It would seem I was influenced by an earlier post today[1]. That post talked about research indicating that microbiome diversity was important&#x2F;healthy.<p>While article of this post mentions that the linked study showed a change in composition and diversity, the abstract itself just mentioned a reduction of a particular beneficial group of bacteria:<p><i>Additionally, metagenomic predictions based on 16S rRNA gene amplicon data were performed using PICRUSt. The salivary microbiome was found to be significantly more robust, whereas the antibiotics negatively affected the fecal microbiome: in particular, health-associated butyrate-producing species became strongly underrepresented.</i>[3]<p>Which I guess makes the assumption even simpler: greatly reducing a group of healthy bacteria from your gut for a while qualifies as messing it up.<p>Also the earlier article I read[3] does in fact posit that a reduction of diversity through diet change is in fact bad. Of course there is still a debate about the truthfulness and magnitude of that statement.<p>[1][3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10552477" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10552477</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mbio.asm.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;6&#x2F;6&#x2F;e01693-15.full.pdf+html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mbio.asm.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;6&#x2F;6&#x2F;e01693-15.full.pdf+html</a> [iFrame + PDF]<p>Edit: Italicized the quote, clarity