Great Blog: Cooling Inflammation

[Zizzle]

Interesting Jon! I'm actually avoiding onions because I tested reactive to them on MRT. They are a high FODMAP food too, so they tend to cause bloating etc. But I do use onion power, shallots, and lots of garlic with no trouble.

[Polly]

Hi Z and all!

Interesting blog....thanks for sharing. And so appropro, since the cause of colitis to begin with is thought to be an imbalance of "good" vs. "bad" bacteria in the gut......apparently the immune system stops recognizing "good" bacteria and attacks it, allowing the "bad" bacteria to overgrow. This is believed to happen for a number of reasons - antibiotics, type of diet, PPIs, HRT, NSAIDs etc.

Anyway, I am intrigued to see that the recommendation is for a less diverse diet......that a less diverse diet is more beneficial to the gut flora. As you know, I have multiple sensitivities, so my diet is quite limited to begin with. One of the "rules" I have heard again and again is that it is important to rotate one's diet, at least every three days, to lessen the chance that another sensitivity will develop. Is this even true? Does anyone know of any studies that support this recommendation? It would be so much easier for me to eat the same things every day or two and not have to worry about rotating.

Polly, your fellow Marylander

P.S. Are there studies that demonstrate that the bacteria in fermented foods (including water kefir) can survive the stomach acid and actually get to the gut?

[ldubois7]

Polly,
Speaking from personal experience, I don't have enough safe foods to rotate my diet. I'm not eating any fruits or veggies at this time. I eat the same thing everyday, but I do rotate my meats in a 3 day rotation.
I am healing & I have to agree with Tex and his rotation theory, because I've been doing this for months & haven't developed any new sensitivities.

Also, water keifer has yeast ....that's why I haven't tried it yet. Have you added yeast back into your diet?

[JFR]

Polly,

I only eat a relatively few foods and I don't rotate them. It doesn't seemed to have caused any problems. I have not developed any new food sensitivities.

Jean

[tex]

One of the "rules" I have heard again and again is that it is important to rotate one's diet, at least every three days, to lessen the chance that another sensitivity will develop. Is this even true?

Not as far as I'm concerned (as you probably recall, from some of my past posts, and from the book). The best that a rotation diet can possibly do is to postpone an inevitable reaction if any of the foods in the rotation are causing the production of antibodies. As we know (thanks to Dr. Fine), antibody levels continue to climb over time, with continued exposure to antigens. Eventually those antibody levels will become high enough to exceed the threshold for a reaction.

And as I pointed out on pages 156–157 in the book, this is almost surely the reason why so many people believe that they continue to develop sensitivities on an ongoing schedule. While it's true that the foods in question don't actually trigger a reaction early on, that's simply because our antibody level is not yet above the threshold for a reaction.

Eventually, if we continue to eat the food, our antibody level will break through the minimum threshold to trigger a reaction, and we will begin to react. Similar to a disease that exists, but cannot be diagnosed, until the markers become severe enough to meet the criteria for a diagnosis, we are sensitive to those foods early on, but our markers (antibody levels) are not high enough to trigger a diagnosis (reaction).



Zizzle,

Sorry — I still haven't found the time to read the articles at the links that you posted. I'll try to get that done before the week is over, hopefully.

Tex

[Zizzle]

Check this out. NIH awarded $1.4 M to a food allergy researcher who is identifying a protective strain of bacteria. We're finally getting somewhere.

http://blog.foodallergy.org/2014/01/27/ ... nih-grant/

Incidentally, my friend who's been on a quest to treat her daughter's autism is going to a specialist in "autistic enterocolitis". He said all his patients share one thing in common in their medical history...ear tubes. We know that means multiple rounds of antibiotics in infancy...

My daughter's food allergy began after a year with 4 rounds of antibiotics for strep throat. The severity keeps improving the longer sgo goes without antibiotics.

My rash started when I had taken 3 rounds of antibiotics for mastitis. Can it be this simple? Our bacteria don't get a chance to repopulate before the next insult? I think so.

