[HN Gopher] Microbial ecosystems in the mouth and gut are linked... ___________________________________________________________________ Microbial ecosystems in the mouth and gut are linked to many ills Author : aluket Score : 128 points Date : 2021-02-12 19:11 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.economist.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com) | arminiusreturns wrote: | I had the pleasure to work with a top geneticist whose domain of | specialty was the microbiome, and he continually insisted there | are tons of discoveries to be made in the arena (which he and | those researchers we sequenced for did often, from dentistry to | studies of the monitor lizard to chrons disease, just all over in | subjects you might not expect). | | Less on topic, I learned how to read scientific papers and filter | bullshit ones (even in respectable journals) from good ones under | his tutelage, and am forever grateful to the vast array of | science and tech I was exposed to while supporting the tech side | of a "every major sequencer" sequencing lab. | domino24 wrote: | Who did you work for? I am interested in getting more involved | in this exact field and would appreciate any helpful direction | :) I am digesting anything I can find on the topic, but I feel | it is greatly underappreciated still, as I agree there is MUCH | to be discovered. | pazimzadeh wrote: | > Dr Sampson has tested this hypothesis in mice. He bred a strain | of E. coli that cannot make Curli and injected mice with it, | while injecting others with unmodified bacteria. Those that | received Curli-producing bacteria expressed higher levels of | synuclein and demonstrated symptoms like involuntary rigidity | which, when seen in people, are associated with Parkinson's | disease. That is tantalising. | | These mice were mono-colonized with E. coli, whereas both mice | and humans normally have a diverse gut flora. I colonize mice | with E. coli containing curli all the time and the mice do not | exhibit any rigidity or symptoms of Parkinson's. So it's | interesting but not quite as huge of an effect as you might | think, unless your microbial flora is really disrupted. May be | relevant if you have an antibiotic resistant strain of E. coli | blooming in your intestine following antibiotic treatment/some | other disruption of your microbiota. | | A gut bacterial amyloid promotes a-synuclein aggregation and | motor impairment in mice | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7012599/ | boplicity wrote: | As someone with IBD, I really wish the hard science about | bacteria would start to filter into actual treatments. I know | there are possibilities there, and many patients have found | avenues of success, but there is so much guesswork involved | that it is very frustrating. Hopefully there will be definitive | answers in the future. My gastroenterologist, who has quite a | lot of training from very good schools, has absolutely nothing | useful to say, in terms of the microbiome. | throw345hn wrote: | As someone with IBS, totally agree with you. I wish the | research would trickle down into actual treatments. I have | started following a lot of research about gut etc but very | little of it leads to something that can mass consumed. | | I spent thousands of dollars on trying out medications, | tests, visiting a number of highly trained doctors etc, | nothing came up in tests and at the end almost all doctors | threw their hands up and categorized my gut issues as IBS | which is just a catchAll term for which there is no specific | treatment other than trying out a number of things. | newobj wrote: | Excited for more research in gut health. | | I know HN hates to entertain any lay science, but I wonder if | scraping my tongue, as I do with a copper scraper, is good or bad | for your oral biome? | eth0up wrote: | Below is an interesting bit of research which gets quite close | to tackling your curiosity, or at least stimulating it. It | specifically concerns oral hygiene and blood pressure, with a | focus on nitric oxide. Tongue scraping seems beneficial, though | there's no mention of copper. However, chlorhexidine (mouthwash | ingredient) seems a disruptor of NO and may contribute to | higher BP. I need to read the article myself, but a brief skim | left a big impression. | | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33066082/ | abledon wrote: | in the morning, even scraping with your hand is good since | you're removing the dead stuff thats accumulated on your tongue | during sleep. eating this stuff has no nutritional value and is | considered a 'toxin' in yogic traditions. | | lot of those online sites are just trying to 'sell something' | to make a living so they mandate you 'need' a metallic scraper. | StavrosK wrote: | Probably! | recuter wrote: | Indubitably! | sherr wrote: | Dentists (ones I have) usually recommend brushing your tongue | as part of your tooth brushing routine. This helps prevent bad | breath I think, which is correlated with oral hygiene. | DNied wrote: | PAYWALLED | echelon wrote: | As a layman, this is so exciting! It feels as though we may be | getting closer to finding a cause for a diverse set of | neurodegenerative disorders. Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, etc. | | Gut and oral microbiota having influence across the blood-brain | barrier seems so plausible. If they get into the nervous system | and migrate, they could cause inflammation in the brain leading | to damage over time. | | The immune system is incredible, and we'll no doubt find it a | fertile ground for progress against a lot of diseases. | wyldfire wrote: | Do we know whether these microbes are cause or effect? On the | bright side I'd say even if they're [only] an effect of those | illnesses, we'd have an excellent opportunity for earlier | diagnosis. | bsanr2 wrote: | Adding to the anecdotes: | | Around summer 2014, I began to focus very heavily on "bulking" | for strength training. This was about a year after I'd developed | very obvious symptoms of lactose intolerance and had had to cut | uncultured dairy out of my diet. My meals were not diverse: fruit | and Greek yogurt in the morning; chicken cooked in Indian sauces, | roasted potatoes, and some green (usually broccoli or spinach) | for lunch and dinner, along with protein shakes and a pre-workout | carb load (such as PB+J). Drinks were water, orange juice, and | kefir. | | That winter, my health collapsed. I started developing skin | abscesses, and the antibiotics I received for a particularly bad | episode caused me to develop a C diff infection. I had to | severely limit my food intake, as too much or certain kinds would | cause me to develop cramps, listlessness, and diarrhea, and lost | about 40 pounds in 3 months. My body could not hold onto food | long enough to process it correctly and I developed symptoms of | incomplete digestion, and especially of fat indigestion (symptoms | improved with anti-diarrheals). | | The next 3 years were a long battle to try to get back to normal. | Store-bought probiotics didn't help; digestive enzymes did. | Things didn't improve noticeably until after I began eating | homemade sauerkraut, and especially after I began taking enzymes | on an empty stomach (I was told that this might help to break | down some structure that might harbor unhelpful bacteria). | | Eventually, I was able to return to most foods without issue, | until last year, when a prediabetes scare prompted to try a | ketogenic diet (this also seemed to solve a lingering issue, of | multiple daily and urgent movements). | | All this to say... I don't really know what's going on. I've | found some things that seem to work, but I could only guess at | why, based on the timing of my downturns and upturns and of my | interventions. | | I've spent literal days over this period trying to understand why | my body is acting and reacting the way that it does, and | following the (often slapdash) advice of people who target the | microbiome as the source of ill or good health has sadly seemed | to be the most efficacious route. However, I'm still not able to | achieve the level of well-being I'd like to, and I attribute that | largely to the dearth of hard facts available relating to diet | and the human microbiome. Over the course of this journey, I've | seen more and more professionals begin to take the issue | seriously, but not nearly the level or quality of research we'd | hope to see with such a fundamental topic. Here's to seeing that | corrected before I have to punch whatever card this adulthood of | gut trouble has been leading to. | inamberclad wrote: | Seems like a good plug for a startup I used to work for. I'm no | longer associated with them aside from my personal friendships | but they're creating a pretty cool oral health product: | https://freshhealth.com/ | andrewzah wrote: | This is something that I've been thinking about lately. | | Last ~May, I spontaneously developed rashes exactly in the middle | of the back of my hands at the same time. This lead to skin | sensitivity and ultimately skin rashes across my body. | | At this point I've visited my dermatologist what, 20 times? In | addition to my general physician, bloodwork, etc. Biopsies and | bloodwork and other tests don't show anything abnormal, asides | from excessively high IgE - 600 and now about 1,000. I recently | started on Dupixent but it's too early to tell if it's helping or | not. | | There doesn't seem to be any clear indicator, so I'm wondering if | I ate something + stress, which affected my gut microbiome. My | family has no history of this sort of issue and it seriously | started about overnight. | rusabd wrote: | Are you losing weight? I had some rash appeared spontaneously | after start losing weight and it took almost a year to clear | out | tnayrb wrote: | I'm no expert, but something similar happened to me a few years | back. The conclusion was an allergic reaction to the sun... | andrewzah wrote: | Did it go away on its own? | aedocw wrote: | I can't confirm today because it's very overcast, but as of | a few days ago the sun had still not gone away. | nerdponx wrote: | There's almost never harm in trying an elimination diet. Cycle | out one major food at a time (eg wheat, eggs, milk, meat, | nightshades, seafood), for a couple weeks at a time. | | Maybe start gradually introducing fermented "live" foods as a | matter of routine. | | Worst that happens is you