Possibly another good example of scientists failing to use More Dakka. The mice studies all showed solid effects, but then the human studies used the same dose range (10^9 or 10^10 CFU) and only about half showed effects! Googled for negative side effects of probiotics and the healthline result really had to stretch for anything bad. Wondering if, as much larger organisms, we should just be jacking up the dosage quite a bit.
On the other hand: half of mouse studies working in humans is an extremely good success rate. We should be quite suspicious of file-drawer effects and p-hacking.
I agree the effect is consistent enough that we should be suspicious of file drawer/p-hacking—although that’s also what you’d expect to see if the effect were in fact large—but note that they were different studies, i.e. the human studies mostly weren’t based on the non-human ones.
I was initially very concerned about this but then noticed that almost all the tested secondary endpoints were positive in the mice studies too. The human studies could plausibly still be meaningless though.
Has anyone (esp you Jim) looked into fecal transplants for this instead, in case our much longer digestive system is a problem?
Possibly another good example of scientists failing to use More Dakka. The mice studies all showed solid effects, but then the human studies used the same dose range (10^9 or 10^10 CFU) and only about half showed effects! Googled for negative side effects of probiotics and the healthline result really had to stretch for anything bad. Wondering if, as much larger organisms, we should just be jacking up the dosage quite a bit.
On the other hand: half of mouse studies working in humans is an extremely good success rate. We should be quite suspicious of file-drawer effects and p-hacking.
I agree the effect is consistent enough that we should be suspicious of file drawer/p-hacking—although that’s also what you’d expect to see if the effect were in fact large—but note that they were different studies, i.e. the human studies mostly weren’t based on the non-human ones.
I was initially very concerned about this but then noticed that almost all the tested secondary endpoints were positive in the mice studies too. The human studies could plausibly still be meaningless though.
Has anyone (esp you Jim) looked into fecal transplants for this instead, in case our much longer digestive system is a problem?