No Microbiome Santa Claus we cannot magically convert correlative studies into causal ones. And scientists dishing out medical advice about vaping based on such bad science is ridiculous.

Conclusions. In summary, we found that tobacco smokingsignificantly alters the bacterial profiles in feces, buccal, and saliva samples.Nooooooooooooooooo. Nooooooo. No.So - you might ask -- why does this matter? This is just a little bit of a word choice issue right? Wrong. The press release and the paper mislead as to what was found here. You might then say "so what - what does it matter?". Well, it does matter because when you make these types of misleading statements they might get picked up by the press or the public. Like in the examples below:Daily Mail:An incentive to switch to e-cigarettes? Smokers have more 'bad' and less 'good' bacteria than vapers putting them at greater risk of disease, finds studyLet's check out those bullet points:This puts them at higher risk of colon cancer, colitis, Crohn's disease and obesityE-cig users have similar microbiomes to those without the notoriously bad habitScientists today labelled the study an 'incentive' for smokers to switch to vapingThis is the first study to compare the microbiome between vapers and smokersWow. This study provides incentive for people to switch from smoking to vaping. Sorry - but the F@#$*)@#) it does. Ridiculous.And it shows that this puts people who smoke at higher risk of colon cancer, colitis, Crohn's and obesity. The #(!@)($!@)( it does.Just wait. I am sure more news stories will come out with inaccurate information. Sometimes that is the faul...
Source: The Tree of Life - Category: Microbiology Authors: Source Type: blogs