[gluten]

Hi Zizzle, That is good news about the grant. Jon

[tex]

Zizzle,

Okay, here's my take on those references that you cited earlier in this thread:

But before I start, I'd like to point out that your claim that my gut was not totally free of bacteria after my hospital treatment is unfounded and incorrect, because if what you say is true, it would not have taken many months for them to become well established. As fast as bacteria multiply, they would have repopulated my gut within only a few days. That obviously did not happen. Do the math.

Now for the articles that you cited: In the first article, the author apparently doesn't understand how IBDs work. He appears to be lost, and fumbling in the dark. He implies that a lack of mucus production causes retarded healing. Nothing could be further from the truth. All IBDs stimulate copious amounts of mucus production. It's an inherent part of the disease. So the propensity of whipworms to "spur mucus production" is definitely not the key to their ability to suppress autoimmune-type reactions. A more likely explanation is that the whipworms trigger an immune system response that includes a different set of enzymes in the mucus, and one or more of those enzymes provides a signal that leads to the attenuation of the lymphocytic infiltration, thus suppressing the self-perpetuation aspect (the autoimmune type event) associated with the disease.

Then he goes on to say that the mucus amounts to "a growth medium for our indigenous bacteria". And he says, "When we stop producing it, we not only lose a very necessary barrier between ourselves and our microbes, we select for a different microbial community entirely, one that’s less friendly."

But no one ever stops producing intestinal mucus (as long as they are alive). Mucus is essential to the survival of the mucosa (that's why it's called the mucosa). Mucus is always present, with or without any IBD, or worms. Reading his remarks, he is simply lost. He's attempting to explain something that he apparently knows absolutely nothing about, and one of the first rules of education is that you can't teach what you don't know.

Farther down in the article, he talks about kids having compromised gut bacteria balances, and he claims that to be the cause of leaky gut. He blames that on them not having enough mucus in their gut. He proudly proclaims that mucin is a glycoprotein abundant in mucus. Hell, mucus is simply mucin + water. there's nothing complicated about it. The goblet cells in the mucosa produce mucin, and when it mixes with water in the colon, it produces mucus. What could be simpler than that? Gut bacteria and/or worms are totally unnecessary for that transformation — all it takes is mucin and water. Looks as though he's still lost.

But here's the real kick in the gut: The optimism expressed in the article was apparently nothing more than a brave face, because it was all flushed down the toilet soon after he wrote that. Have you seen this news release:

The German partner of Coronado Biosciences has terminated a clinical trial of Trichuris suis ova -- a whipworm parasite of pigs -- for Crohn's disease because of a lack of efficacy.

This action was taken because of a recommendation of an independent data monitoring committee, which noted that no safety concerns had arisen during the study, known as TRUST-2.

The committee conducted a second interim analysis of 240 patients who had been treated for 3 months in a phase II study conducted by Dr. Falk Pharma GmbH.

Coronado chief executive officer Harlan Weisman acknowledged that the company wasn't surprised at the disappointing results, because its own double-blind trial, TRUST-1, of helminth treatment in Crohn's also had shown inadequate efficacy.

WTF? These guys are just playing games and wasting time and money, pretending to be scientists. The red emphasis in that quote is mine, obviously.

Worms Flop in Crohn's Disease

OK, so much for that article. On to bigger and better things:

The second reference has similar problems. The author starts out talking about the fact that humans have 2 genomes, our own and our gut bacteria. Apparently he's oblivious of the fact that we have zillions of species of parasites living in virtually every nook and cranny of our body. Just the number of species living in or on our skin alone is enough to boggle the mind, and that trend is replicated everywhere you look. So if he wants to count parasite genomes as human, then why on earth does he think that we only have 2 of them?

So then he points out that transplanting gut bacteria from fat mice into the gut of germ-free mice makes the germ-free mice fat. Frankly, that doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that you apparently think that's a good thing (since you believe that gut bacteria are so beneficial for us, and they're essential to good health.) If you ask me, we would be much better off without them. I say exterminate the little buggers.

