The thing about probiotics is that they are very popular right now, and also very heavily marketed. You see them on the labels of everything from soft drinks to cereal. I kid you not!

I do have some concerns that not all probiotics are as safe as people are led to believe. Everyone has a different immune system and a different digestive profile. It’s impossible to know how food allergies play out on the microbial scale.

More to the point, a little known fact is that probiotics can affect appetite and weight. I’m not saying that they are a substitute for the new anti-weight loss drugs–and please don’t use them that way–but I have noticed some effects. To many these would be welcome, but I happen to have a positive body image so I found it more than a bit perturbing. More to the point, there might in fact be some danger here. Especially for people who don’t have a lot of food in the house, whether due to food security issues — despite all the jokes about fat Americans, hunger is far more prevalent in this country than people realize — or because when you are sick, it is difficult and expensive to shop for yourself.

As far as what I came down with at the beginning of the year, I’m still not sure that my current diagnosis (chronic sinusitis) conveys the full picture. I don’t think it’s bird flu, although it does fit the symptom list. It is almost certainly a bacterial infection. I say this because getting prescribed antibiotics at the beginning of April made a huge difference in my health. I still had to be on them for over a month. The good news is that as of my last doctor’s visit, I was told that I did not need to quarantine or social distance. That is a huge and welcome change.