I’m still trying to get a grip on the idea that I’m 90 percent microbes; the thought intruded during a yoga class yesterday as my microbes neatly lined up in Warrior One and the rest of me followed. (Maybe I’m only 30 percent microbes, but that doesn’t make this any easier.)
Even so, I’m fascinated by the microbiome story and eager to see where it will lead. I think this could turn out to be one of the most significant medical discoveries of our time.
Unfortunately, the data lag far behind promises such as that one. This seems to be a story in which it’s particularly easy to promise too much. I think that’s partly because the claims make so much sense. They have to be right, don’t they?
In the current issue of Nature, William P. Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, warns that “microbiomics risks being drowned in a tsunami of its own hype.” He’s talking to scientists, but his warning applies to reporters as well.
He lists five questions that researchers should ask to avoid the hype. Click over to Nature to find them. Here’s the first, as a teaser:
Can experiments detect differences that matter?…For example, microbiomes associated with obesity have been distinguished by different ratios of bacterial phyla, which encompass a staggering range of diversity. If this criterion were used to characterize animal communities, an aviary of 100 birds and 25 snails would be considered identical to an aquarium with 8 fish and 2 squid, because each has four times as many vertebrates as molluscs…
Before you write your next story on the wonders of microbiomics, tape Hanage’s questions on the wall beside your desk. Or take a look at your aquarium.
-Paul Raeburn
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