Similarly, this headline makes it sound like all autoimmune diseases stem from gut bacteria. That sounds unlikely.

Having one autoimmune disease increases the likelihood that you have or will develop another one. They also have cross-reactivity on tests.

For instance, false positives on the TTG/IGA for celiac are 2% for healthy patients, but rise to 20% for subjects with type 1 diabetes.

Celiac patients have a drastically higher rate of Hashimoto’s, autoimmune thyroid disease: https://www.newsmax.com/t/newsmax/article/718160?keywords=ce... and also the liver disease cited in the article: https://www.verywell.com/celiac-disease-and-liver-diseases-5...

Celiac patients also suffer higher rates of MS: https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com/2015/05/14/celiac-dis... MS doesn’t seem gut related on the surface, but you can get almost identical neurological symptoms from celiac. I know because this is what drinking beer does to me.

So, the roots of all of these diseases could definitely be related.

> So, the roots of all of these diseases could definitely be related.

Well, yes, but by definition they already have one connection at the root: the immune system. So increased comorbidity could also be explained by having a kind of immune system that fundamentally is more likely to develop auto-immune diseases.

This is not the only research regarding microbiome and autoimmune disease. While this article states that their findings seem most promising for Lupus Nephritis, there are recent articles that point to other microbes which are relevant to rheumatoid arthritis: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160711151315.h... and https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/gut-mic... among many others with the search "rheumatoid arthritis and gut microbes". See this for MS https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-germs-appear-... This is my all time favorite that just came out in Nature which shows that anti-inflammatories may contribute to slow growth of beneficial gut microbes. I have identified at least two first line DMARD's used in rheumatoid arthritis that are mentioned in this article. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02780-x?utm_sourc... So, while autoimmune diseases amy not stem from gut bacteria, there is definitely some relationship about which we need to learn more.

Quote “the research team found that they could suppress autoimmunity in mice with an antibiotic or a vaccine aimed at E. gallinarum.”

The titles vague to the point of clickbait.

On topic, there is much going on with bacteria. My hunch is this could be a large research area for the next couple decades. We’re talking about a system composed of trillions of individuals and an unknown (but large) number of species and all their interactions. I’m sure there will be bacterial “combinations” that in certain situations are helpful and others deadly, for instance.