What
is becoming extremely clear is that the biology of our intestinal
tract needs to be optimized. The best way there is naturally and
with both fecal inoculations and probiotics were called for. The
conjecture that unnatural imbalances undermines health and is at the
root of a wide range of chronic diseases that pills refuse to deal
with is well developed and seriously compelling.
I
personally have generally had the lifelong constitution of a horse
with an iron gut. I also have experienced my share of infectious
diseases but always in the mildest form. But then I grew up on a
farm, drank raw milk, and had plenty of high quality vegetables and
even wild fruit and plants as available. I always browsed on nature.
Why
Over 400 Species of Bacteria In Your Belly Right Now May Be The Key
To Health or Disease
September
27, 2013
Karen
Foster, Prevent
Disease,Waking
Times
Trillions
of bacteria are hostile and can cause disease, while many others are
friendly and have established a symbiotic, mutually beneficial
relationship with us over the millennia. These friendly bacteria have
also been referred to as “probiotics” and are being used
increasingly by mainstream clinicians for both preventive and
therapeutic purposes. The literal translation of the word probiotic
is “for life.” A growing number of studies suggest that part of
what determines how the human body functions may be not only our own
genes, but also the genes of the trillions of microorganisms that
reside on and in our bodies.
Bacteria
Keep Us Alive
The
genomes of the bacteria and viruses of the human gut alone
are thought
to encode 3.3 million genes.
“The genetic richness and complexity of the bugs we carry is much
richer than our own,” says Jayne Danska, an immunologist at the
Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute in Ontario, Canada.
“They serve as a buffer and interpreter of our environment. We are
chimeric organisms.”
Problems
ranging from autoimmune disease to clinical depression and simple
obesity may in fact be linked to immune dysfunction that begins with
a “failure to communicate” in the human gut, scientists say.
Health care of the future may include personalized diagnosis of an
individual’s “microbiome” to determine what prebiotics or
probiotics are needed to provide balance.
A
role for gut microbes in gastrointestinal function has been well
documented since researchers first described differences in the fecal
bacteria of people with inflammatory bowel disease The molecular
mechanisms responsible for the gut microbiome’s impact on
metabolism and diseases throughout the body remain largely unknown.
However, researchers are beginning to decipher how the microorganisms
of the human intestinal tract influence biological functions beyond
the gut and play a role in immunological, metabolic, and neurological
diseases.
“Asked
about their immune system, most people might think of white blood
cells, lymph glands or vaccines,” said Dr. Natalia Shulzhenko,
author of a new report in Clinical
Reviews in Allergy and Immunology,
and assistant professor and physician in the OSU Department of
Biomedical Sciences. “They would be surprised that’s not where
most of the action is. Our
intestines contain more immune cells than the entire rest of our
body.
Early
research on microbiota focused largely on the commensal bacteria that
reside in the human gut. Commensal gut bacteria supply nutrients,
help metabolize indigestible compounds, and defend against
colonization by nonnative opportunistic pathogens.
The Good and The Bad
But
the distinction between “good” microbes that aid health and “bad”
pathogenic microbes that cause disease has become blurred in recent
years. Researchers have shown that under certain conditions, some
types of normal gut bacteria can trigger disease. Sarkis Mazmanian, a
microbiologist at the California Institute of Technology, dubbed
these elements “pathobionts”; the term “pathogens,” in
contrast, refers to opportunistic
microbes that are not normally part of the gut microbial community.
Disturbances
to the microbial equilibrium of the gut may mean that some microbes
become overrepresented while others are diminished. “It’s like a
garden–you’re less likely to have weeds growing if you have lush
vegetation, but without this vegetation the weeds can potentially
take over,” Mazmanian says. When the gut moves toward a state of
microbial imbalance, normally benign gut microbes may begin to induce
inflammation and trigger disease throughout the body, even in the
nervous system.
Researchers
have long postulated that gut bacteria influence brain function. A
century ago, Russian embryologist Elie Metchnikoff surmised that a
healthy colonic microbial community could help combat senility and
that the friendly bacterial strains found in sour milk and
yogurt would
increase a person’s longevity.
In
2011 Mazmanian and colleagues reported that
changes in gut microbial composition might have far-ranging effects
that extend to the brain.
Mazmanian
says, the microorganisms that colonize the human gut don’t leave
the intestine, but the immune cells that contact them do. He explains
that, although 70% of the immune cells in the body at any one time
can be found in the intestine, they circulate throughout the body,
and the microbiota of the gut environment help determine how immune
cells will behave elsewhere. He gives an example: “If T-cells,
while in the gut, are programmed by the microbiota to have
anti-inflammatory properties, then they may suppress inflammation
even after they leave the gut.”
Proteins,
carbohydrates, and other molecules shed by microbes also leave the
gut and may play a role in signaling disease. Studies have shown
these bacterial metabolites are pervasive throughout the body–in
the lungs, amniotic fluid, and breast milk, all tissues once thought
to be free of microbial communities.
Other
researchers have suggested a link between the gut–brain axis and
neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, depression, and eating
disorders. The gut contains microorganisms that share a structural
similarity with the neuropeptides involved in regulating behavior,
mood, and emotion–a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry. The body
can’t tell the difference between the structure of these mimics and
its own cells, so antibodies could end up attacking both, potentially
altering the physiology of the gut–brain axis.
