Have We Been Overlooking Boron?

[tex]

Hi All,

An email from a friend of a member who wanted to post an update but couldn't remember his log-in information, inspired me to do a little research on boron. If you read his previous posts, you'll see that he initially treated his MC with diet changes similar to the rest of us, and then later he switched to the FODMAP diet. Here's what he wanted to post about boron:

MICROSCOPIC COLITIS AND BORON
I came down with microscopic colitis on my 80th birthday. I treated it dietarily for a year, basing my choices mostly on the food map study. Things began to improve after about 8-9 months- gradually getting a little better. I stopped losing weight and I started adding foods to my diet. After 14 months I discovered the enormous benefits of boron (used in the form of borax) as an anti-inflammatory. I have been free from symptoms of microscopic colitis for about a year and a half
and can eat anything I like. I am back to normal. So far as microscopic colitis is concerned, boron- being a natural anti-inflammatory and free from side effects- was like a magic bullet!

A lifetime supply costs less than $10. It's easy to use and all details and how to use it can be found on internet under boron conspiracy/nutritional overview.

'The Potty People' member Lloyd House

Here's a link to The Boron Conspiracy blog that he mentions:

The Borax Conspiracy

Here are links to all of his previous 3 posts, in case they might be of interest.

Questions about Imodium

Does anyone have information on fecal transplant for mc?

Old codger back to health without Entocort

After checking out a few online resources I discovered the following interesting observations about boron:

While all cells of the body probably contain some boron, it's found to be concentrated in the bones, the thyroid, and the spleen. And of course it's quite common for minerals to be concentrated in the tissues and organs that most often use them. Bearing in mind that the spleen provides important functions for the immune system, I find it more than a little interesting that compromised functioning of all 3 of these items are very frequently closely associated with MC. As we are all very aware, osteoporosis is a very common problem, due to the gluten sensitivity associated with MC, and according to our informal poll, we are approximately 7 times as likely to have thyroid problems as someone in the general population.

So could it be that our boron level has gone the same way as our vitamin D and magnesium levels? I don't know about you, but to the best of my knowledge, no doctor has ever ordered a test to check my boron level. Here are a couple of references, if you are interested in reading more about boron:

Musings from the Chiefio - Boron

Mineral Resources International - BORON

Tex

[louis]

interesting read. And i certainly believe that he is free from MC symptoms, but the fact that he can eat anything he likes sounds too good to be true. One hidden mineral surely cant be the answer to the toxic influence of gluten to the body. Or does he mean eatung anything he likes, besides the intolerances.

[jlbattin]

Very interesting............not sure I want to try it, but it sounds intriguing! Thanks for sharing.

[tex]

interesting read. And i certainly believe that he is free from MC symptoms, but the fact that he can eat anything he likes sounds too good to be true. One hidden mineral surely cant be the answer to the toxic influence of gluten to the body. Or does he mean eatung anything he likes, besides the intolerances.

He says that he can now go to potluck dinners without worrying about what's on the menu, so apparently he means that he can eat anything.



Tex

[Lilja]

This sounds interesting, but I wouldn't risk trying it.

And, from what I have been able to find out, it would be hard to find in any legal outlet, and there must be a reason for that.

I can remember that my parents would rince the sores on my knees with boron, when I was little.

Lilia

[Blueberry]

Interesting read about boron/borax helping with many diseases, including possibly MC. If I wasn't doing so well with the gut of late, I'd look into trying it. I was thinking too that indirectly suggestions mentioned on the boron linked sight overlap with mentions made here.

Yesterday I read a somewhat similar article about viewing some diseases as infections instead of autoimmunity. Dr. Mercola interviewed a former patient of his that used to have crippling rheumatoid arthritis. He brought up that treating RA was a passion of his, treating over 2000 patients, and felt conventional treatment with immune hurting prednisone was incorrect. Better and healthier results could be found when treating the condition with diet and a few supplements.

"Inspiring Account of How to Put Rheumatoid Arthritis into Remission"

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... ssion.aspx

snippets from his article:

Dr. Brown's Protocol

...The book she's referring to is The Road Back: Rheumatoid Arthritis, its Cause and its Treatment, written by Dr. Thomas McPherson Brown and Henry Scammell. Dr. Brown was a well-respected board-certified rheumatologist (he passed away in 1989), but he was a rebel.

He didn't agree with the use of prednisone, which was the standard of care for RA in the '40s and '50s. He believed RA was an infection caused by mycoplasmas, so he used the antibiotic tetracycline instead.

Eventually, he modified his treatment to more potent discriminating forms of tetracycline, such as minocycline. Dr. Brown ultimately helped bring over 10,000 patients into remission. I first saw his work in a 20/20 special done shortly before he died in 1989, and it really inspired me. I decided to study his work, began using his protocol on RA patients in my practice, and was really impressed with the results. Eventually I modified the protocol to the point where I abandoned antibiotics altogether....


