DNA analysis is allowing the identification of bacteria that was impossible or very difficult in the gram negative/positive days. We’re seeing studies that are showing correlations between the gut biome and autoimmune diseases. As you said medical science is an art. It’s not a straight forward application of physics like engineering. We’re beginning to understand the universe that each of us comprises including about a trillion human cells and a hundred trillion microbiota.
We have made great advances, but again, I deal with numbers and reality.
I am very skeptical of the great claims of being just around the corner. I know to many people working in that field, and they are not as (shall we say) hopeful as the press is.
Gut biology is a big deal. But that isn’t new. That has been known in animal husbandry for a long time. My father fed what would today be called probiotics to out cattle when feeding corn or after a round of antibiotics for a sick calf (the only time we DID use antibiotics in those days).
Large farms abandoned that practice because if you are raising 40,000 head, it is all about pounds per day of gain, and not health of the animal. The goal was to get the animal to the packer the week before it dies of a liver abscess. The older methods take to long, and cost to much.
It is the same way with the topic of the article. A lot of health has to do with activity, diet, and lifestyle. My old doctor would look at my Xrays, and say “Red, you shouldn’t have broke all those bones as a young idiot. You are going to have pain now the rest of your life”.
My new doc keeps trying to push pain pills when I come in. I don’t want pills, I want to know why knee sounds like Rice Krispis when I walk all of a sudden. The pain is just background noise.