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Comment by njtransit | Hacker News Reader

It’s interesting that both groups had their number of bowel movements double or more. Perhaps a lot of constipation is actually dehydration.

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Like this magic pill to loose weight that you need to take before every meal with large glass of water, where pill is optional.

or Emegen-C or hangover cures

If they contain some salt they are better than just water.

If you take one of these little pills with a large glass of water for every alcoholic beverage you drink, then it will prevent hangovers.

I agree, and that's why they used a "randomized triple-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial".

Bingo. These finding probably aren't much of a surprise to many. Hydration is huge, as is having a well functioning and diverse biome that you feed regularly with raw fruits and vegetables. I have had my biome die back to the point of medical emergency and had to restore it. Keifer, various Greek yogurts, etc did nothing to help. I took half a bottle of a few pills that were loaded with different strains. Not only did it restore bowel function to its former glory, it improved my health overall and I feel like a teenager again (46). I was deficient and suffering for decades and just thought it was normal. It dawned on me that most people are likely suffering.

I'm far too overweight for my liking but now I don't feel fat. Restoring the biome made me stronger and more resilient (my muscles stay stronger between workouts). I just feel good all the time now. Before this I had psychologically written myself off as dying and was ready to accept my fate.

> These finding probably aren't much of a surprise to many.

Conversely, you might be surprised at how many this is new information. Just because you learned something does not mean everyone hearing the information at the same time. Some people require hearing/reading something new only one time, others takes many attempts. I think the number of people that walk around with a suboptimal fluid intake is much higher than we might hope, especially in the USA

This sounds super interesting. The pills you are talking about are probiotics? Have some links to which ones you took and maybe some research you did about this?

Check my other replies for the brands. I don't think it matters as long as the quality is assured. I had known about probiotics for decades but never realized how fundamental they were to overall health. When I was going through this I just thought about my symptoms and took a hail Mary with this treatment. Bowel movements were extremely stressful at that stage. I was depriving myself of anything solid to alleviate the issues but overall I was not getting better. Previous to that I was doing fine, or so I thought. I never ate out, rarely ate meat or anything processed.

You will know when it's restored, you can even eat garbage (meat, processed foods) and your gut will process it and move on. You should be able to notice the subtle changes when you eat something that does not digest readily. It's not the acid and body mechanics, it's mostly the bacteria giving you life by breaking down nutrients and solids. Feed it what it needs and it will sustain itself. Raw and fermented vegetables.

Meat is nutritious and very satisfying per calorie, it is not "garbage". To think it is garbage is to have a very confused view of nutrition.

Ultra processed red meats are garbage. They contain far too much saturated fats and not nearly enough nutrients. Even their protein per calorie is not particularly good.

Humans of the past ate game meat. Very low fat, and almost all unsaturated fat. Closer to an avocado than a steak.

Which pills specifically did you take?

You should return and tell us with some specificity what you took.

I'm hesitant to mention brands. Any independently tested product with a wide variety of strains should be good. I started on Physicians Choice from Amazon and followed up with Garden of Life (not sure who sells it). During repair phase I would only eat salads made of hand shredded green and purple cabbage and kale. Equal amounts cabbage kale mixture and shredded ice berg lettuce. I used ranch dressing and added other vegetables and crushed corn chips. To each his own.

These were huge salads. I couldn't even think of eating anything else after I finished them.

Wait what. I am 99% convinced my gas and bowel problem, an impairment at this point, is IBS or SIBO that started 12 years ago. I never thought a about just taking a half bottle of pills to see what would happen, I am going to have to look into this.

What the hell? Half bottle of what pills? Are you and the parent a bot?

Half a bottle over two weeks. Geesh.

Probiotic pills presumably.

I’m assuming the parent meant pills with few different strains. Seems like a massive dose of a few different strains would approach that of a fecal transplant.

You can't just slam pills. The pills contain the bacterium. You have to send it raw vegetables to feed it so it multiplies and sustains itself.

Oh no, I was confused because a lot of people say to try probiotic pills, but for many people they just don't work. So when you originally wrote half a bottle that confused me, I interpreted it as you were doing something different than those who tried probiotic pill supplements.

Could you describe your dosage? Was it a one pill per meal and you saw results after a few weeks? And you said raw vegetables to help it. I would like to try that, and any other specific things you did that worked.

what did you take - specifically?

That's plausible, but also, could be the frequent things just getting better on their own over time.

I actually thought it was misleading of the headline to say the probiotic crapped out...

A lot of people take probiotics to improve their general digestion (and not specifically for constipation). But it sounds like the study didn't even look at any of the other uses at all...

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