Doctors will also need to treat both the patient and their microbes at the same time. If someone with IBD took an anti-inflammatory drug, her microbiome might just send her back to the same inflamed state. If she opted for probiotics or an FMT, the new bugs might not survive her inflamed intestines. If she ate a high-fibre prebiotic diet, and she lacked fibre-digesting microbes in the first place, her symptoms might just get worse. Piecemeal solutions won’t work. You won’t fix a bleached coral reef or a bare meadow just by adding the right animals or plants: you might also need to remove
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