Bacteriophages are overwhelmingly the most common. Knowing the bit I do know about viruses though, it wouldn’t surprise me that there are other classes. edit: on doing just a bit of reading, it looks like bacteriophages are THE viral parasite of bacteria and are highly variable in themselves. I had thought that there might be other viruses, different in structure from the conventional phage but maybe not. One day I’m going to finish that online virology course…sigh… I’ve started it like 3 times and haven’t made it past lecture 5 each time because I get distracted. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=hYcRDAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA8&dq=viruses+of+bacteria+classification&ots=uss2viiXCE&sig=OErbdUiMH7zRgxGd9kXyfhf3-vE#v=onepage&q=viruses of bacteria classification&f=false
I have just never heard of viral bacteria or whatever except form the uninformed. I know full well what bacteriophages are and have wondered for years why Big Pharm hasn't been working with them in the face of growing antibiotic resistance.
There is some work being done. One of our neighbors has MAC lung disease. She has it pretty bad. It is currently incurable at the level she has it, basically it is like a noncontagious tuberculosis. Anyway, she has been actively following various proposed therapies including phage therapy, the idea being able to use phages specific to the bacteria she has. The hitch is that it has to be completely successful on the first few treatments because our bodies soon start developing neutralizing antibodies to the phages. I still think phage therapy has a lot of potential though and I hope they make more rapid progress.
It may be that they are playing out the drugs as far as they will go, but I am sure the bacteriophages could be patented as well, especially if they genetically modified them.
I've been taking probiotics for 5 years, and prebiotics for 8-9 months. I've been taking a probiotic that has 30 Billion CFUs and 12 strains for a couple of years. I was running low and decided to up the volume, so I bought a brand that has 60 billion CFUs and 10 strains. I've been taking it for about 5 days. I've been having bloating, transient mild pressure in my chest when I'm laying on my back, and a little fatigue (my O2 levels are fine, per my oximeter.) I actually thought it was stress. It just hit me that the only thing I changed was this probiotic. I read things that say this is common, and usually rights itself in a few weeks once your system adjusts (and once the bad bacteria are killed and evacuated.) I have no way of knowing if the 60 Billion CFU is too much for my system, or if it's killing off more bad bacteria than the 30 Billion CFU did. A small number of sites say to find the dosage that's right for you, while most of them say you cannot overdose. Only one site says adults should take 1 Billion CFUs to 10 Billion CFUs. There is very little that talks to the benefits and relative side effects of a higher number of CFUs. My gastroenterologist is the one who got me started on these, and his office recommended a brand (Phillips) that have 3 Billion CFUs and only 3 strains. I think I'll go back to the 30 Billion CFU/12 strain brand I've tolerated and hope that it's doing a sufficient job. There's really no way to measure efficacy with these.
That's the problem with supplements; there is no central clearinghouse that you can go to for information. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical industry lies to us about the stuff they want to sell us. Ideally, it would be nice to have a medical doctor who practices holistic medicine - not in the New Age/Voodoo Doctor way, but in looking at the whole person and putting an equal emphasis on prevention and treatment.
For a while now, I have been reading about a bacteria called Lactobacillus Reuteri, which is one of the good bacteria that has always been found in the gut of humans, and also in animals and birds, etc. Even though it has always been a common bacteria, many of the people no longer have this one because of it being destroyed by overuse of antibiotics, and most probiotics do not necessarily have this particular strain of lactobacillus bacteria. It has to be cultivated differently than regular yogurt or kefir, since it takes 36 hours for it to fully develop , and can only be at temperatures close to 100 F. Dr. William Davis, who wrote the book “Wheat Belly” has a new book out called “Super Gut” in which he delves deeper into the importance of this strain of bacteria, and how it benefits people to have it. Not only can it help give us a longer life, it is anti-aging, heals a lot of GI problems, and works clear up into the stomach, and not just in the colon, where many probiotics work. I ordered a new yogurt maker with a time annd temperature control, and the probiotic capsules needed to culture the milk, and am going to try making it . Once you make the first batch, you can use a starter from that for the next batch; but you need the probiotic capsules when you first make it.
I am always skeptical of claims people make when they say one substance, nutrient, or whatever cures everything, but your post from Dr. Davis is intriguing. Since I am convinced my wife suffers form SIBO, it might be worth a try. What yogurt maker are you getting @Yvonne Smith and what fiber nutrient do you intend to use?
I took a look at my research from when I was deciding which probiotic to use. I captured the bacteria in 10 randomly selected probiotics, and none of them contain Lactobacillus Reuteri. My search took me to a WebMD article that states "Also note that L. reuteri used to be classified under the Lactobacillus genus. But Lactobacillus was split up into 25 different genera in April 2020. Some product labels might still list this species as Lactobacillus reuteri rather than its new name, Limosilactobacillus reuteri." WIKI supports this statement regarding reclassification and the new name.
Yeah, microbiologists mess with classification all the time since DNA technology has progressed to a high level. The way L. reuteri was described by Dr. Davis, it doesn't sound like it should have been classified as a Lactobacillus in the first place, but the morphology must have led them down that path. Most Lactobacilli are very resistant to antibiotics and that is why they are used in so many probiotic combinations. Apparently reuteri is not resistant and it grows at a different temperature than others, which are not too picky. Lactobacilli are a major contributor to vagina normal flora, both to maintain vaginal health and to inoculate infants as they pass though the canal. I don't remember if they are present in breast milk and I am too lazy to look it up, but Dr. Davis leads one to believe that they are.
DNA technology has contributed greatly to changing classifications. I commented in an Alzheimer's thread that the International Probiotics Association did DNA analysis on a dozen different strains of gut bacteria and broke them down into over 200 different clades. This was only a few years ago. NIH says that the following have been identified in breast milk: Lactobacillus gasseri, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus fermentum and Enterococcus faecium.
Here is a screenshot from the book “Super Gut” (I just got the Kindle version), and it explains some of the benefit of how this affects humans when we do or do not get this specific strain of bacteria. This is only a few of the things that it is supposed to do to be helpful, but it does give some good examples. As fas as being in breast milk, it seems to be one of the bacteria that most people no longer have, so it probably is not there anymore, except in more primitive peoples, but was once a part of a person’s normal biome, and probably would have been in breast milk at that time.