Aug 26, 2017 03:22 AM
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...es/537945/
EXCERPT: [...] Zaneveld and Vega Thurber now think that this trend applies to all kinds of microbiomes, whether in corals, chimps, or humans. All of these hosts use a range of tactics to control which species and strains get to share their bodies. When the hosts are stressed or diseased, their control breaks down, and their microbiomes start to change. But they change randomly, rather than predictably. They don’t shift to any one specific unhealthy state. Rather, they veer off in unpredictable directions and enter a wide range of new states.
Since each disrupted microbiome is its own unique little snowflake, “we were originally going to call this the snowflake hypothesis,” says Vega Thurber, “but there’s a lot of negative connotation around that word now.” So, instead, Zaneveld has called the idea the Anna Karenina Hypothesis, after the opening lines of Tolstoy’s novel: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Similarly, every unhealthy microbiome is unhealthy in its own way.
The hypothesis is something of a Grand Unified Theory of Unhealthy Microbiomes. “We started in corals but we started seeing the same pattern in human studies,” says Vega Thurber. “Now it’s something I can’t unsee. Whenever I see a microbiome paper that compares healthy and sick individuals, this pattern jumps out....”
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EXCERPT: [...] Zaneveld and Vega Thurber now think that this trend applies to all kinds of microbiomes, whether in corals, chimps, or humans. All of these hosts use a range of tactics to control which species and strains get to share their bodies. When the hosts are stressed or diseased, their control breaks down, and their microbiomes start to change. But they change randomly, rather than predictably. They don’t shift to any one specific unhealthy state. Rather, they veer off in unpredictable directions and enter a wide range of new states.
Since each disrupted microbiome is its own unique little snowflake, “we were originally going to call this the snowflake hypothesis,” says Vega Thurber, “but there’s a lot of negative connotation around that word now.” So, instead, Zaneveld has called the idea the Anna Karenina Hypothesis, after the opening lines of Tolstoy’s novel: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Similarly, every unhealthy microbiome is unhealthy in its own way.
The hypothesis is something of a Grand Unified Theory of Unhealthy Microbiomes. “We started in corals but we started seeing the same pattern in human studies,” says Vega Thurber. “Now it’s something I can’t unsee. Whenever I see a microbiome paper that compares healthy and sick individuals, this pattern jumps out....”
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