eat more veggies and try out a | different diet. And if you find something that helps, all the | better. | | It's pretty well known now that skin conditions can be related | to gut conditions. | airstrike wrote: | For what it's worth (very little, since it's a medical anecdote | shared online), my wife had a nasty case of hives for the first | time in her life after trying a sarecycline treatment. Took us | quite a while to connect the dots, though, and to this day we | don't know if it was really what caused it (or stress, or the | fact that she took 3 different vaccines on the same day, or | everything combined) | | All of that is to suggest that you think about what you have | changed about your diet, medication or anything else either in | May or shortly before that | andrewzah wrote: | > what you have changed about your diet, medication or | anything else either in May or shortly before that | | Well, there are only 2 things I can think of. Firstly, due to | covid I had been working at home from March to May. Before | covid I would still go out a lot to cafes/social workspaces | and get sunlight. And around mid-march I started running. By | May I was running about 5k-7k daily throughout my | neighborhood. | | So we initially thought it was a bug related thing, but | everything came back clean. We tried eliminating food, but | nothing really seemed to have an effect after a week or two. | | I spoke to my immunologist and he believes it's not food | related as I already have food related allergies (peanuts), | so eating something else should give me quick reactions like | peanuts do. Also, he said it's rare for adults to | spontaneously develop something like that. Bloodwork has been | inconclusive because my IgE is so high that it's causing | false positives. I did a diff of my allergy bloodwork from | and back in October, and multiple values did increase. | | I have tried basically everything- getting more sunlight, | using sensitive detergent (3 different brands), cutting out | coffee/gluten etc. Hell, we even replaced the carpet in my | parents house with hardwood, and once I moved into my house | we cut out the carpet as well. | michael1999 wrote: | Tick borne disease? | rriepe wrote: | Check out Dr. John Sarno's works. It's mostly about back | pain but he covers other manifestations of the condition he | calls TMS. He talks about a personality type which you seem | to fit. | wwww4all wrote: | Mouth and gut health are directly related to physical health AND | mental health. | | The gut is often called the second brain, and lots of mental | health issues like anxiety, depression, stress, etc can be | greatly helped by improving diet and healthy gut. | | It's criminal that medical establishments are controlled by | pharmaceutical companies and establishment media spreads | prescription drug propaganda. | | Everyone needs to do their own research about gut health and | direct impacts to physical and mental health. | tomrod wrote: | > The gut is often called the second brain, and lots of mental | health issues like anxiety, depression, stress, etc can be | greatly helped by improving diet and healthy gut. | | Who calls it that? I've seen a comment or two before, but | certainly not "everyone" calling it that. It's a nice analogy | that probably could be stretched way too far, as these things | go. | | Are the causal links clearly _known_ or correlation shows that | the link may be identifiable? | | > It's criminal that medical establishments are controlled by | pharmaceutical companies and establishment media spreads | prescription drug propaganda. | | Hmm... this sounds like conspiratorial thinking. Do you have | evidence of this, and if it is the case, a reason why this | status quo is worse than other alternatives? | | > Everyone needs to do their own research about gut health and | direct impacts to physical and mental health. | | Why? Wouldn't it be more reasonable for scientists to research, | work towards consensus, then report findings, rather than | duplicating the fixed costs of setting up laboratories and | health testing facilities in our garages? Considering I did | this, what is the likelihood I find a stronger connection or | novel fact about certain microbiota that inhabit my or my | families' bodies? Or perhaps you're being less precise in your | terminology, and you're advocating that people study | scientists' research rather than conducting wetlab studies. | Could you clarify? | | Analogously, we should also all study the universe, but few | advocate for all to build radio telescopes on their available | rooftops. | chiefalchemist wrote: | > Hmm... this sounds like conspiratorial thinking. | | Does it? Why so? There are a handful of entities with control | and they all tend to have the same mindset. There's no need | for a conspiracy. Their context and objectives are the same. | There are a limited number of paths to that goal. They will - | like starlings - naturally "sync." No conspiracy necessary. | | The fact of the matter is, more and more "traditional | medicine" that was long dismissed is proving to be healthy. | The use of hallucinogens to treat mental health come to mind. | How does Big Pharma deliver value to share holders with | plants