A very readable article in the Wall Street Journal: Those Probiotics May Actually Be Your ‘Gut Health’ –may be behind a paywall. (Thanks to Ben Enav for sharing)

This study makes the following key points:

• “In a landmark paper by my colleague Dr. Jennifer Wargo at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center that was published in Science last year, melanoma patients with the healthiest gut microbiomes—that is, the greatest diversity of microorganisms—showed enhanced systemic and antitumor immunity as well as significantly increased odds of responding to immunotherapy.”
• “The preliminary results [from an MD Anderson Study] showed that patients who reported taking an over-the-counter probiotic supplement had a lower probability of responding to immunotherapy as well as lower microbiome biodiversity. But those eating a high-fiber diet were about five times more likely to respond to immunotherapy and had high gut bacteria diversity, including bacteria previously linked to a strong immunotherapy response.”
• “The cheapest and safest way to improve our microbiome and gut health is to make simple dietary changes to feed the development of good bacteria and crowd out the bad. There is no pill, special food, unique diet or quick fix for what ails our health and diet. The key is simply to focus on eating a diverse, whole-food, plant-centered, high-fiber diet.”

More information on studies alluded to above:

• Gut microbiome modulates response to anti–PD-1 immunotherapy in melanoma patients Science 2018
• Dietary Factors Affecting Gut Microbiome May Influence Response to Immunotherapy in Melanoma Patients

Related blog posts:

• Are Probiotics Effective in Changing the Microbiome?
• Our Food is Killing Too Many of Us
• “Low quality of evidence; strong recommendation” for Probiotics in Gastroenteritis
• How helpful are probiotics?
• Bad diets –>High Mortality
• Better Diet, Lower Mortality
• Big Data for Personalized Diets
• Why Fiber Matters?