) each year. So getting vaccinated each year is important to make sure you have immunity to the strains most likely to cause an outbreak. Getting the flu vaccine has also been associated with less severe symptoms even if you do end up getting the flu, so it’s worth getting it either way.

 

MYTH: It’s too late to get your flu shot this year.

Though flu season is well underway, it is NOT too late to get your shot, since the season typically continues into February or beyond.

Other concerns:

The flu vaccine can cause severe side effects. The flu vaccine has been associated with the onset of Guillain-Barré Syndome (GBS), in very rare cases. It has been reported in 1 in 1 million people who get the flu vaccine. The exact cause of Guillain-Barré syndrome is unknown. But it is often preceded by an infectious illness such as a respiratory infection or the stomach flu. It is possible that cases associated with the flu would have developed even in the absence of getting the flu vaccine.

Information for this post was sourced from the Centers for Disease Control, The World Health Organization, the Harvard Health Blog, and Dr. Andrea Carcelen of John Hopkins University. Thanks for reading and look forward to sharing more with you this year!