Gut Flora Risk and Repair

….All 190 posts here….

The two most important contributors to health are diet and gut flora.  All of the other contributors, such as exercise, genetics, environmental toxins, hygiene, etc. are of minor importance.  A healthy diet, such as The Anti-Inflammatory Diet that I recommend on this blog, is simple and relatively easy to follow after weaning from the Standard American Diet.  One version of the healthy diet is just eating meat, fish, eggs, dairy and plenty of vegetables, but avoiding vegetable oils and grains.  Most people will be healthy with that general diet, but if and only if, they also have a healthy gut flora that is adapted to the food they eat.

Most people make themselves sick by not matching their gut bacteria to what they eat, so let me repeat the main point of this article:

You will get sick if the bacteria in your colon can’t digest your food.

And sick means allergies, autoimmunity, cancer, etc.

Read and Heed or Dead

What Killed American Gut Flora?

There are hundreds of different species of bacteria growing on partially digested food (soluble fiber) in your colon.  Americans are sick, not because they are too poor to buy food, but because they have the worst, i.e. least diverse, gut flora in the world.

Do:  We pick up, recruit, eat new bacteria and repair our gut flora by:

• touching surfaces, people, pets, etc. and putting our fingers near our mouths,
• eating live fermented food, or semi-clean vegetables,
• not cooking/killing/sanitizing all of the bacteria around us,
• eating probiotics and transferring some of their genes to our gut flora.

Don’t:  We wipe out or reduce the diversity of our gut flora by:

• using inappropriate hygiene that kills the bacteria we need for health,
• taking antibiotics that kill gut flora and compromise our immune system,
• trying to eat a wide variety of foods, which is counterproductive and only permits a few varieties of bacteria to survive.

Hygiene Kills Beneficial Bacteria

Nothing comes from nothing…  For bacteria to come out, bacteria must go in.  You have to eat bacteria to extrude them by the pound.  Each day a single bacterium growing and dividing in your gut once per hour will produce a million daughter bacteria (24 doublings, estimate that doubling two, ten times is about a thousand, and 1000X1000= million.)  So if you mixed a milligram (about the size of the period at the end of this sentence) of gut bacteria with ample food, you would have a kilogram (pounds) of bacteria by the end of the day.  Similarly, it takes about a day for a single bacterium applied to a petri dish of nutrient agar to produce a colony weighing about 10 milligrams.  The point here, is that a single bacterium that makes it through the acid bath of the stomach can be a major player in your colon in a couple of days.  This is a very good thing.  We want to kiss babies, because babies systematically vacuum up bacteria from the darkest  of corners and with shameless generosity present them in an irresistible pucker.  We need those bacteria, and so do the babies.  Hygiene, e.g. antibacterial hand soap, bleaching surfaces or closing toilet lids isolates people from potential sources of beneficial gut bacteria. 

Traditional Food is Fermented (with Live Bacteria)

Shockey

In most cultures, extra food is mixed with something like salt or spices to kill local problem microbes and then bacteria are permitted to grow.  The result is fermentation of the sugars available in the food with production of organic acids, e.g. vinegar, that stop the growth of other bacteria that might grow on protein and cause objectionable flavors.  Homemade fermented veggies contain a wide variety of happenstantial bacteria that can adapt to productive gut growth.

Cooking Kills

We cook to dissolve and soften foods.  Meat can be eaten whole and our stomach enzymes will easily digest the protein and fat to provide all of our nutritional needs.  The only plant material that can be digested by our enzymes is starch.  The rest of the plant requires cooking to make the protein available and the remaining carbohydrates, soluble fiber, require digestion by hundreds of different enzymes produced only by microorganisms.  Cooking will release soluble fiber to feed gut flora, but it also kills bacteria, so some raw foods must be eaten to make sure that the gut is always supplied with fresh bacterial recruits.  Cooked or pasteurized foods do not contain live bacteria and are not useful as sources to repair gut flora.

Probiotics are not Gut Flora

Commercial probiotics are made from bacteria used in dairy products (dairy probiotics) or bacteria used to make enzymes in other products, such as laundry detergents.  

These bacteria can be repackaged and sold as probiotics, because they have already been tested for toxicity.  These bacteria don’t normally grow in the gut and if you swallow them, they just pass through.  These “probiotics” can temporarily provide some of the functions of gut flora, because they are bacteria, but they don’t grow in the gut.

Gut Flora are Bacteria Created in the Gut

Gut bacteria produce chemical signals that coordinate the metabolism of food by hundreds of different species of bacteria.  We call these chemical signals vitamins, because humans extract the vitamins from the bacterial biofilms that always line the gut, so humans don’t need to produce their own vitamins.  Gut flora can produce all of the vitamins that we need, so it is not surprising that multivitamins do not provide any health benefit and concentrated vitamins my be harmful by disrupting normal metabolism of gut flora.  Biofilms also promote the exchange of genes between different species of bacteria, so the concept of species does not actually apply to gut flora, where new species are rapidly being created.  A common example of this process is the curing of lactose intolerance by simply eating small amounts of live yogurt for a couple of weeks.  The cure results from the transfer of a gene that produces an enzyme to digest lactose from the yogurt probiotic bacteria to the regular gut bacteria.  The new species, a natural GMO, continues to grow in the gut, digest lactose, and cure lactose intolerance.  The yogurt probiotics just get flushed away and that is why dairy probiotics must be eaten continuously to provide some of the benefits of healthy gut flora.

