I saw that as well.
I first came across stuff about the microbiome in relation to obesity, but last year was fascinated with mentions in relation to long covid of some sort of links with the stomach. (I don't recall whether there were mentions of other parts of the intestines.) It was being suggested that you could see a distinct difference I'll characterise as short covid & recover, stomach not very covid-infested, long covid, stomach covid-infested.
I believe the research into covid-19 will push forward the research. Being blunt, I think the very large numbers of people developing long covid will push governments and insurers into researching how to limit the costs by treating it effectively. They'll be in battle with drug companies wanting to maximise sales of anything they can manage to patent.
The long covid thing also mapped onto controversy in relation to mental illness and inflammation, which then overlaps back onto other sorts of post-viral fatigue.
Part of the difficulty with this is the complexity of it all, and I don't think most of medicine likes complexity. There's that old doctor's saying, 'look for horses not zebras', isn't there?
Looking at the obesity angle of gut microbiome because it's the angle I've read up on most, there are a lot of powerful interests that it wouldn't suit to have emphasis on problems with the gut microbiome instead of counting calories, especially manufacturers who put calories-per-portion prominently and the rest of the info in tiny font, a 'portion' being something ridiculously small.
I don't recall which, but two South American countries abandoned the traditional count calories, carbs versus fat, fasting or whatever stuff in favour of avoiding junk food a little while back.
On the mental front, years ago, there was a bit of research that linked schizophrenia with close contact with cats in childhood. The researchers thought it might be linked with some sort of long-term inflammatory effect on the brain of a cat disease. I forget which - a worm? Anyway, it was seen as a bit weird, then was put down to a theory that children who are more likely to come into contact with cat faeces would be those playing in dirty sandpits and dirty parks/streets, and living in cramped flats with cat litter not changed very often, which they then mapped onto the demographics of those more likely to develop schizophrenia.
Ah, but that's 'inflammation' not gut. Ah, but long-covid postviral, stomach, inflammation.
I have believed in what I'll call an 'inflammatory' link between all sorts of long-term physical and mental conditions, and in recent years thought mostly in terms of leaky gut, but some of this now does say a lot more about the role of the microbiome in the function of our whole body and mind.
Oh dear, I've already been looking at videos, research papers, other publications etc. on this sort of thing and now I'll be following it even more avidly - microbiome, microbiome, microbiome...
