Maybe it IS a GI bug and not MC/food intolerance after all

Polly · Post by **Polly** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 7:54 pm

Evenin' Friends!

Many times someone here is having an acute GI problem and we always think it must be due to the good old MC or a food indiscretion and not to a GI bug. Well, listen to this!

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that in a given year, 76 million Americans become sick, more than 350,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die from foodborne illness due to infection.

WOW! I had no idea it was this common, did you? And here I always thought that we had a very safe food supply. Maybe some of our little flares are due to these GI bugs, all of which cause D and other yukky symptoms.

Love,

Polly

grannyh · Post by **grannyh** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 8:00 pm

Sure makes it difficult to keep up with colitis when you never know if the food germs have done you in or you are having a flare...
grannyh

Matthew · Post by **Matthew** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:34 pm

Polly

Yes, it is a bit grotesque thinking about how that might be so true.

On the other hand we have found in the research by members here that being “to clean” , with all the antibiotic soaps as an example, may be just as bad if not worse in that they eliminate all bacteria, including those that might do us the most good.

And then of course , Why just us? I am pretty convinced that a long time low level intolerance to gluten sent my immune system into overdrive. So if it is true that we quite often run into contaminated food it seems reasonable that since I was in overdrive I would be the first to react. I was very lucky to find Dr. Fines tests before things got much worse even though the test showed that I had some malabsorbtion problems already. I am so amazed that the longer I am eating for my intolerance's the better things get.

So for me, I presume that the answer to the the question “Why just me?” might very well be those those gallivanting genes that I got from my German mother and Scots/ Irish father.

I can’t think in anyway that it is a bad thing in that I avoid all those grains, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup on and on... that it is so advised not to eat. Pretty simple not to eat them when you can’t .

We could end up in a worse place couldn’t we ?

Love

Matthew

CAMary · Post by **CAMary** » Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:59 pm

I have a friend who studied fermentation science in college @ UC Davis and worked in the food industry, as a scientific researcher...

She believed there was *no such thing* as a stomach flu - and that episodes of GI upset were *always* a reaction to the bacteria in the foods we consume....and why some people would become ill and others not from any given meal? She believed it was because everyone's gut was colonized differently - sort of akin to how we get sick from drinking water when traveling abroad, but the locals don't....

Interesting idea - not sure if it holds water - but this is probably one of the smarter people I know....

Mary

artteacher · Post by **artteacher** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 1:26 pm

I'd encourage everyone to read "Consumer Reports" article on chicken rates of contamination. Granted, the chicken will be perfectly fine to eat if it's cooked to the proper temp, but you can pretty much be sure the chicken you buy at the store, especially if it's organic or free range, is contaminated, which means you have to be very careful preparing it to avoid germs on your hands, countertop, other foods, etc.

Marsha

Post by **tex** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 2:19 pm

Hi Marsha,

I've been aware of the problem for decades, and I would assume that most consumers have been aware of it for a long time, (or am I wrong?). What I don't understand is why "we" continue to buy it. Would we buy any other product if we knew that it was almost certainly contaminated with a pathogen that would very likely make us sick if we didn't do everything exactly right during the preparation and cooking process? I don't think so.

Yet this has been going on for years and years. I assume their price advantage over other meats is what encourages us to play "salmonella roulette", despite the fact that we should know better. Obviously their PR people have done a much better job of promoting the product than their counterparts in the beef and pork industry, for example - USDA forces those poor guys to try to keep their meat sanitary, while the chicken industry practically gets away with murder. (Remember when Tyson was accused of the apparently wide-spread industry practice of bribing USDA inspectors - all the way up to the Secretary of Agriculture?

I haven't looked up the "Consumer Reports" article on chicken rates of contamination, but did you know that the vertically integrated megaproducers of chicken, change the rations of the broilers they feed, so that during the last two weeks of growing, corn is substituted for milo, in the ration. The reason for this is because milo is cheaper than corn, but if they leave it in the ration as the slaughter date approaches, the contents of the lumen in the chickens, (we all know that that is), will leave unsightly black specks all over the meat of the finished product, (and people might think that the meat is contaminated. LOL).

IOW, as the chickens are eviscerated, the process is so high-speed, that you-know-what gets squirted/splashed/smeared all over everything, and if the chickens somehow escape being contaminated there, they will be when they hit the dirty wash water, that all the other contaminated chickens go through. Anyway, the point is, if they finish the chickens on corn, you can't see any black specks. (They're flesh colored specks, instead).

Tex

annie oakley · Post by **annie oakley** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 4:54 pm

It's all pretty scarey if you think long and hard on it.......I guess that is why I truly like eating the deer meat. I'm sure that all foods that are processed especially chicken and beef are at risk for contanmination (forgive spelling, long day) I have never had any problem with the deer meat.....But then again the issue of cooking it prpoerly comes into play. And Myabe I have just been locky. I have eaten chicken twice in the last two weeks and have had no problem....and I am not sure I want to read about how quickly meat gets contanminated (bury the head syndrome) but I need to read about it, where are some sites? Love Oma

starfire · Post by **starfire** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:01 pm

Many years ago (my kids were young) 60 Minutes had a program about chicken processing. I didn't see it myself but a couple of people told me that after watching it they couldn't stand the thought of eating it.

