Rapid responses are electronic comments to the editor. They enable our users
to debate issues raised in articles published on bmj.com. A rapid response
is first posted online. If you need the URL (web address) of an individual
response, simply click on the response headline and copy the URL from the
browser window. A proportion of responses will, after editing, be published
online and in the print journal as letters, which are indexed in PubMed.
Rapid responses are not indexed in PubMed and they are not journal articles.
The BMJ reserves the right to remove responses which are being
wilfully misrepresented as published articles or when it is brought to our
attention that a response spreads misinformation.
From March 2022, the word limit for rapid responses will be 600 words not
including references and author details. We will no longer post responses
that exceed this limit.
The word limit for letters selected from posted responses remains 300 words.
I started to read the article with great scepticism. It was also clear to me that my ability to understand this article is severely limited. I call it a type of Oligophrenia.
However, I persevered and reached some tentative conclusions:
1. Truly there are more unexplored “unscientific” therapeutic procedures in primitive cultures which deserve respectful investigation.
2. I recollect - from some seventy years ago - that in some villages, a stye was treated with a tiny spot of the patient’s own faeces. It was reputedly successful though it was believed by a couple of doctors of my acquaintance that it was “coincidental”.
Reading this article makes me wonder whether the auto-faecal bacterial plantation might have a curative effect after all.
3. The renal excretion of Bos taurus var indicus has for centuries, maybe thousands of years, been credited by its devotees with heath giving benefits.
Bubalus bubalis, on the other hand, is not believed to be of any such properties.
I ask: Are any practitioners of comparative medicine carrying out relevant studies?
According to recent studies, there is evidence that dysbiosis in the microbiota of patients with multiple sclerosis may favor inflammatory activation processes, additionally it has been proven in experimental models of multiple sclerosis that the alteration of the intestinal microbiota affects the activity of the Treg cells which produce a non-tolerogenic inflammation prone environment. These changes may favor the immune response that could participate in the autoimmunity of multiple sclerosis.
Re: The role of the gut microbiome in systemic inflammatory disease
I started to read the article with great scepticism. It was also clear to me that my ability to understand this article is severely limited. I call it a type of Oligophrenia.
However, I persevered and reached some tentative conclusions:
1. Truly there are more unexplored “unscientific” therapeutic procedures in primitive cultures which deserve respectful investigation.
2. I recollect - from some seventy years ago - that in some villages, a stye was treated with a tiny spot of the patient’s own faeces. It was reputedly successful though it was believed by a couple of doctors of my acquaintance that it was “coincidental”.
Reading this article makes me wonder whether the auto-faecal bacterial plantation might have a curative effect after all.
3. The renal excretion of Bos taurus var indicus has for centuries, maybe thousands of years, been credited by its devotees with heath giving benefits.
Bubalus bubalis, on the other hand, is not believed to be of any such properties.
I ask: Are any practitioners of comparative medicine carrying out relevant studies?
Competing interests: No competing interests