SUMMARY: The ‘blue/black white/gold dress‘ incident is a really good way of acknowledging that people see and perceive things differently and one way is not necessarily superior to the other. I see and appreciate this in every diet conversation I have. I focus a lot on diet; but lifestyle tweaks help many achieve wellness when clean diet isn’t enough. Initial microbiome studies show that stress can result in changes to the gut microbial community, specifically bacteria in the genus Lactobacillus are consistently reduced. If clean diet isn’t enough, move onto stress busters that data shows literally reduce inflammatory markers — affirmations and meditation do such.
Category Archives: Blog: Microbiome
IBD CAM, LDN, probiotics, SCD… & Integrative Medicine benefits gut health
SUMMARY: IBD CAM “Probiotics, Special Diets [SCD], and Complementary Therapies: We Know Patients Want Them, So What Do We Tell Them?“ was presented at the Dec. 2014 Advances in IBD conference, by Dr. Sandra Kim, MD, who noted, “SO CERTAINLY THERE IS SOME PROMISE IN AT LEAST THINKING ABOUT THIS.” Now that’s a first!!! At least one conventional doctor is encouraging her peers to seriously educate themselves about IBD CAM, LDN, probiotics, SCD… and Integrative Medicine and to ask their patients if they are interested in them, using them and if so, what do they use, and to actively seek funding for further study of them! And… Dr. Kim has disclosure of conflicting interests — Speaker: Nestle Nutrition, Abbott Laboratories and Consultant: AbbVie Pharmaceuticals!
IBD Crohn’s: SCD increased microbiome diversity but Low Residual Diet reduced diversity
SUMMARY: Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) increased microbiome diversity in Crohn’s patients. The pediatric and adult IBD clinics at UC Davis Medical Center (Sacramento, CA) conducted the study, Analysis of Gut Microbiome and Diet Modification in Patients with Crohn’s Disease, and here, found:
- SCD increased microbiome diversity whereas the low residual diet (LRD) decreased microbiome diversity. Interestingly, the SCD diet included an increased microbiota representation of F. prausnitzii, an anti-inflammatory commensal.
- Patient diet COMPLIANCE was about 80%, and
- The SCD MICROBIOME DIVERSITY REMAINED despite a 30 day washout between diets.
Given that it is now understood that IBD is associated with reduced microbiome diversity, perhaps this aspect of SCD (increasing microbiome diversity) explains the success many find using SCD to manage IBD as well as heal other illnesses. The followup post, NICE, EATING SCD INCREASED F. PRAUSNITZII… HUGH?!? explains the significance of F. prausnitzii in the microbiome.
IBS: FODMAPS, Stomach Microbiome, Rifaximin Antibiotic Treatment, seriously?!?
SUMMARY: Learn impact of FODMAPS, Stomach Microbiome, Rifaximin… FODMAPS Diet helps over 70% of IBS likely because long term diet changes the microbiome in the stomach & gut. FODMAPS isn’t a life long diet; you reintroduce & learn your individual dosing limits.
Many now realize the need, if not necessity, to transition to a whole foods diet.
Foods from restaurants or cafeterias, prepared foods (even at sites considered healthy such as Whole Foods), and the obvious boxed foods make it tough for consumers to avoid caloric dense non nutritive foods with industrial seed oils and added chemicals, pesticides, and GMOs. The diet — health connection is becoming apparent; many suffering chronic disease(s) are trying to change diet and lifestyle to improve health and wellness. Eating whole foods can be daunting but the safest bet is making it yourself and to do so in quantity so as to make this lifestyle change sustainable:
Dr. Rob Knight updates: IBD microbiome skew & San Diego move
SUMMARY: Dr. Rob Knight updates: IBD microbiome skew and his San Diego move including the American Gut Project!
I follow a lot of microbiome researchers (see the page USEFUL MICROBIOME LINKS, The Labs section).
The Knight Lab (University of Colorado Boulder) is a personal favorite; Knight is a frequently cited Google Scholar Alert as he is a leading expert on microbiomes and bioinformatics. This page links to their research publications as does this page.
Dr. Rob Knight, recently left University of Colorado, Boulder to join the UC San Diego School of Medicine. With this move, microbiome research very well may be accelerated beyond the breakneck speed it is now.
