GUT HEALTH: GRASPING ITS IMPORTANCE GOES A LONG WAY TOWARD SOLVING YOUR CHRONIC PAIN AND CHRONIC ILLNESS
GUT HEALTH is arguably the single most important aspect of your health, and involves two separate yet distinct aspects — THE INTESTINAL BARRIER SYSTEM and your MICROBIOME. Today we are talking about some of each.
Your microbiome is the name given to the number and type of the various species of BACTERIA, MOLD, virus, YEAST, fungus, PARASITES, etc, that live in and on your body. And while it might sound disgusting, a healthy microbiome not only keeps you healthy, but has been shown by peer-review to be potentially capable of reversing a wide array of chronic conditions, while a Dysbiotic Microbiome (a microbiome made up of too many “bad” bacteria, or more accurately, the improper ratio of bacteria and other organisms to each other) can literally destroy you, being a causal factor in almost every (NON-GENETIC) disease that has thus far been studied.
I’ve previously shown you studies where scientists have taken obese mice, transferred feces from healthy mice into their bowel and made them thin (Fecal Microbiota Transplants otherwise known as FMT), then turned right around and reversed the process, making them fat. This process has been done with other diseases as well. Just listen to some of the cherry-picked results of a study (Transplantation of Fecal Microbiota From Patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Alters Gut function and Behavior in Recipient Mice) by two dozen researchers, gastroenterologists, immunologists, and physicians from around the world, and published in the edition of Science Transnational Medicine that hit the shelves just three days ago……..
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the most common gastrointestinal disorder worldwide, is characterized by abdominal pain and altered gut function and often is accompanied by anxiety. An association between intestinal dysbiosis and IBS has been reported, but the functional relevance remains unknown.
To evaluate a functional role for commensal gut bacteria in IBS, we colonized germ-free mice with the fecal microbiota from healthy control individuals or IBS patients with diarrhea (IBS-D), with or without anxiety, and monitored gut function and behavior in the transplanted mice. Microbiota profiles in recipient mice clustered according to the microbiota profiles of the human donors.
Mice receiving the IBS-D fecal microbiota showed a taxonomically similar microbial composition to that of mice receiving the healthy control fecal microbiota. However, IBS-D mice showed different serum metabolomic profiles. Mice receiving the IBS-D fecal microbiota, but not the healthy control fecal microbiota, exhibited faster gastrointestinal transit, intestinal barrier dysfunction, innate immune activation, and anxiety-like behavior. These results indicate the potential of the gut microbiota to contribute to both intestinal and behavioral manifestations of IBS-D and suggest the potential value of microbiota-directed therapies in IBS patients.
Allow me to help you break this down and digest it because what just happened in this abstract is nothing short of amazing proof that the “healers” of generations gone by were correct all along — “All health begins in the Gut: Heal the Gut, Heal the Body“. The first thing I want you to understand is that IBS is an autoimmune disease. AUTOIMMUNITY simply means that your body has, for various reasons, decided to start attacking itself in some capacity. Also be aware that this is frequently precluded by sensitivities to GRAINS, most particularly Gluten-containing grains (HERE).
Although we tend to think of Dysbiosis in terms of having too many bad bacteria and not enough good, this is only partly true. Just remember this simple little ditty — “Ratios Rule”. It’s not so much about the absolute numbers of the various strains of organisms as much as it is about having them present in the correct ratios.
Anything (I mean anything) that fouls up these ratios, has the potential to adversely affect your health (ANTIBIOTICS of course are the worst, but ALL DRUGS act as antibiotics, as can even VITAMINS in certain circumstances). DYSBIOSIS is the name given to the state of having fouled up ratios of bacteria in your digestive tract or on your body (which means folks — it’s very possible to be “TOO CLEAN” — both inside and out). Just realize that Dysbiosis is bad on levels that we are just beginning to figure out.
The researchers took groups of people with and without IBS, transplanting their feces into the bowels of GMO mice that were bred to be “germ free” (they had no bacteria of any sort in their innards). After an amount of time, stool samples of these mice were looked at, and not surprisingly, knowing what we know of FMT, were found to match that of their human donor. Interestingly enough, the IBS group and control were similar taxonomically, meaning that they grossly had the same species of bacteria in their guts. However, probably due to subtle differences in ratios, they differed differed dramatically in their Metablomic Profiles.