that most anyone to grow? | | Editorial: You sound naive, and likely a Big Pharma employee. | [deleted] | bserge wrote: | Or many ills affect the body in more extensive ways than thought. | Constipation could be an early warning sign of Parkinson's and | other problems, for example, not that you'd be able to tell. | | I'm pretty "natural", never had antibiotics and stuff. But I can | tell you I've got plenty of problems that can _never_ be fixed by | gut bacteria. | | Besides, modern lives are anything but natural. | vmception wrote: | Interestingly, this is what holistic practitioners and | naturopaths have been trying to say for a long time | | They've just substituted the scientific method with no method at | all and devoid of all peer review or capability of it | | As technology improves I expect individualized and therefore | holistic treatments to be at the forefront | tempestn wrote: | It really seems like some decades in the future we'll look back | at the results of gut microbiome research as akin to the | discoveries of bacteria and viruses. Before those discoveries it | was known that people got sick, and that developing sickness was | correlated with various things, like proximity to sick people, or | poor hygiene, but the mechanisms behind those correlations | weren't known. (Or they were suspected, but with some | misconceptions or lack of detail.) | | I expect and certainly hope that as this system is better | understood, it will unlock numerous significant advances in | medical science. Would just be nice if that process could happen | faster! | forgotmypw17 wrote: | A long time ago, our ancestors were single-celled. | | Then, some cells decided to live together, form a slime, division | of labor, organs, etc. And today, voila, we have humans. | | However, the single-celled never went away. We have been living | together, co-evolving together, all this time. | | No human has ever lived without a microbiome. We have been in | symbiosis all this time. The immune system picks off the baddies, | while the goodies get to stick around, serving all sorts of | useful functions. Not only that, but the goodies actually edge | out the baddies, because they consume most of the resources | available to microbes. Combined with help from immune system | police, a balance is reached. | | That's the way it works until you introduce various ways to harm | the microbiome. Preservatives in the food. Substances which | indiscriminately kill bacteria on the skin and elsewhere. | Antibiotics. Then the balance is thrown off, the baddies get to | proliferate unchecked, the immune system can no longer cope with | their scale. | | I've stopped using any products which harm my microbiome. It's | not easy, and it's not a one-day or one-month or one-year | transition, but it's paid off in ways I didn't even imagine | possible when I started out. | | Edit: When I post about this stuff, I often get asked about | specifics. For reasons of privacy, and several others, I would | rather not get into them. Do your own research, find your own | way. Don't wait for everything to be handed to you on a plate. | I've provided more than enough information in this comment. | colordrops wrote: | If you aren't willing to post specifics about your own | activities, you could at least provide references for the | statements you did make, e.g. battle to consume resources, and | throwing the microbiome off. | | Don't bother to make vague generalizations without being | willing to back them up, especially anonymously. It makes the | statement nearly information-free. And this is coming from | someone who agrees with your assessment. | madaxe_again wrote: | My wife had terrible acne for years - she tried every product | under the sun, visited dermatologists, all of it. | | About nine months ago I persuaded her to try absolutely | nothing. Just wash her face with mild soap and water when she | showers or after exercise. It was a hard sell. A really hard | sell. It looked sinfully angry for the first few weeks, and | then, bit by bit, started to fade. | | Now... her skin is perfect, the scars are subsiding, and she | hasn't had even a hint of acne or so much as a zit in four | months. | | The crux of my hypothesis was that she was eradicating her skin | microbiome over and over, and possibly breeding incredibly | resistant bacteria with no competition. | | I take a similar approach with oral hygiene - I don't brush, I | don't use toothpaste or mouthwash, I just use a wooden | toothpick to get anything stuck out. I started this in my teens | at boarding school, as toothbrushes were often "borrowed" for | cleaning rugby boots, and then replaced in the rack. At the | time, I figured not brushing was better than god only knows | what being rubbed into my gums. I had _appalling_ breath and | swollen gums for several months - but both just disappeared | after adaptation. | | I go to see a dentist every few years, mostly out of a sense of | obligation, and have never had a carie, cavity, periodontal | disease, or anything - I'm pushing 40. The most they've ever | done is polish them. By my age my mother had lost half her | molars, my father had a gobful of crowns and fillings, so it's | not genetics. | | Maybe