....Vitamin D is a really important component. It stimulates 200 to 300 anti-microbial peptides that are even more powerful than antibiotics, which help improve and regulate your immune system and fight infections. Sarah, as many others with RA, noticed her symptoms were at their worst during the winter, and would often dissipate during the summer. This is what you call a giant clue that vitamin D is at work...

Invariably, unless you're aggressively addressing your vitamin D level with sun exposure or supplementation, your blood levels of vitamin D will drop to dangerously low levels sometime in January, February, or March, when sun exposure is at its lowest. Optimizing your vitamin D is extremely important, I typically recommend RA sufferers to get their levels checked every month, in order to fine-tune the dosage they're taking.

[tex]

And, from what I have been able to find out, it would be hard to find in any legal outlet, and there must be a reason for that.

Yes, it's tightly regulated as a pharmaceutical product (for some unknown reason, because one would have to consume a surprisingly large amount of it in order to get a toxic overdose). However, it is widely available (at least in this country) as a laundry detergent booster — 20 Mule Team Borax has been around for many generations. And surprisingly, the cheap product is basically just as pure as most pharmaceutical grade products. How about that?

Speaking of home remedies, ever have a problem with cockroaches moving in? Borax is by far the safest, cheapest, easiest way to get rid of them. Simply place a few "bait stations" consisting of small piles of borax here and there, where cockroaches hang out, and they will promptly eat themselves to death.

Tex

[jlbattin]

I'm just curious, Tex, what your thoughts are to all of this. I realize that you are in remission, but is it something you might have tried at one time? Any of the rest of you?

[tex]

Hi Jari,

No, I've never tried it. I have a hunch that one would have to be in a very unique situation for a single element such as this to erase all food sensitivities. The problem is that in order to remove gluten sensitivity, certain genes would have to be reprogrammed, and that would be a monumental task, considering our current miniscule knowledge about gene manipulation.

That said, I can visualize at least a couple of situations where such an apparent reversal might be possible. The first would be a condition where food sensitivities are caused by either medications or a possible nutritional, vitamin, or mineral deficiency. Many medications are known to trigger MC symptoms, but to the best of my knowledge, drug-induced MC can only be reversed (without permanent food sensitivities) if the drug is discontinued within a relatively short period of time following the onset of symptoms. The longer the symptoms remain untreated, the lower the chances that avoiding the drug will completely resolve all symptoms.

To date, no known nutritional, vitamin, or mineral deficiencies exist that (in the absence of other environmental conditions) can trigger MC. Such deficiencies can significantly increase the risk of developing MC, but an environmental trigger is required (in addition to the deficiency). And even if such a possibility did exist, it doesn't necessarily follow that resolution of the deficiency would eliminate the MC symptoms,. That doesn't work (more often than not) for drug-induced MC, so why would it work for a diet deficiency? However, we can't rule out the possibility (however remote) that the correction of a diet deficiency might reverse food sensitivities. Maybe that happens in 1 case in a million, for example. There are exceptions to every rule, so we have to allow for exceptions, even though the statistical odds might be very low.

The most likely scenario (IMO) is the development of tolerance to food sensitivities. This is a rather common phenomenon. There are many asymptomatic celiacs, for example. And there are probably some other possibilities that I can't think of at the moment. I myself developed a tolerance to casein by slowly reintroducing it into my diet a number of years after I achieved remission. But there are no free lunches, and after an EnteroLab test showed that I was producing antibodies to casein, I cut casein back out of my diet and lo and behold, my osteoarthritis symptoms slowly faded away.

IOW, there can be subtle indications that something is still wrong, but we can easily convince ourselves to overlook those symptoms if we want to justify our current diet. For example, osteoarthritis symptoms do not force one to pay attention to one's diet the way that uncontrollable D would do. In fact, most people wouldn't even associate osteoarthritis with their diet. If I weren't a strong believer in the long-term damage potential of untreated inflammation, I could have easily convinced myself to continue eating dairy products, because my osteo wasn't exactly debilitating. But antibodies are produced by the immune system for a reason, and they result in a state of persistent inflammation. A state of persistent inflammation does not bode well for long-term health. Long-term inflammation is associated with the development of additional AI diseases, and other undesirable outcomes.

So I reckon what I'm trying to say is that even though I believe the statistical odds of reversing food sensitivities are rather low, nothing surprises me anymore, because the human body can be very adaptable. And of course, there can be many other possible explanations for phenomena that we perceive to be true, but they might actually be illusions resulting from other issues.

Tex

[dfpowell]

With the availability of Boron in capsule form it would be easy to give it a try. It would be nice to know more about Lloyd's gut history, as there could be other variables that have helped him get into remission. Maybe he was one of the lucky ones who has a spontaneous remission.

[tex]

Hi Donna,

Yes, spontaneous remission is certainly a possibility.

Tex