Is MC Caused By A Bacterial Infection?

[mle_ii]

Gloria,

The combination not only upset the balance, it almost surely "cleaned house". Levaquin is a broad-spectrum antibiotic that is often used when the target pathogen is unidentified, and Flagyl is used to treat anaerobic bacteria such as C difficile, and certain parasites, (among other things). Anyway, the point is, the combination probably pretty much wiped out all the flora and fauna residing in your gut, so that it had to start over and establish a new population of bacteria from scratch.

Despite the fact that Norman returned after five weeks, I'd bet a GF cookie that some pathogen got a toe-hold immediately following the initial antibiotic treatment, and triggered the MC. The remission after five weeks could have been spontaneous, as sometimes happens.

IMO, it is irresponsible for doctors to prescribe antibiotics for the GI tract, without offering advice on taking a suitable probiotic immediately afterwards, in order to encorage the re-population process to proceed in the right direction. Very, very few of them seem to offer that advice, presumably due to not either knowing any better, or simply not caring.

Tex

I agree Tex. Though the one part about recommending probiotics after antibiotics is a great idea it seems that I've yet to read about a probiotic that one can take that actually takes hold and inhabits the digestive tract after you discontinue. I'd really like to read a study that sugests a suitable probiotic for this. Though I do admit I always have my daughter consume yogurt with bacteria while taking an antibiotic. She's yet to turn that down. :)

[Gloria]

I did eat yogurt while taking the antibioitics. I used to eat yogurt for lunch every day, but obviously it didn't help. Maybe it wasn't enough to combat the strong combination. Sometimes the yogurt is near the expiration date and the bacteria isn't as effective.

I wrote that I took the combo for 2 weeks; I checked and it actually was 1 week. My daughter with IBS told me to stop taking it as soon as I started the D. I called the Dr. and he told me the D had nothing to do with the antibiotics, which I now know isn't true. I wish I'd listened to my daughter instead of my doctor.

[Pat]

I think it is irresponsible for doctors to give antibiotics for the gut (for MC) without first giving patients the hydrogen breath test to see if they even need the antibiotics!!!! There is a huge over use of antibiotics given for other reasons too!!! Fortunately there are some doctors that realize this and are starting to not give them out so freely.

Pat

[Polly]

Another reason for not using antibiotics so liberally.........apparently some antibiotics actually inactivate the body's own mechanism for fighting foreign invaders - specifically those AMPs (antimicrobial peptides).

Polly

[mle_ii]

Another reason for not using antibiotics so liberally.........apparently some antibiotics actually inactivate the body's own mechanism for fighting foreign invaders - specifically those AMPs (antimicrobial peptides).

Polly

Hi Polly, wonder if you could ask Dr Lewey what probiotics are found to actually populate the gut rather than just pass through. Like I said, various studies seem to indicate that most only seem to work while you take them and thus aren't taking hold in the gut and repopulating the gut.

Thanks,
Mike

[mle_ii]

Here's more food for thought.

Cyclooxygenase-1 suppresses lipopolysaccharide-induced changes in rat gastric inducible nitric oxide synthase.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1821 ... stractPlus

OBJECTIVE: Both nitric oxide synthase (NOS) and cyclooxygenase (COX) have inducible isoforms that are up-regulated during inflammatory states. However, the interaction between these enzymes is not clearly understood. The objective was to clarify the interactions between NOS and COX in the rat gastric mucosa in the presence and absence of lipopolysaccharide. DESIGN: Laboratory study. SETTING: Medical school laboratory. SUBJECTS: Female Sprague-Dawley rats. INTERVENTIONS: We used nonselective and selective COX inhibitors to determine the role of COX on inducible NOS (iNOS) expression in the gastric mucosa. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The nonselective COX inhibitors salicylate and indomethacin enhanced the expression of iNOS in the rat gastric mucosa and exacerbated gastric injury in the presence of lipopolysaccharide, effects reversed by exogenous prostaglandin E2. Selective COX-1 inhibition with SC560 similarly increased gastric iNOS expression and exacerbated gastric injury, while the selective COX-2 inhibitor NS398 had no effect on iNOS expression or gastric injury in the presence of lipopolysaccharide. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that COX-1 derived prostaglandins exert an inhibitory effect on gastric iNOS during endotoxemia, and this may represent a potential cytoprotective mechanism not previously recognized for this enzyme, since up-regulation of iNOS is deleterious in some tissues.

And how does this relate to MC. Well one of the drugs associated with a potential cause of MC are NSAIDs (asprin, ibuprophen, etc). NSAIDs are a COX1 inhibitor. Here we see that these drugs cause inhibition of the gut to decrease iNOS. iNOS is elevated during bacterial overgrowth. Elevation of iNOS causes intestinal damage/inflammation.

Another thing that had me wondering was what purpose the collagen in collagenous colitis. So looking it up I see that collagen is involved in connective tissue, ok interesting, but why does it form there where it's not really supposed to. Well collagen is also involved in forming scar tissue. Wow, now this was interesting, perhaps something folks here already knew, but was news to me. So how does this relate. Well, it does seem that CC is more difficult to treat, worse symptoms and some studies seem to indicate that LC can evolve to CC.

So we start with some irritant to the GI system (and obvously I'm thinking bacteria, though it could be other things), the body fights it off by using inflamation (which might show as LC, only lymphocytes) eventually if it's not treated it gets worse and dammages more tissue, eventually scar tissue is formed and we end up with might show as CC. Just a theory, but seems likely.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

[mle_ii]

And here's a smack against consuming processed foods with bacterial overgrowth (the study is specific to Crohn's but the mechanism has got to be similar in SIBO).

Dietary microparticles implicated in Crohn's disease can impair macrophage phagocytic activity and act as adjuvants in the presence of bacterial stimuli.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1787 ... stractPlus

OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN: Western diets regularly expose the gastrointestinal tract (GI) to large quantities ( > 10(12)/day) of man-made, submicron-sized, particles derived from food additives and excipients. These are taken up by M cells, accumulate in gut macrophages, and may influence the aetiology of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). MATERIALS: We investigated the effects of common dietary microparticles on the function of macrophages from healthy donors or active Crohn's disease (CD) patients. METHODS: Macrophages were incubated for 24 h with microparticles before being assayed for cytokine production and phagocytic activity. RESULTS: Microparticles alone were non-stimulatory but, in the presence of bacterial antigens such as LPS, they could act as adjuvants to induce potent cytokine responses. Uptake of high concentrations of microparticles also impaired macrophage phagocytic capacity - but not their ability - to take up 2microM fluorescent beads. CONCLUSIONS: While dietary microparticles alone have limited effects on basic macrophage functions, their ability to act as adjuvants could aggravate ongoing inflammatory responses towards bacterial antigens in the GI tract.