Antibiotics Kill Gut Flora, Compromise the Immune System and Cause Disease

Antibiotics are a huge benefit in curing and avoiding infectious disease.  Unfortunately, antibiotics can cause lasting damage by killing beneficial species of bacteria of the gut flora.  Loss of essential bacteria is commonly seen as food intolerances (true food allergies are rare) or constipation.  Since gut flora are needed for development of both the aggressive and suppressive parts of the immune system, which occurs in the lining of the gut, then antibiotics slowly lead to loss of function of the immune system that leads to autoimmunity or allergies.  Probiotics typically administered following antibiotic treatments do not repair the gut flora and leave the immune system damaged and prone to autoimmune diseases and allergies.

Variety in Foods Leads to Loss of Diversity in Gut Flora

It may be more entertaining to eat a new cuisine at each meal, but it confuses your gut flora.  Your gut is a river that endlessly moves food from mouth portal to pottie.  Bacteria divide and eddies cast some of the bacteria back to mix with food upstream before inevitably moving with the masses down and out.  Bacteria that don’t multiply as quickly as others eventually become extinct.  Bacteria that grow well on broccoli may wither with onions.  If you continue to eat some broccoli and some onions, then your gut flora will adapt, but if the type of polysaccharides, the soluble fiber, changes continuously, then you will end up with the stunted gut flora of Americans.  Diversity of gut flora is reduced by too much variety in food.

Matching Food to Gut Flora Takes Time

All of the gut problems that people complain about, gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, food intolerances/allergies (except gluten and a couple of others), etc. are due to a mismatch between food and the digestive enzymes of gut flora.  Modern food processing retains protein, fat and starch and removes the polysaccharides/soluble fiber that reaches the colon, feeds gut bacteria and produces short chain fatty acids (acetic acid, butyric acid, propionic acid) that feed the colon and reduce inflammation.  It takes time for gut bacteria to adapt to new soluble fiber in new foods by recruiting or creating new bacteria, and this is only possible, if inappropriate hygiene is avoided or if homemade fermented foods are eaten.

Dr. Oz Diet and Gut Flora Myths

….All 190 posts here….

I just watched a Dr. Oz program on health myths, including corrections, such as recognition of the high fructose content of agave syrup (especially bad for diabetics.)  So I thought I would go ahead and correct some of the perspectives on his show that I don't think are supported by biomedical research.

The Big Truth about Diet and Gut Flora

Health results primarily from a matched Diet AND Gut Flora, with minor contributions by exercise, personal genetics, environmental toxins, etc.  You can eat the extremes of just meat or only vegetables or any mixture and be healthy, as long as your gut flora is made up of about two hundred different species of bacteria that can fully digest the soluble fiber in your diet.  Health requires a gut flora adapted to your diet.  Those bacteria, the gut flora, produce all of your needed vitamins, eliminate constipation, block inflammation and control the development of your immune system, which takes place in the lining of your intestines in response to gut bacteria.

Assorted Health Truths

Truth:  Saturated fats are healthy, but polyunsaturated omega-6 vegetable oils are inflammatory.  Oz can't bring himself to read the literature and acknowledge the heart benefits of saturated fats and meat.

Truth:  Soluble fiber, e.g. pectin in fruit or inulin in leeks or chondroitin in meat, is healthy food for gut flora, but insoluble fiber, such as in whole grains is a scam and just sucks out micronutrients.  Oz could really help the public by explaining that the hundreds of different polysaccharides produced by plants, i.e. soluble fiber, are digested by hundreds of different enzymes in gut flora.  Gut flora digest soluble fiber into sugars that are converted into short chain fatty acids that feed intestinal cells.

Truth:  GMOs have been studied intensively, are relatively boring and healthy, but organically grown veggies have not been shown to provide any additional health benefits over conventional.  Oz adheres to a very political line and attacks GMOs without any reasoned arguments and touts organic veggies without reference to supporting research.

Truth:  Grass grown beef has healthier fats with more omega-3 oils, but omega-3 plant oils, such as ALA in flax, provide only minor benefits and can't substitute for the long chain DHA and EPA in fish/algae oil.  Oz keeps pushing flax seed even though the benefits are minimal and the problems of high insoluble fiber have not been tested.

Truth:  Constipation is a sign of unhealthy gut flora and can lead to autoimmune disease, allergy or food intolerance, but laxatives such as magnesium only fix the symptoms and not the missing essential gut bacteria.  Oz is really confused about constipation and focuses on dehydration rather than the bacterial content of stools.