Note this quote from the article:

However, the most interesting finding to come of this ongoing research is the fact that germ-free mice do not gain weight when fed either a high fat or regular chow of the same caloric content. This is counter to experiments that reveal that a high fat diet promotes obesity in mice possessing a full suite of gut bacteria.

That's a pretty solid indictment against the little so-and-so's, isn't it. According to what he says, they digest fiber in our gut, and convert it into fat. I'm thinking it's time to round up a posse and lynch 'em all. Why wait until they kill us all with obesity.

So he observes that a high fat diet is supposedly an inflammatory diet. And then he points out that the reason why it is inflammatory is because gut bacteria create lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from fat in our diet. So this means that virtually all of our digestive problems, weight problems, and self esteem can be traced not to our diet, but to those little blighters living in our gut.

So let me see if I've got this straight . . . The germ-free mice prove that without gut bacteria we can eat anything we want and never get too fat. On the other hand, if we have gut bacteria, then we have to rely on gut bacteria not only to keep us from getting fat, but we supposedly need Bifidobacterium, to keep us from loading up with LPS (which is pro-inflammatory) if we allow any fat in our diet. Well duh! It appears to me that if it weren't for gut bacteria, we could eat virtually anything we wanted and never have to worry about getting fat, or anything else. And you want to nurture them and breed more? What on earth are you thinking?

I find the following quote in the article to be a "bait-and-switch" maneuver. He's writing an article about a paleo diet, but he sneaks in a neolithic observation in a convoluted attempt to prove a point about the paleo diet. Shame on him.

In a paper I published in the British Journal of Nutrition, a colleague and I noted that archaeological evidence from dry cave deposits in the northern Chihuahuan Desert reveal inulin-type fructans from the desert succulents agave and stool were a primary carbohydrate for at least 10,000 years. Evidence from ancient cooking features, stable carbon isotope analysis of human skeletons, and well-preserved coprolites and macrobotanical remains reveal an average daily intake of 135 g of prebiotic inulin for an average adult male.

Trust me, if you and I were living in the northern Chihuahuan desert, we would probably be eating cactus and agave too, and maybe even sand, because there's not much else to eat out there except for an occasional rattlesnake or Gila monster. You eat whatever you can find when you're stuck in a place like that, in order to keep your stomach from chewing on your backbone. You can't afford to be picky. The point is, modern or neolithic diets have nothing to do with a paleo diet, because so many of them are corrupted, for various reasons.

All in all, needless to say, I can't see where either of those articles did much to advance the scientific knowledge base, but maybe I missed something.

Tex

[Zizzle]

Tex,
I'm not able to comment on the scientific validity of the posted articles. I trusted the source and figured these are researchers well beyond my level of training or comprehension.

The point here is that gut bacteria and other parasites are inevitable. Perhaps a sterile gut would be ideal, but it's simply impossible, so our job is to make sure we are living with the friendliest combination of gut inhabitants we can assemble.

Yes, certain gut bacteria can contribute to obesity. I don't think I carry them, thankfully. Yet feeding nonstop antibiotics to cattle and poultry hastens their growth and makes them fat. How can that be? Antibiotics should make us all thin by your logic, yet the opposite is usually the case. Why? Because antibiotics leave us with a compromised, less than ideal variety and number of gut flora inhabitants. Chances are certain pathogenic, fat-causing ones survive, and the friendlies die. In fact, I believe researchers are very close to identifying which gut bacteria contribute specifically to obesity.

So yes, I am adding untold zillions of bacteria and friendly yeasts into my system every day, with the belief that the friendly ones are crowding out the resident pathogenic ones (albeit temporarily, while I continue the daily dose) and I'm certain it's making a big difference for me.

[Zizzle]

BTW, here's a story about a whipworms study where 75% of Crohn's patients achieved remission. Perhaps they were using a different variety of whipworms??

http://www.m.webmd.com/crohns-disease/n ... ns-disease

Sadly, pinworms are not protective:
http://www.jwatch.org/jg201202030000001 ... gainst-ibd

[tex]

Yet feeding nonstop antibiotics to cattle and poultry hastens their growth and makes them fat. How can that be?