I'm talking crap, but I think we significantly | underestimate our bodies abilities to maintain themselves, and | buy into the idea that we require products to keep them | working. | | Unfortunately, weaning yourself off this stuff usually involves | some degree of disruption, be it honking breath, or skin so | angry you don't want to be seen in public. | kart23 wrote: | I've heard that some people do indeed have better bacterial | biomes than others, some will be fine without brushing or | flossing, and others will have problems. Saliva has a large | part to play in preventing caries and bad breath, dry mouth | can cause a lot of the issues you describe. Also, water | fluoridation has made quite a big impact in public dental | health. Remember that most people used to lose teeth | regularly before the advent of fluoride toothpaste, often | very early in their lives. Do you think that these people's | teeth were maintaining themselves? Looking at old WW2 videos | made me realize this, where many soldiers in their 20s had | completely black teeth or massive gaps. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#History | accounted wrote: | A similar, and perhaps better option: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miswak | bserge wrote: | Yeah, I'd say don't apply that thinking to _everything_. | titzer wrote: | Did you have your wisdom teeth out? Are your teeth straight? | That makes a huge difference. | da_big_ghey wrote: | For what it's worth, I've done the same, but it only worked | because I wasn't eating a bunch of sugary garbage. Definitely | nobody should try it who eats that sort of stuff even | somewhat often. | pengaru wrote: | Exactly. | | A close friend of mine had horrible dental hygiene, rarely | brushing, drank soda and beer as his water, and only went | to the dentist after developing intolerable pain something | like a decade into this mode. | | When he came to work the day after his dentist visit, he | said the dentist told him "this is what we call mountain | dew mouth" when examining his teeth. | | If you don't eat stuff that makes plaque thrive, the | consequences of ignoring it are less severe. | Grimm1 wrote: | You lost me at antibiotics. Overuse is a problem for certain, | but we'd have a lot more death, and possibly worse, disability | without them. | serverholic wrote: | You just made up an argument for a point that the OP wasn't | making. | Xunjin wrote: | He is not wrong... OP did not make this point however you | can infer it, from his point of view | | Actually in my limited knowledge about biology, both are | right, when things are way discompensated, you have to use | things to kill bacterias which almost take control of a | part of your body (the baddies one) . | croes wrote: | Is it that why now more people live on earth than ever since? | titzer wrote: | Probably because of reduced all-cause mortality, increased | food production, and the relative peace of the 20th century. | azinman2 wrote: | Relative peace of the 20th century? At least 108M have died | in war. I believe it to be one of the biggest on record, | and certainly not one of the peaceful times. So relative | peace compared to what? | zabzonk wrote: | > So relative peace compared to what? | | Total world population. | | https://www.vox.com/2015/6/23/8832311/war- | casualties-600-yea... | RankingMember wrote: | > Edit: When I post about this stuff, I often get asked about | specifics. For reasons of privacy, and several others, I would | rather not get into them. Do your own research, find your own | way. Don't wait for everything to be handed to you on a plate. | I've provided more than enough information in this comment. | | Come on now, are you really going to post about how something | "paid off in ways I didn't even imagine possible when I started | out" and not name even one example? This lowers your comment to | being basically on the same tier of conversation as conspiracy | theorists who brush off requests for proof with "DO YOUR | RESEARCH, THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE I CAN'T GIVE YOU SPECIFICS". | johnchristopher wrote: | Haha, that's what he did :D. | | Coincidentally I looked at op's profile and found this URL | again http://hn:hn@sHiTMyseLf.com/index.html. I had stunmbled | upon it in a previous thread (don't remember which one, but I | only look at profile when I read some specific kind of | comments). | | I didn't get what the website was about last time and I | didn't spend time enough this time either. | forgotmypw17 wrote: | That URL was obfuscated to prevent bot abuse. | | It will now be replaced with a new one. | trhway wrote: | unfortunately mentioning any specifics risks transforming the | conversation into arguing about such a specific item with the | results being projected back onto the main statement. It also | risks sounding like one is pushing his/her pseudoscientific | stuff. In the area like microbiome with highly individual | situations and relatively low level of established science | any specifics is just an anecdote not much suitable for | rigorous discussion. (i have myself found a couple ways of | dealing with my SIBO (test based diagnosed by GE) for example | and almost never discuss