>The Lumina Probiotic aka BCS3-L1 is a genetically modified strain of Streptococcus Mutans that was originally billed as producing ethanol and acetoin instead of lactic acid, outcompeting the wild type upon inoculation and thus dramatically reducing incidence of caries caused by acid buildup on the teeth.
i'm yet to see an alcoholic whose regular "mouth washing" by ethanol leads to good teeth (despite ethanol being very powerful antiseptic) .
n=1 isn't necessarily data, and I have other questions (the formate concentration of the probiotic variant is 4x over JH1140, but JH1140 is itself a mutant; what's the formate production of an average wildtype strain?). Methanol can cause blindness in as little as 4mL, so the amounts we're talking about are relatively small; 4mL of methanol ≅ 99mmol.
Stuff like this is pretty horrifying and sad after we are deregulating the FDA as we speak so this stuff will be harder to catch and also as we are killing all the science research to help fix this poor soul's eyes after the damage was done. Sad and horrifying.
I wonder how much variability there is in the product from batch-to-batch. Could one batch be producing unwanted by products at a much higher quantity than another batch?
Very unfortunate situation, but I'm doubtful that it's the bacteria causing it. As far as I can tell, it just doesn't produce enough formate. The body is pretty good at metabolizing formate, so it really only causes blindness from large, acute exposures, not smaller chronic exposure, AFAIK. Combine that with no other reports of blindness from other users of the Lumina probiotic, nor any similar issues appearing in rodent studies, and the bar for evidence is pretty high.
This article is entirely wild medical speculation, with a sample size of one, from someone who claims to have given away all of this Lumina product, and only using a bit of "residue". They also mention using a narcotic supplement with a history of contamination, which creates pretty good odds of other supplement and/or substance use.
The article is also from a blog that was only created 2 hours ago, and has this one post.
I'm not sure why this is all the way up the front page, but it seems very unwarranted.
The author also started taking Lumina only 3 months ago, while supposedly it takes 1–2 years to colonize the mouth. Isn't that a very aggressive timeline for severe side effects?
The fact that the blog was created just to post this is somewhat understandable if the author really believes they're in the situation they're in. It definitely sounds like a desperate cry for help. I agree there is a lot of speculation in the post, but that's also understandable if the person is experiencing something scary. I hope they're wrong and it sounds like there's a decent chance they could be.
Could be some sort of vitamin or mineral deficiency if I was to give you a positive angle, you really should check that as this >1% vs your other hypothesis. Check out nutritional optic neuropathy. Let us know
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[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 33.6 ms ] threadi'm yet to see an alcoholic whose regular "mouth washing" by ethanol leads to good teeth (despite ethanol being very powerful antiseptic) .
Methanol toxicity hits in the range of grams of methanol over a short period.
I have no idea how the bacteria are applied (oral rinse) but maybe enough got ingested to colonize the intestines? That could produce enough formate.
The article is also from a blog that was only created 2 hours ago, and has this one post.
I'm not sure why this is all the way up the front page, but it seems very unwarranted.