Health Wanted: Defending Moms

The Episode

Moms! They do so much for their children, but somehow, according to everyone else's opinion, all of it is terrible and wrong. As Mother’s Day approaches, we wanted to say thank you to all our moms for doing their best by presenting data to silence the haters. This week on Health Wanted, we’re defending moms.

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The Listener Questions

Are gut biofilms an actual medical problem, or do wellness influencers just talk about them to sell products?

The gut microbiome consists of trillions of different microorganisms that live in our digestive tracts, working together to keep us healthy by digesting food, producing vitamins, and regulating our immune systems, among other things. Just like fingerprints and snowflakes, no two gut microbiomes are the same. We each have a unique collection of microorganisms based on things like our diet, genetics, and environment.

When the gut microbiome is disturbed and loses its diversity of bacteria, known as dysbiosis, the body is more susceptible to disease. 

Biofilms are a slimy, jelly-like layer of microorganisms that stick to a surface. For example, the plaque on your teeth, the pink slime around your shower drain, and the slippery coating on a river rock are all biofilms. Being part of a biofilm benefits individual microorganisms by providing them with added protection. Biofilms are much more resistant to hostile environments than free-floating microbes, enabling microorganisms to avoid host defenses and making bacteria 1,000 times more resistant to antibiotics. 

This means that biofilm-related infections are hard to treat. Biofilms contribute to around 60% of chronic and recurrent microbial infections, and they have been linked to irritable bowel syndrome and inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.

But not all biofilms are bad. Because we have a diversity of bugs in our guts, sometimes those gut bugs come together to form a biofilm that is protective, preventing pathogens in our bodies from multiplying. So, the mere presence of biofilm in the gut doesn't cause GI diseases, it really depends on what the biofilm is made of.

Is it likely that you have a biofilm that’s causing issues? That’s harder to say. You might notice that the symptoms influencers try to connect to biofilms are pretty vague, which is a hallmark of scammy supplements. And since a lot of people don’t have any experience or knowledge of biofilms, it’s a good non-specific target to base a supplement company around, just like parasites or “high cortisol.”

There has been a lot of work to develop new treatments to antibiotic-resistant biofilms to help a variety of chronic GI conditions, but, if top scientists have yet to have a lot of success in developing new interventions for clinical use, I find it hard to believe an unregulated pineapple gummy is the solution.

Should I be concerned about ticks this summer?

The CDC is reporting higher than usual visits to emergency departments for tick bites. Tick season is coming early, so make sure to protect yourself and your family.

This means:

• Wearing long layers and EPA approved insecticides
• Checking your body and your pets' bodies for ticks before you go indoors 
• Tumble drying clothes on high for 10 minutes to kill any small ticks you might not see
• Removing ticks promptly: Don’t want to go to the emergency room. Getting a tick off your body within the first 24 hours greatly reduces the risk that they will be able to transmit Lyme disease if they are a carrier.

This increased tick activity is also coming at a time when there’s an increase in tick conspiracies on the internet. You may have seen videos or posts about people claiming that farmers in places like Missouri say they’re finding boxes of ticks dropped in their fields. I guess the idea would be that, because there’s potentially a vaccine for Lyme, someone is intentionally spreading Lyme disease to try to get people to want to take the vaccine.

Here’s a few reasons why that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, just for fun:

• No one in Missouri, or anywhere else, is reporting first-hand account of this. It’s origins were traced back to one woman on social media who conveniently sells supplement kits that “protect you from Lyme.”
• The vaccine hasn’t been reviewed or approved by the FDA, and with the way the ACIP and FDA are kind of in shambles right now, doesn’t seem likely that will happen quickly. So it’s unclear if people would even be able to get the vaccine in time for next year’s Lyme season, because it takes four doses over 18 months to complete.
• Putting boxes of ticks in farmers' fields is not an efficient way to spread Lyme. Ticks don’t travel far on their own; they can travel attached to animals, but why would you rely on whatever animals are in those fields to transport the ticks to places where humans are?

That’s the thing about modern conspiracy theories: They tend to fall apart pretty quickly when you think about them for even a second.

Catch all the listener questions and Laurel’s answers on the full episode of Health Wanted by:

• Streaming at wabe.org or the WABE app
• Subscribing on Apple or Spotify
• Watching on WABE's YouTube channel