I don't see any mystery here. Antibiotics prevent livestock from developing disease or infections (just as they do in humans), and since feellot animals eat a high carb diet, designed to put on weight in a hurry, they get fat. what's so mysterious about that?

Antibiotics should make us all thin by your logic, yet the opposite is usually the case. Why?

Whoa! You're confused. You're misinterpreting how antibiotics are used in livestock feed. The levels of antibiotics in feed are quite low — just enough to minimize the risk of disease or infection. The amount is nowhere near therapeutic levels, so if you were to bring in a sick animal, and try to cure his infection with conventional antibiotic-laced feed alone, you would be sadly disappointed to see the animal's condition continue to deteriorate. Effective treatment would require separate intervention, in order to deal with the existing issues. So obviously, those antibiotic treatments are at least several orders of magnitude below the level that would be needed to have any significant effect at all, on gut bacteria. So the performance of feedlot cattle that are exposed to feed that contains antibiotics does not offer any form of proof, regarding any conjecture about the effects of gut bacteria on fat retention.

But since you allude to this, I would surmise that a long-term antibiotic regimen, using the proper choice of antibiotics, could indeed eventually bring weight back down to one's normal, healthy level (by eradicating gut bacteria). Any volunteers for the trial?

So yes, I am adding untold zillions of bacteria and friendly yeasts into my system every day, with the belief that the friendly ones are crowding out the resident pathogenic ones (albeit temporarily, while I continue the daily dose) and I'm certain it's making a big difference for me.

That's basically what all proponents of probiotics and prebiotics say, and yet most never seem to actually reach a condition of stable, long-term remission, which is exactly what probiotics are supposedly designed to do. Many of them pretend to be in great health, but are they actually being candid? Instead, far too many continue to develop additional autoimmune diseases (all the while extolling the virtues of probiotics). What's wrong with this picture?

That old story about Professor Weinstock's research from 10 or 15 years ago was what started all the speculation about using helminth therapy to treat autoimmune conditions. If you search the archives, you can find where I posted about it at various times over the years. Yes, intestinal worms can resolve most autoimmune-type diseases.

Unfortunately, if intestinal worms were such wonderful gut guests, they never would have been sent eviction notices about a century ago, when they were still quite common in many parts of this country. The feeding and care of intestinal pets of the helminth persuasion is not as much fun as some folks picture. A gut full of worms most definitely comes up a little short of being Shangri-la. The best that can be said of them is that they may be better than living with certain autoimmune-type diseases.

However, worms have absolutely nothing to do with gut bacteria, so I fail to see how they are relevant to this discussion.

Tex

[Lilja]

There is a new trend here in my neighborhood, people who call themselves "Traditional Food Idealists".

Among other things, they claim that it is not the milk in itself that make people sick, but the pasteurization and the homogenization of the milk.

Also, they claim that "everybody" can tolerate fermented milk-products, they even claim that fermented milk and fermented meat is super-food for human beings, and that people with gastrointestinal problems will recover from their diseases by eating fermented food.

I tried to ferment industry-milk last year with success, and I did tolerate it, but I never could make it to the countryside to collect raw milk directly from the cows.

One day, when my colitis has calmed down, I will give it a new try.

[tex]

Also, they claim that "everybody" can tolerate fermented milk-products, they even claim that fermented milk and fermented meat is super-food for human beings, and that people with gastrointestinal problems will recover from their diseases by eating fermented food.

They are quite wrong. In fact, they're full of it. Fermented milk is yogurt. Anyone on this board who is sensitive to casein definitely cannot eat yogurt without producing antibodies.

Tex

[Lilja]

I think you are right, Tex.

I received an e-mail from Amazon, saying that your book will reach Oslo on October 17th. That is quite a long shipping time, but of course that is not your fault. I look forward to receiving it.

Lilja

[tex]

That's ridiculous. They could send it to the moon faster than that.

If you would like for me to send you a PDF or digital copy attached to an email, so that you can be reading it in the meantime, just let me know which type you would prefer.

Tex