those specifics. It is really an | area of "do you own research" and the useful methods/etc. are | really "out there".) | johnchristopher wrote: | Maybe so but "Don't wait for everything to be handed to you | on a plate. I've provided more than enough information in | this comment." is really condescending and not inspiring | much trust. | | It's also a classic move when you can't backup your claims. | bsanr2 wrote: | "This worked for me, but might not work for you, because of | our specific circumstances," followed by a detailed | description, would suffice, and in turn be much less | useless and condescending. | | Please, discuss specifics (as I have). | M5x7wI3CmbEem10 wrote: | how did you start? | Diederich wrote: | Starting in around 2013 or so, I stopped using any kind of | soap or cleaner on my body, with a couple of exceptions. I | still wash my hands regularly, and I use a tiny little bit of | fairly bland, unscented soap between my legs in the shower. | Note that my head hair is quite long, naturally coming down | to my mid/lower back. | | How do I get my body/face clean in the shower? Very hot water | and very vigorous scrubbing/rubbing. | | After doing that for a week, my body odor virtually | disappeared, even when I was hot and sweaty. While my overall | skin and hair condition had always been ok, it improved | noticeably. | | I did this after reading a number of articles online about it | and figured it would be worth trying. | | As a bit of an experimental control, I didn't tell my wife | that I was doing this. We do regularly brush and braid each | other's hair. After about two weeks, she said that my hair | was more full and healthy than it's ever been, and she also | confirmed the body odor changes. | | So this is anecdotal: it was useful for me, and might be | useful to some others. However, given everything we're | learning about microbiomes in _and on_ the body, it seems to | make a lot of sense. | jimlikeslimes wrote: | Tried this for months, I really smelled bad. Good friends | telling me unprompted etc. YMMV. | pengaru wrote: | I concur. | | I've lived in homesteading environments where numerous | people go months bathing sparingly using just water, | while still actually getting things done involving | significant labor, sweating and generally getting dirty. | | Everyone reeks in these conditions. They don't realize | it, and their intimate partners who are in constant | contact also don't quite appreciate the degree of odor, | because it's shared. | | But from an outsider perspective, it's _ripe_. | | There's probably an evolutionary reason for this, members | of a tribe will smell similarly when eating the same food | and sharing space/objects in close quarters. I can easily | imagine how that would be advantageous. Foreigners will | stink. | Diederich wrote: | > bathing sparingly | | That could be a difference; I scrub a good long time | using quite a bit of hot water. | sharadov wrote: | I used to use hot water + scrub. Was told it's terrible | for your skin by my dermatologist, you start developing | eczema in some cases in the long run. Warm water, white | unscented mild soap and no scrub was his recommendation. | forgotmypw17 wrote: | . | volkk wrote: | can you expand on that? and also what do you mean by ways | you couldn't even imagine? | refurb wrote: | Knowing that what you eat - more fiber, less fiber, more carbs, | less carbs, etc, how do you optimize your microbiome when there | is so much variety among humans? Which is the right biome? | atian wrote: | You can start at blood type. | dragosmocrii wrote: | It's interesting to see more and more articles lately reporting a | strong connection between ilnesses (or lack) and one's microbiome | health. What I noticed from my experience, is that kombucha and | kimchi make me feel great if I consume these regularly (once or | twice a week). Sometimes I will indulge in some crap food like | pizzas and noodles, which make me feel unwell, but kombucha and | kimchi work as a reset :) | andrebotelho wrote: | solid read | dekken_ wrote: | https://outline.com/TtrWGF | bigmattystyles wrote: | Completely anecdotal, personal experience. It wasn't Accutane but | when I was a pimply teen, in an effort to remedy the acne, I was | prescribed doxycycline and another topical antibacterial | ointment; in any case, I never had heartburn or experienced | depression prior to that but a few months after starting those | meds, both started. It's likely unrelated but whenever I read how | crucial biomes are - I can't help but wonder. For the record, I | preferred the acne. | gr1zzlybe4r wrote: | Anecdotally I wonder about this sometimes too. I took Accutane | mostly because I had a parent that really drove me to take it | (I think projecting some of their own issues with acne onto my | completely normal amount of teenage acne) and I definitely feel | like it changed my mood during and after taking it. I didn't | drink at all on it either. It's a drug that you shouldn't be | able to have a teenager take unless it's approved by a panel of | dermatologists or something. I had no idea of the severity of | the side effects from it when I took it. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-02-12 23:00 UTC)