Your Metablome is everything (I mean everything) found in whatever sample you happen to be looking at. So, as opposed to the bacterial profile (numbers and species of various bacteria), the Metablome would describe the “Small Molecule Chemicals” found within any given sample of tissue, fluid, etc, etc, etc. The defining factor of what makes a “Small Molecule” small (less than 900 Daltons), is that it not only has a low molecular weight and a very tiny molecular size, it is small enough to diffuse across cellular membranes.
Oh; I almost forgot to mention; not only is the Metabolmic Profile looking at the makeup of certain sugars, Organic Acids (think OATS TEST here), Vitamins, Nucleic Acids (DNA & RNA), Fatty Acids, ANTIOXIDANTS like GLUTATHIONE, amino acids, cellular metabolites, etc, etc, but the Metablome consists of artificial or exogenous chemicals as well (chemicals from outside the body). This means that DRUGS, XENOHORMONES, and the huge array of potential toxins (HERE’S A FREAKY ONE to contemplate) are also part of one’s Metablome. As would make sense, most drugs are purposely manufactured to be very small (under 500 Daltons) so that they readily diffuse into your cells.
The result was that the the IBS mice had “faster GI transit times” (can anyone say diarrhea? — which along with periodic bouts of CONSTIPATION, is the hallmark of IBS). The IBS mice also showed “intestinal barrier dysfunction“. This describes the flip side of the Gut Dysfunction coin —- Leaky Gut Syndrome. And here’s the bite about LGS. Not only do the majority of the medical profession pooh pooh its very existence, be aware that there will be other “Leakies” likely tagging along with (Leaky Lung, Leaky Brain, Leaky Cord, Leaky Nerve, etc, etc (HERE). And finally, “activation of the innate immune system“.
Your immune system is not only made up of bacteria (AT LEAST 70% AND AS MUCH AS 80%) as well as GLIAL & MICROGLIA, but it is made up of generalized chemical responses. Although it’s way oversimplified, think of your innate immune system as INFLAMMATION — the group of chemicals and WBC your body manufactures in order to deal with various sorts of tissue damage (as opposed to Adaptive Immunity, which would describe the antigen / antibody response).
The end-product of this mess? By transplanting the dukie from unhealthy people into germ-free mice, the researchers created — whallah — IBS; complete with the anxiety (not surprisingly, both ANXIETY & DEPRESSION) along with everything on THIS LIST are considered “inflammatory” diseases. The astute among you should be salivating at the not-so-hidden potential in this study. If scientists can do such amazing things transplanting unhealthy dukie, what might happen if they decided to transplant healthy dukie into unhealthy mice — or maybe even unhealthy people?
It’s already been done folks, and for the love of Pete; if you have serious chronic illnesses or weight issues (especially if you have a history of EVEN A TINY AMOUNT OF ANTIBIOTICS), don’t walk away without reading to the end. Get on the bandwagon and start studying FECAL MICROBIOTA TRANSPLANATION.
I have provided you tons of peer-review, all laid out in a neat and orderly fashion, including what to look for in a donor, as well as DIY advice (for the record, the advice is not mine and I would never recommend anyone try this on their own without the express written consent from their doctor — although the world wide web abounds with stories of people doing just that). It’s why the generic protocol I have provided you (free of charge of course) has FMT as part of it (HERE — HERE’S a cool post on Functional Medicine as well).
As a special bonus to various friends and patients dealing with MS (or for that matter, PARKINSON’S, ALZHEIMER’S, EPILEPSY, or whatever), make sure to look at these specific posts on the topic (HERE, HERE, and HERE, along with a post that carries a short video from a physician with MS that pulled herself out of a wheelchair nearly two decades ago — DR. TERRY WAHLS — just by changing her diet). As a special bonus, even though the authors of today’s study concluded their study with the promise of using their data to create, “microbiota-directed therapies,” HERE is why probiotics (which BTW, I am a fan of) can never be a tiny fraction as effective as FMT for truly sick individuals.
