Reacción a "Specific species of microbiota associated with severity of multiple sclerosis"

It is a serious, well-designed study, with validation in animal models and in additional cohorts of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Therefore, the results are solid, although they always need to be extended to multiple populations and countries, because the microbiota changes a lot with diet, ethnicity and lifestyles.

There have already been multiple studies of microbiota in multiple sclerosis and there is a consensus that it is altered in autoimmune diseases such as MS. However, there is still no consensus on which alteration is the most relevant and related to the development of MS, given that each study identifies a species of bacteria as the most relevant. The implication would be that if the species of bacteria that predispose to MS are definitively identified, treatments with antibiotics, intestinal flora and even diet could be used to prevent it or improve its clinical course.

[Regarding possible limitations] Validation in large patient populations in multiple countries will be necessary for the results to be robust. The relationship of these results to the genotype of each MS patient and their relationship to latent Epstein-Barr virus infection remains to be established.