Colon Cancer, Biofilm, Bacteria, Probiotics Role
SUMMARY: New Colon Cancer, Biofilm, Bacteria, Probiotics ROLE in Colon Cancer findings out of John Hopkins: biofilms are present in 89% of tumors (13/15 cancers & 4/4 polyps) removed from right ascending colon, but only in 12% of tumors on the left side (2/15 cancers and 0 polyps).
Most colorectal cancers are known to develop slowly, over five to 10 years, “and it’s a disease that’s curable if you diagnose it early,” says Cynthia L. Sears, M.D., professor of medicine and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. Well… therein lies the rub as the gold standard test, colonoscopy, many do not do. Additionally, as discussed in the post, “YOUNG ADULT NEWLY DIAGNOSED COLON & RECTAL CANCER DOUBLES BY 2030,” there is an alarming increase in colon cancer among the young who typically do not have colonoscopy.
Roundup in our food glyphosate and disease: autism, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, gmo, intestinal gut…
SUMMARY: Roundup on your yard means runoff in your garden, from you or your neighbors use. It’s ubiquitous in the restaurant and grocery food chain hidden in ingredients: corn, soybeans, canola, and cottonseed oil, and meat from alfalfa-corn-soy eating animals and their other byproducts. It’s found in our urine and breast-milk and cattle’s tissues: intestine, liver, muscle, spleen, kidney, and bone .
What’s the harm of eating ubiquitous glyphosate? Dr. Stephanie Seneff asserts that the glyphosate and disease link is: autism, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and the gmo intestinal gut having related digestive system disorders leading to disease… In simpleton, glyphosate exposure impairs detox pathways through the microbiome including the liver’s P450 enzymes. Toxins taken onboard are not sufficiently eliminated from the body. Gyphosate kills beneficial gut bacteria allowing pathogens to grow; it interferes with the synthesis of amino acids including methionine which leads to shortages in critical neurotransmitters and folate; it chelates (removes) important minerals like iron, cobalt, manganese, and much more.
Avg numbers and kinds of microorganisms consumed in a day
SUMMARY: Surprisingly, only a narrow range of microbes has been researched to date, mainly microbes involving disease or probiotic types. Little is known regarding what microbes actually exist in our food, their quantities, or even how much they vary for the differing diets (or even meal to meal for that matter!) This study estimated the total numbers and kinds of microorganisms consumed in a day by an average American adult for three differing diets: Average American Diet, USDA, and Vegan.
Crowd Sourcing DNA Sequencing for Autism
“Lots of things are mysteries. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an answer to them. It’s just that scientists haven’t found the answer yet.” – Christopher John Francis Boone, “If you put 10,000 people’s genomes in the cloud, could you demystify autism?”
It’s happening! Cancer and autism is leading the way… “Medicine will soon rely on a kind of global Internet-of-DNA which doctors will be able to search on Goggle’s cloud platform. “Our bird’s eye view is that if I were to get lung cancer in the future, doctors are going to sequence my genome and my tumor’s genome, and then query them against a database of 50 million other genomes. The result will be ‘Hey, here’s the drug that will work best for you.’ ”“
Alzheimer’s Diet, Microbiome, & Bio-marker Predictors
SUMMARY: Learn the latest on Alzheimer’s Diet, Microbiome, & Bio-marker Predictors. Such is welcome news as the latest Alzheimer’s Facts & Figures show that over 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s, including an estimated 200,000 under the age of 65.
By 2050, the number of people age 65 and older with Alzheimer’s disease may nearly triple, from 5 million to as many as 16 million. Truly, Alzheimer’s is one of the diseases most feared in my talks; it is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. The estimate is that by age 64, one in 8 will have Alzheimer’s. That rate doubles every 5 years. So by age 70, one in 4 will have Alzheimer’s. And by age 75, one in 2 will have Alzheimer’s. These stats are from a 2013 interview of Dr. Thomas Wisniewski, @ time 25:30: “Brains – The Latest Research 07/01/2013 – 08:04” (NYU Langone Medical Center Audiocast, SirusXM Dr. Radio programming), who’s lab, Dr. Thomas Wisniewski’s Lab, is one of the leading Alzheimer research labs.