Truth:  Antibiotics may be essential for surgery or life threatening bacterial diseases, but antibiotic-damaged gut flora must be repaired (not just probiotics) or the immune system will be compromised.  Antibiotics are major contributors to autoimmune disease and I don't think that Oz realizes the damage that he starts or continues by not repairing gut flora after he repairs hearts.

Truth:  Dairy probiotics, e.g. Lactobacillus or Acidophilus, can provide a quick fix for some functions of gut flora, but these limited probiotic bacteria do not survive in the gut and do not substitute for normal gut bacteria.  I think that Oz still sends his patients home with yogurt after heavy antibiotic treatment and leaves his patients with damaged gut flora and long term disease risk.

Truth:  An Anti-Inflammatory Diet can reduce sources of inflammation that is the foundation for cancer, autoimmunity, allergy and most diseases, but adding new bacteria (not dairy probiotics) through social contacts and live fermented foods is essential for a healthy gut and immune system.

Truth:  All needed vitamins are supplied by healthy gut flora (as biofilm chemical signals) and healthy people do not benefit from multivitamin supplements, but people with damaged gut flora, e.g. because of antibiotic use or autoimmune disease, may require specific vitamins.

Truth:  Antioxidants are just plant defense chemicals, i.e. plant antibiotics, that are unimportant in general health, but they may alter gut flora in unpredictable ways.  Oz likes all antioxidants, but can't explain why these generally toxic chemicals are not used by plants as antioxidants.

Truth:  All of the vitamin D that we need is supplied by minimal skin exposure to sunlight, but most Americans are vitamin D deficient, because chronic inflammation blocks solar production of vitamin D in the skin.  Oz doesn't seem to understand the role of inflammation in vitamin D deficiency.

Truth:  We don't need Grains and other sources of starch, but grains also typically cause health problems, e.g. sensitivity, intolerance or celiac, for most people and can cause inflammation of the gut and disruption of the gut flora that can lead to autoimmune diseases.  Most thyroid disease and back problems are autoimmune diseases that start with celiac.  Oz still promotes whole grains even though added bran lowers nutritional quality and many people are healthier without grains.  He also seems to ignore the relationship between grain, antibiotics and autoimmune disease.

Truth:  Breakfast is not a necessary meal and there are health benefits to lengthening the time between the last and first meal of the day, but if breakfast is eaten, it should be low in sugar and starch, i.e. avoid cereal, since cereal causes a severe spike in insulin when eaten after a fast.  Breakfast makes you hungry, because even protein in the morning will raise insulin and cause an eventual abrupt drop in blood sugar that is experienced as hunger.  Why does Oz believe in breakfast?

Truth:  Food intolerances and allergies (rare) are due to missing species of gut bacteria, but these eating problems cannot be fixed by diet alone, since new bacteria (other than dairy probiotics) must be eaten.  Dairy probiotics are only useful to cure lactose intolerance.

Truth:  Hygiene should be minimal, because most people repair damaged gut flora due to antibiotics, for example, by intimate contact with friends and pets.  Antimicrobial soaps and sterile home surfaces prevent gut flora repair, because the vast majority of bacteria killed by hygiene are beneficial.  Appropriate hygiene is a real problem for Oz and he is obsessed with closing toilet covers.

Truth:  Cardiovascular disease starts with inflammation and is aggravated by fat deposits, but statins and lowered serum cholesterol only reduce heart attack risk, because statins have a weak side effect of lowering inflammation.  Diet changes and repair of gut flora, e.g. my Anti-Inflammatory Diet, fish oil supplements and wild fermented foods, are much more effective at reducing inflammation and curing cardiovascular disease without the severe risks of statins.  Oz is slowly becoming skeptical of statins, but still hasn't read the research literature critically.

Truth:  Poor health and most diseases have only minor genetic risk factors, but diet and gut flora are "inherited" directly and shared by the whole family.  When your doctor asks what diseases run in your family, she is asking about your shared gut flora.  Oz still gives the impression that genes are significant in disease and for example asks audience members if relatives have had heart disease.  He should tell them to repair their gut flora!

Summary Diet Truths

Truth:  There is nothing magic about healthy foods.  All that is needed are protein (meat, fish, eggs, dairy, beans, etc.; plant and animal proteins are equivalent), fats (from leaf and meat, not omega-6-rich seeds) and soluble fiber (to feed gut flora) from their original sources to retain naturally abundant micronutrients (vitamins, except C, are usually unimportant.)  That is my Anti-Inflammatory Diet and supplements should not be needed.  Natural, local foods are healthy, but there are no super foods and exotic does not mean better.  Variety does not compensate for low quality.  Your gut flora needs time to adjust, especially to new soluble fiber, so just change foods with the seasons, not daily, and make sure that you are sampling new bacteria in live fermented foods to make your gut community adaptable.