Gut microbes are vulnerable to wide range of drugs

It's unclear to me how to interpret the result. It makes sense to test the influence of drugs on gut microbes, but to put the effect into context I'd be interested in the effect of, for example, normal food. How many species of gut microbes are affected by apples or coffee or whole grain bread? I also imagine that eating fermented foods causes a slaughter in your gut as the different microbes battle for dominance.

What I want to know is what to do about it by way of probiotic therapy or buffering agents and such. Efficacy of probiotics in practice seems mixed, so what exactly is the takeaway here for the practically minded person who sometimes takes anti-inflammatory medications?

The converse is also true -- a wide range of drugs are subject to metabolism by gut microbes. This can throw off plasma concentrations and reduce effectiveness, or cause unwanted side effects or unexpected toxicity in the worst cases.

The published article itself (paywall): <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;nature25979" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;nature25979</a><p>And EMBL announcement with short video: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.embl.de&#x2F;science&#x2F;commonly-used-drugs-affect-gut-bacteria&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.embl.de&#x2F;science&#x2F;commonly-used-drugs-affect-gut-...</a>

Completely anecdotal, but after two and a half weeks of antibiotics (for an infection in my leg) I felt crap.

I have often wondered about the affects of pesticides on foods made with cord by-products, like syrup, etc.