Category Archives: Blog: MS

IBS, Microbiome, Fodmaps, Probiotics

SUMMARY:   Bottom Line of this post: You want OFF the IBS diseasepan!  WHY? Because — putting aside pain, bowel issues, and bloat — IBS can alter the brain size and function in the emotion and sensory processing areas when having it a long time along with early life stressors [Labus et al., 2017], it is associated with A LOT of diseases, and there are A LOT of surgeries performed inappropriately because of misdiagnosis or poor manangement of IBS!  DISEASES that are associated with IBS  — the listing is NOT  comprehensive — includes:   Type 2 Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, IBD, CFS/ME, autism, anxiety, depression, MS, and Parkinson’s.  Inappropriate SURGERIES occurring due to IBS  misdiagnosis includes —  appendectomy, cholecystectomy, ovarian, and hysterectomy.  See below for All of those links. There are lots of ways to get off the IBS diseasespan!  Learn in this post that it is YOUR choice:  IBS, Microbiome, Fodmaps, Probiotics, Mindfulness-based stress reduction, Cognitive behavioral therapy works… or targeted drugs!  Or not drugs — because of the poor efficacy of that current US standard of care:  “The physician should also emphasize the chronic nature of this syndrome [IBS] because nearly 75% of patients continue to have a diagnosis of IBS 5 years later.13  [Occhipinti et al., 2012].   Many different drugs have been suggested for IBS treatment, but their real benefits are very debatable.”  [Bellini et al., 2014].   Don’t be surprised.  In 2012, the FDA changed the endpoints of those drug studies to stop being only one endpoint because of how multi factorial IBS symptomolgy is, and the Bristol Stool Chart — defining what is a ‘normal BM’ (which you’ll learn in this post) — despite being around since 1997, is only now being validated, 2016!  Contrast all this to the UK British Dietetic Association guidelines for IBS — low FODMAP diet is the second-line intervention [Catassi et al., 2017]  [McKenzie et al, 2016]   [UK evidence-based practice guidelines for dietetic management of IBS in adults 2012 PDF]) as it helps about seventy-six percent of IBS patients  [Magge et al., 2012]  [Bohn et al., 2015]   [Staudacher et al., 2011] and yet, it has come under attack with the current US standard of care still NOT recognizing the FODMAP diet (see this post).  A rebuttal to all the rift recently published in 2017, authored by Monash University ressearchers, the creators of the FODMAP diet.  See  [Hill et al., 2017]  To piggyback the diet fix, studies continue to find that probiotics might be something to think about for some cases of IBS — see  [Whiteley, 2016].  Wondering about IBS and what early life stressors might mean?  That group had more history of early life trauma (general trauma (31 items), physical (9 items), emotional (7 items), and sexual abuse (15 items)) AND they had longer duration of IBS symptoms.  [Labus et al., 2017]  While we can’t change our early life stressors, there are lots of ways to tackle IBS using diet, probiotics, mindfulness-based stress reduction, cognitive behavioral therapy and targeted drugs — according to the Monash rebuttal [Labus et al., 2017].  Now you know!  Protect brain size and function, avoid potentially needless surgery and improve your disease status by fixing IBS; LISTEN to your gut!  Unbelievable… check out the global prevalence of IBS:

Click here to read full article

Defy Autoimmune Psoriasis: Green Tea, Black Tea, Lemon Juice Antioxidant

SUMMARY:  Plenty of studies find anti-inflammatory effects of dietary antioxidants such as green tea for chronic disease.  Even in IBD patients, who have a very messed up microbiome (a finding of the American Gut data), the  benefits of antioxidant therapy is well documented (see below studies).  Read here about a simple EASY N=1 hack for one IBD patient that shut down a mild psoriasis skin flare that began two years ago.  They flared psoriasis, but not the autoimmune IBD, eating strict healing diet Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) probably due to a gluten/sugar airborne exposure.  The hack that worked for stopping psoriasis: Green Tea, Black Tea with Lemon Juice antioxidant blend!  I share their recipe here!   It is simple enough that you may want to add it to your immune calming anti-inflammatory arsenal too!  Make sure to see below for why it is important to NOT drink Green Tea for antioxidant benefit along with Iron.  

Click here to read full article

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 NutritionAbbott Laboratories and Consultant: AbbVie Pharmaceuticals!

Click here to read full article