The
Power of Probiotics
Probiotics
offset other intestinal bacteria that produce putrefactive and
carcinogenic toxins. If harmful bacteria dominate the intestines,
essential vitamins and enzymes are not produced and the level of
harmful substances rises leading to cancer, liver and kidney disease,
hypertension, arteriosclerosis and abnormal immunity. Harmful
bacteria can proliferate under many different circumstances including
peristalsis disorders, surgical operations of the stomach or small
intestine, liver or kidney diseases, pernicious anaemia, cancer,
radiation or antibiotic therapies, chemotherapy, immune disorders,
emotional stress, poor diets and aging
The
best known of the probiotics are the Lactobacilli, a number of
species of which (acidophilus, bulgaricus, casei and sporogenes)
reside in the human intestine in a symbiotic relationship with each
other and with other microorganisms (the friendly Streptococci, E.
coli and Bifidobacteria). Lactobacilli are essential for maintaining
gut microfloral health, but the overall balance of the various
microorganisms in the gut is what is most important.
Another
probiotic which has recently generated a great deal of interest is
the friendly yeast known as Saccharomyces boulardii, an organism that
belongs to the Brewer’s Yeast family, not the Candida albicans
group. S. boulardii is not a permanent resident of the intestine but,
taken orally, it produces lactic acid and some B vitamins, and has an
overall immune enhancing effect. In fact, it has been used
therapeutically to fight candida infections.
6
SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT MICROBES IN YOUR GUT
1.
What’s in Your Gut May Affect the Size of Your Gut
Need
to lose weight? Why not try a gut bacteria transplant?
New
research published in the journal Science suggests
that the microbes in your gut may play a role in obesity.
2.
Probiotics May Treat Anxiety and Depression
Scientists
have been exploring the connection between gut bacteria and chemicals
in the brain for years. New research adds more weight to the theory
that researchers call “the microbiome–gut–brain axis.”
Research
published in Proceedings
of the National Academy of Science shows
that mice fed the bacterium Lactobacillus
rhamnosusshowed fewer symptoms
of anxiety and depression. Researchers theorize that this is
because L. rhamnosus acts
on the central gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system, which helps
regulate emotional behavior.
L.
rhamnosus, which is available as
a commercial probiotic supplement, has also been linked to the
prevention of diarrhea, atopic dermatitis, and respiratory tract
infections.
Probiotics
work in many different ways by their production of antimicrobial
substances (organic acids, hydrogen peroxide, and bacteriocins) that
inhibit pathogen adhesion and degrade toxins produced by microbial
invaders. Probiotics resist colonization by competing for binding
sites as well as for nutrients with pathogens. In other words, they
crowd out pathogens like candida and harmful E. Coli.
Probiotics
secrete various proteins that stimulate the immune system both
locally and throughout the body, boost intestinal brush border enzyme
activity and increase secretory-IgA (a family of antibodies lining
mucous membranes). Enzymes like lactase, sucrase, maltase,
alpha-glucosidase, and alkaline phosphatase are enhanced by
probiotics. Cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels are metabolized
and lowered by healthy probiotic populations. Probiotics are able to
resist translocation, defined as the passage of pathogens from the GI
tract to extraintestinal sites such as the mesenteric lymph node
(MLN), spleen, liver, kidneys, and blood.
Benefits
of Probiotics
The
following are the most well documented benefits of taking probiotics
regularly:
- Weaken antibiotic resistant bacterial strains, attack new types of pathogens (supergerms) and infections in immuno-compromised people requiring treatment (i.e. resist opportunistic infections like candidiasis)
-
Manufacture B vitamins (biotin, B3, B5, B6, folic acid, B12) and
vitamin K
-
Secrete lactase, an enzyme required to break down lactose in milk
-
Act as anti-cancer factors (especially for bladder and bowel) by
inhibiting bacteria that convert nitrates into nitrites
-
Inhibit bacteria that secrete carcinogens
-
Function as natural antibiotics against unfriendly bacteria, viruses
and yeast like Candida albicans
-
Enhance bowel function and elimination; prevent constipation
-
Reverse diarrhea conditions (Crohn’s disease, AIDS, Traveller’s)
-
Reduce or eliminate bloating, gas, straining and abdominal pain due
to any cause
-
Prevent skin problems, especially acne and other skin infections.
(FYI – most chronic acne conditions in adults are often improved or
eliminated by a good bowel flora balance).
-
Protect against the adverse effects of radiation and pollutants
-
Reduce blood levels of cholesterol and triglycerides
-
Fight stress and food cravings and thereby prevent or reverse obesity
-
Help eliminate bad breath, Optimize sex hormone levels, enhance
fertility and prevent osteoporosis
-
Produce lactic acid, improve the digestibility of foods
-
Oppose putrefactive bacteria like bacteroides associated with a
meat-rich diet
-
Treat eczema, psoriasis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s Disease,
irritable bowel syndrome, all cancers, gastritis, duodenitis,
diverticulitis, food allergies, lactose intolerance, environmental
allergies, urinary tract infections, vaginitis, other chronic
infections (TB, AIDS, Herpes, venereal diseases) and autoimmune
diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica,
ankylosing spondylitis, psoriasis, lupus, alopecia areata,
scleroderma, thyroiditis, etc.)
Probiotic
Sources
Cultured
dairy products like yogurt, acidophilus milk, buttermilk, sour cream,
cottage cheese and kefir are the best known food sources of friendly
bacteria. Equally effective probiotic food sources include
cultured/fermented vegetables (cabbage, turnips, eggplant, cucumbers,
onions, squash, and carrots). Other, lesser known or used food
sources of probiotics are sauerkraut and sourdough breads. Ideally,
one could get a good supply of probiotics from one or more of these
diverse foodstuffs. If dietary sources are not easily available,
supplemental probiotic powders and capsules are good alternatives.
Choose a brand that has at least 3 different strains of friendly
bacteria and between 6 — 15 billion live organisms.
About
the Author
Karen
Foster is
a holistic nutritionist, avid blogger, with five kids and an active
lifestyle that keeps her in pursuit of the healthiest path towards a
life of balance.
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