This is going back even longer but my Grandmother used to work at a chicken processing plant. The only time she would eat chicken was when she killed and dressed it herself.

I'm not trying to put anybody "off" chicken. I eat it and I love chicken, but do be careful.

Love, Shirley

Post by **tex** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 7:49 pm

Oma,

Here are a couple of sites:

http://birdflubook.com/a.php?id=23

http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_ ... 02278.html

Love,
Tex

mle_ii · Post by **mle_ii** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:20 pm

Matthew wrote:Polly

Yes, it is a bit grotesque thinking about how that might be so true.

On the other hand we have found in the research by members here that being “to clean” , with all the antibiotic soaps as an example, may be just as bad if not worse in that they eliminate all bacteria, including those that might do us the most good.

And then of course , Why just us? I am pretty convinced that a long time low level intolerance to gluten sent my immune system into overdrive. So if it is true that we quite often run into contaminated food it seems reasonable that since I was in overdrive I would be the first to react. I was very lucky to find Dr. Fines tests before things got much worse even though the test showed that I had some malabsorbtion problems already. I am so amazed that the longer I am eating for my intolerance's the better things get.

So for me, I presume that the answer to the the question “Why just me?” might very well be those those gallivanting genes that I got from my German mother and Scots/ Irish father.

I can’t think in anyway that it is a bad thing in that I avoid all those grains, trans fats, hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup on and on... that it is so advised not to eat. Pretty simple not to eat them when you can’t .

We could end up in a worse place couldn’t we ?

Love

Matthew

Hey Matthew,

You touched on something that I've recently been pondering. I've been wondering more and more about genetics and human potential. Started thinking about this after watching a show about a family in Turkey that had children who walked on thier hands and feet they even grew into adults and still walked on their hands and feet. They did all sorts of studies, genetic, neurological, chemical, developmental. The scientists were thinking along the lines of reverse evolution going on among other crazy ideas.

I forget the exact phrase but it has something to do with the simplest idea is usually the correct one. Well, guess what the problem was, when the babies started crawling on their hands and feet the parents didn't do anything about it, so they continued to walk this way. They didn't develop the area of the brain that allowed them to walk on just their feet. In other words the genes that create the machinery in the brain to develop this weren't turned on. In fact the scientists decided to give the folks (now adults) walkers like you see with older people, and guess what they started being able to walk after doing it over and over and over again. Even more, one adult male who was the oldest they thought would never walk, guess what, by the end he too was walking without a walker. He was stumbling around like he was a toddler or drunk, but he was walking.

So where am I going? Well, perhaps some gene isn't being turned on in us or some gene that isn't normally on is being turned on. What might turn on a turned off gene? Well I can think of lots of things. One of which you alluded to, a low intollerance to gluten that is triggered over and over and over again. Or perhaps it's some bacteria missing in the colon that switches the cells, or even abnormal levels of or types of bile acids.

In the case of gluten allergy, what would the genetic machinery of the body be told to build? Well, one that would respond to that pathogen more and more signifcantly each time until it is "killed". In the case of gluten what kills it is not our bodies per se, but removing it from the diet. Though the diarrhea would be one good mechanism for getting it out of the body.

In the case of bacteria, the genetic machinery would be told to ignore certain types of non leathal pathogens. Very much simplifying here, but you might get the idea. In fact the bifidobacterium does all sorts of amazing things for us that our bodies don't do, given that this is one of the most numerous it's effect on our bodies is pretty substantial.

In the case of bile acid, this would definetly change the genes, how can the body stay in homeostasis so well? Well by changing what the machenery of the body does until it is set right. One mechanism again is to get rid of cholesterol via not absorbing it, it gets to the colon and the triggers diarrhea thus eliminating it from the body.

I start to think more and more about the true human potential. Look at what autistic (think Rain Man) type people are able to do with their brains. Who knows, perhaps with the right trigger and using certain parts of our brains over and over we too can have photographic memory, read 2 pages of a book at the same time in literaly seconds and retain 90% of it, do mathematics that normally require calculators all in our heads. I'm also guessing the physical machenery of our bodies is significantly untapped.

Wow, did I ever ramble there. Well, that was fun. Thanks for reading.

Mike[/code]

Peggy · Post by **Peggy** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 2:22 pm

Matthew wrote:

On the other hand we have found in the research by members here that being “to clean” , with all the antibiotic soaps as an example, may be just as bad if not worse in that they eliminate all bacteria, including those that might do us the most good.

Matthew

I'm not sure if you remember the fellow who was trying to introduce pig worms as a remedy for colitis. Not that I agree with his whole way of thinking, or rationale as it were, but he felt our diet was becoming more and more "too clean".

I still don't want any worms unless they're floating in the bottom of a bottle

and I'm pretty sure if I ever found one there I'd dump him out!

Hugs
Peg