Talk:Lactobacillus reuteri
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Alright, I am going to begin a serious re-vamping of this page. There is way more hard data on the benifits of L. reuteri than this page currently includes, so I am going to incorporate many more references.
I'm envisioning a 3-part article, including 1) history and discovery, 2) research and health benefits, and 3) commercial production.
If anyone has any comments or wants to help out, please let me know. --AaronM 15:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] "Potency" of L. Reuteri
Should this article contain language emphasizing L. reuteri's effectiveness as a probiotic organism, compared to other probiotics? I think that it should. One of the challenges that this field of science has faced is that many probiotics are sold without solid research on their benefits, and thus amount to "snake oil" health supplements. L. reuteri, though, has had a large body of research devoted to it. In addition to decades of pre-clinical field trials on animals, the ability of L. reuteri to prevent disease from a broad range of pathogens has been confirmed in 37 human clinical trials to date. In particular, three of those studies (Weizman et al, Romeo et al, and Guerrero et al), all now referenced in the article, compare L. reuteri to other probiotic organisms and find L. reuteri to be the more effective. Probiotics need to be set apart from echinacea and other snake oil health products which are marketed as "natural" and "holistic" but actually have little (or no) scientific research to support the claims being made. I believe that in L. reuteri, the field of probiotics has a bug that has passed the test of double-blinded, peer-reviewed studies, and that this should be emphasized in the article. --AaronM 20:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Regarding L. reuteri as a "universal" gut organism
The following section was removed due to apparent irrelevance:
"As a comparison, individual genes that are found in multiple species across the phylogenetic tree are presumed to be essential to the proper function of the organism. The gene for myosin, for example, appeared early in evolution and is present in most forms of life. Different species have slightly different versions of myosin - as the gene has been adapted to each species' needs - but the core of myosin gene is always identifiable. Likewise, species have adapted slightly different strains of L. reuteri to their needs, suggesting that L. reuteri is one of the most important gut bacteria, and that it has long played a role in maintaining the health of its hosts."Terrestrial80 (talk) 12:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
This was added merely as an explanation of the term "universal gut organism." However, I do think it is relevant to include the presence of L. reuteri across many species of mammals and birds. Perhaps with a little less talk about myosin? --AaronM (talk) 12:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
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- This host-specificity of strains is absolutely not unique to L. reuteri, but true for nearly all intestinal species... including E. coli and most other intestinal lactobacilli. It may not be added at all in the article, at least not as a unique characteristicKnorrepoes (talk) 14:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I do think it is important to point out that L. reuteri is widespread in animals. I just think that the gene analogy is a bit confusing and unnecessary. Terrestrial80 (talk) 03:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
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- It is true that the species can be found in animals, but the same is true for nearly all other species of lactobacilli that you find in humans; they are all present in animals as well. The same for most other bacterial species. So it is absolutely not unique for L. reuteri.Knorrepoes (talk) 11:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Chemical Structure of Reuterin
I removed the following text, not because I thought it was unnecessary but because it was poorly written. So poorly written, in fact, that didn't really understand what it means, and therefore could not "rephrase" it to better integrate it into the text, as is necessary for many new edits. If anyone understands this and wants to move it back into text in a more legible form, feel free:
Structure analysis of reuterin revealed a system of three substances, the 3-hydroxypropionaldehyde its hydrate and finally its dimer that was formerly named by Walter Dobrogosz to reuterin.[1] The equilibration of the system is temperature and concentration dependent and at biological relevant concentrations (about 50-100 mM) the aldehyde is mainly in the hydrated form.[2]
