Originally Posted by ShareCures View Post
I'm not saying there are not good bacteria, just saying there is no real proof that there is.
Did they have a little sign on them saying, "I'm a good bacteria"? What where they doing that made them "good". Where they helping older bacteria digest their food?
If you do not mind, please keep it in laymen terms. Unlike medicine "cures" are not complicated and anyone can understand them. Please give us the honor of speaking in terms that a laymen can understand.
What where the bacteria doing when you saw them that made them good? If you use big fancy words that I don't understand you may fool others but you won't fool me.
Keep in mind however I am not saying there are or there aren't good bacteria.
Since this is also something I've worked with a lot. No, they do not have signs saying 'I am a good bacterium'. Any more than that mushrooms have signs saying 'I am good to eat' or 'I am poisonous'. Yet somehow we know which ones to eat.
The process trough which people come to such knowledge is called experimentation and observation.
Stool samples taken from healthy persons show which bacteria are present in the gut at that time. This is how we know what an average person should have in a given region. The reason our bodies allow them in the gut is that they are capable of breaking down certain compounds that our bodies cannot do themselves. The waste products they secrete are compounds our bodies can use and are absorbed through the gut. At the same time their sheer numbers generally prevent random opportunistic bacteria whose waste products would be toxic from proliferating in our gut.
The actual immune system has very little to do with this, as its active components do not actally enter the gut. It just prevents the bacteria existing there from getting into the rest of the body as that would be dangerous or fatal.
You continually replenish the bacteria living there as you eat and drink since everything you touch is still covered in bacteria. If you did not do so you would rapidly become sick as you'd lose the ability to digest food effectively.
This is also the reason you get temporarily sick when you go to a region that has a different set of bacteria, generally a different temperature/food culture. As the old bacteria are washed away and replaced by the new set there is a moment during which you both lose the ability to digest correctly and some of the protection against opportunists. This fun period is generally spent on the loo of your hotel for a few days.
Good bacteria by the way is a phrase invented by advertisers, it has no scientific value what so ever. All species are just bacteria. Your gut flora might do no harm when contained inside the specialized compartment, but if they manage to enter the bloodstream in sufficient numbers you'd die in short order.