Author Archives: lassesen

Unknown's avatar lassesen 1:13 pm on September 27, 2013  

Personal Observations on Cognitive impact of some probiotics

I am currently doing a cycle of different species of probiotics and noted two had significant cognitive impact on me:

  • Align ( Bifidobacterium infantis 35624 ) resulted in a very noticeable shift to being a lot more relaxed and laid back, longer sleeps.
  • Mutaflor (E.Coli Nissle 1917) resulted in more energy, focus, shorter sleep.

As an aside, a friend was finally persuaded to take 20,000 IU/day of Vitamin D3, she reported within 5 days that she is sleeping a lot harder and not dealing with a tendency towards insomnia.

Just three random observations — your mileage may vary.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 9:03 pm on September 22, 2013  

Treating cognitive issues with CFS/FM et al

Today I spent some time with a suffer who had a major cognitive drop from yesterday, this is documenting suggestions we discussed. I wanted to check my notes to confirm my memory.

Neuroprotectives

  • Aswaganda – also improves depression (4 PubMed studies)
  • Boswellia – (3 PubMed studies)
  • D-Ribose (1 PubMed study)
  • Ginger (1 PubMed study)
  • Olive Leaf Extract (1 PubMed study)
  • Piracetam and other nootropics (many studies – used in Europe for strokes)
  • Turmeric  (1 PubMed study)

Antibiotics 

  • Beta-lactam antibiotics (5 PubMed studies)
  • Ceftriaxone (3 PubMed Studies)
  • Rapamycin (8 PubMed Studies)
  • Rifampicin (1 PubMed Study)
  • Tetracyclines (minocycline[Most studies], doxycycline) – hundreds of PubMed studies

Recommended Cocktail

  • D-Ribose (encourages E.Coli also), Minocycline (co-exists with E.Coli Nissle 1917 – Mutaflor), Nootropics, Turmeric, Boswellia, Aswanganda.
Unknown's avatar lassesen 5:02 am on September 20, 2013  

Fibromyalgia and Probiotics

Today I had lunch with a friend with Fibromyalgia(FM) brought on by antibiotics for pneumonia, or the pneumonia itself. It is really impossible to know which is the cause. He was interested in the probiotics approach, and I promise to summarize what we know (from PubMed) on fibromyalgia and probiotics.

What I found on PubMed.com was:

So the bottom line is that this approach has not been investigated for FM – except for a study against RA patients (but not against healthy controls). Doing general google searches found nothing that did not appear to be opinion based on belief.

With this sparse information, we end up looking back at irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), which has had probiotic studies. On PubMed there are 340+ studies where they are cited together.  This leads us to Prescript-Assist and Align as two probiotics that have been shown in studies to be successful. It should be noted that neither contains any Lactobacillus species.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 2:58 pm on September 14, 2013  

Probiotics lacking (Lactobacillus) Acidophilus

Readers of this blog know that I use studies that found that:

  • CFS patients are low/very low in healthy E.Coli
  • L.Acidophilus kills E.Coli

This leads me to advocating that any product (probiotics, yogurt, etc) containing L. Acidophilus should be avoided or minimized. This may account for some CFS MDs citing at conferences that they have seen no positive effects from probiotics (and privately mention, that they encourage their use solely for reasons of “bed side manners”). Since IBS and CFS tend to be co-morbid, probiotics that are effective for IBS are always a good choice.

This post is a listing of all probiotics that I have so-far located that are available over the shelf for human consumption. There are additional ones that require prescriptions (in the few countries where it is available) or are used in Veterinary practice. NOTE: Some are temperature sensitive, make sure you know the providence(shipment history) of them.

  • Easiest to obtain: Align, in many pharmacies and on Amazon (98 capsules ~ $70 is best buy) – B. infantis 35624 ONLY; IBS effective
  • Prescript-Assist: on  Amazon (90 capsules ~ $60 is best buy) – 28 species, none are Lactobacillus. IBS effective
  • Mutaflor: Available in Canada and Europe. ($60 for 30 in larger volumes)   E.Coli Nissle 1917 only. From Germany. IBS, UC, Crohns Disease effective
  • BioGala Protestic: on Amazon (30 sticks for $27) –  Lactobacillus reuteri Protectis ONLY . From Sweden
  • Jarrow Fem-Dophilus: on Amazon (120 capsules for $52) –  Lactobacillus rhamnosus, GR-1® and Lactobacillus reuteri, RC-14 ONLY . From Denmark (PubMed: unclear results)
  • BioGala Prodentis : See merchant list; on Amazon  (28 capsules for $36) –  Lactobacillus reuteri Prodentis  ONLY . From Sweden
  • Thorne Bacillus Coagulans on Amazon (60 capsule for $20) or Source Naturals Dura Flora on Amazon  – Bacillus Coagulans  AKA  Lactobacillus Sporogenes (PubMed: Some help for IBS)
  • 4XProBiotic Caplets on Amazon (84 capsule for $35) – Bifidobacterium infantis, Bifidobacterium lactis, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium bifidum. Note: Bifidobacterium infantis is the same species as Align, but not the same strain — it may be effective for IBS (no studies on pubmed)
  • Jarrow Formulas Saccharomyces Boulardii + MOS
    on Amazon (90 capsule for $18) – Saccharomyces Boulardii (PubMed: No impact on IBS)
  • Now Foods OralBiotic on Amazon (60 capsule for $14) – Streptococcus salivarius BLIS K12
  • Oragenics Evora Plus Probiotic on Amazon (30 mints for $16) – Streptococcus oralis, Streptococcus uberis, and Streptococcus rattus
  • Threelac Probiotic on Amazon (60 packages for $42) – bacillus coagulans, bacillus subtilis and enterococcus faecalis [Fivelac contains Acidophilus – avoid]

Example of good providence:  Mutaflor: flown from Germany to Toronto Canada, immediately placed in cold storage there. Shipments sent by 1 or 2 day express, packed in styrofoam box with ice packs to customer.

Single Species versus Multiple Species

A 2013 studies found that some mixtures were more effective than single species. Comparative in vitro inhibition of urinary tract pathogens by single- and multi-strain probiotics found  “Probiotic mixtures prevented the growth of urinary tract pathogens but were not significantly more inhibitory than single strains.”

A 2012 study, In vitro evaluation of single- and multi-strain probiotics: Inter-species inhibition between probiotic strains, and inhibition of pathogens. found ” When single species were tested against mixtures, the multi-species preparations displayed significantly (p < 0.05 or less) greater inhibition of pathogens in 12 out of 24 cases. Despite evidence that probiotic species will inhibit each other when incubated together in vitro, in many cases a probiotic mixture was more effective at inhibiting pathogens than its component species when tested at approximately equal concentrations of biomass.”
T%he full text of “Monostrain, multistrain and multispecies probiotics—A comparison of functionality and efficacy” is an interest read. It’s bottom line is that a properly engineered mixture is best – the problem is that most combinations do not have their effectiveness published as studies.
Unknown's avatar lassesen 2:22 pm on September 13, 2013  

An apple a day (and other fruits) may be very unhealthy

In my last post I reviewed the research on a variety of alternative sugars reaching the conclusion that many had the same effective as antibiotics according to PubMed studies. This morning, I was listening to this weeks edition of the Economist (on newsstands soon – I download from the UK).

Some of the articles are available on http://www.economist.com/ this morning.

Obesity

Wider understanding

Fruit has historically (especially for Northern Europeans) has been a seasonal food. The sugar hit was for a few weeks a year and that was it. Today, it is 7 days/week, 52 weeks a year in “healthy eating” households. This intake of sugar (be it from fruit, fruit juices or pop) has significant impact on the microbiome and thus on a wide variety of metabolic diseases, especially diabetes. A few quotes

“One debate concerns the villainy of glucose, which is found in starches, and fructose, found in fruits, table sugar and, not surprisingly, high-fructose corn syrup. Diets with a high “glycaemic index”, raising glucose levels in the blood, seem to promote metabolic problems.”

“a study published inNature Communications by Richard Johnson, of the University of Colorado, explains that glucose may do its harm, in part, through its conversion to fructose.”

“The other study put 49 overweight participants on a high-fibre diet. Those who began with fewer bacterial species saw an increase in bacterial diversity and an improvement in metabolic indicators. This was not the case for those who already had a diverse microbiome, even when fed the same diet.”

  • Remember — I have been plugging non-GMO REAL German Rye Bread  (imported from Europe and often cheaper than some breads made locally). This is a high-fibre source. Also porridge! Breakfast cereals on the other hand are real bad.

” Fed the proper diet, a person with more vacancies may see the jobs filled by helpful bacteria”

” Fed an identical diet, the mice with bacteria from an obese twin became obese, whereas mice with bacteria from a thin twin remained lean.”

So, reflect carefully before you pick up that next piece of fruit at the market…. Is your body asking for it OR are you responding to prior conditioning?