Author Archives: lassesen

Unknown's avatar lassesen 12:40 am on April 22, 2013  

Observations of a probiotic-sensitive CFS suffer

A friend has CFS and had had severe herx from almost any probiotics. The result was a lack of willingness to take on my approach.

The other day she found that symptoms of Chlamydiae Pneumonia were starting to get bad, likely as a result of recent family stress. She was starting to have problems breathing, etc. She was feeling very bad and asked for help…

I re-explained to her how gut-bacteria and tissue infections set up a mutual beneficial feedback loop and recounted my experience stopping infections cold with a heavy probiotic dosage of mutaflor or prescript-assist. She took a single capsule of prescript assist at bed time… and that was all that I heard.

Three days later, she informed me that she was going to take it daily… I was surprised (and delighted). She explained why:

  • For two days, all of the symptoms disappeared after taking it.
  • On the third day, symptoms start to return but they were milder….
  • There was no significant herx from taking prescript assist.

I look forward to hear her continuing reports — it appear effective for her  Chlamydiae Pneumonia-like symptoms; I wonder what other symptoms will be reduced or disappeared from her doing a course… I also wonder if she will be able to tolerate other probiotics better after this course.

“Have you eaten your dirt today?” (i.e. prescript assist)

 

Unknown's avatar lassesen 11:11 pm on March 19, 2013  

Probiotics to fight colds and other infections

This last week has been a time of stress with the passing of my father-in-law. Besides many hours without sleep, an attending relative also had a bad cold that was coughing over everyone. I started signs of exhibiting a cold. I recalled that infections alter gut-bacteria (in a manner that supplies metabolites that the infection needs), so I decided to try subverting the infection by the use of strong probiotics to out-compete the bacteria that the infection was asking to increase production (via chemical signalling).  The symptoms disappeared within 2 hours. Over the following days, whenever signs of a cold appeared I took another significant dosage; the symptoms disappear again.

This seems to be confirmed by the literature:

“A subgroup analysis was performed based on the length of the probiotics administration period. When the period was less than three months, the occurrence of the common cold decreased by 18%, but if it was longer than three months, it had no effect on cold prevention.” [2013]

“A two-strain probiotic combination given twice a day for 3 months was able to reduce the symptoms of the common cold and school absenteeism in schoolchildren.”[2012]

  • If you take probiotics continuously, the effect is loss. It is the introduction of bacteria that will fight against both the infection bacteria and existing bacteria that results in an effective disruption!

There are a large number of studies on how probiotics improves the immune system with several of them identifying that individual response to probiotics was seen, as well as different impact on different species of the flu. Some had significant effects while other has minor or no effects.  So mileage per probiotic may vary greatly.

Which one did I use? It was Mutaflor (E.Coli Nissle 1917) because E.Coli is a dominant species in the human gut (and thus the most likely to be “reprogrammed” by an infection). My #2 choice would be Prescrip-Assist.

Side note: Using standard probiotics does carry a risk of inducing a harmful infection!

The risk is low, 1 in 500 people, as reported by this 2012 study

“The maximum estimated incidence of probiotic-related bacteremia due to L. acidophilus/L. bulgaricus during the 8-year period was 0.2%”

Unknown's avatar lassesen 5:21 pm on March 10, 2013  

CoQ10 and gut bacteria

I noticed an article that mentioned both NADH and CoQ10 helping with fatigue. NADH is produced by E.Coli which has been reported as low in CFS patients (1998 Manly Conf). I thought that I should investigate CoQ10 connection with gut bacteria (in the hope of identifying species that may be good probiotic candidates).

What I found was 100+ articles on PubMed. This text identifies some species as:

During my digging into CoQ10, I discovered a 2010 article finding that grapefruit juice significantly enhances the absorption of CoQ10 300 mg/day – Studies in this post..

Unknown's avatar lassesen 6:40 am on March 4, 2013  

Methylation Cycle, Gut Bacteria and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Rick Van Konynenburg’s passing was very unexpected and unfortunate, not only for the community but because he had just agreed to review a draft book on the Gut Bacteria model that I was working on. I had sent him a draft just 7 days before he passed.

In terms of recent papers, this [2012] paper appears to support the premise — especially if you consider the frequent co-morbid conditions of IBS and IBD with CFS.

“The gut microbiota, the intestinal mucosa and the host immune system are among the large biological networks involved in the development of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes Crohn disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Host genetics and environmental factors can significantly modulate the interactive relationships among these biological systems and influence predilection toward IBD… Epigenetic changes, such as DNA methylation (the methylation of cytosines followed by a guanine in CpG dinucleotides) can be modified by environmental influences [gut bacteria].  Mucosal DNA methylation can also react to changes in the commensal microbiota, underscoring the intercalating relationships among the large biological systems involved in gastrointestinal disorders.

A [2000] paper on IBD states a situation of suspected infections factor similar to that seen with CFS: “A great number of bacterial and viral factors has been suspected of being infectious factors in IBD, mostly in CD. Mycobacteria, Yersinia, Campylobacter, Clostridium, Clamidias, etc. as well as bacteria and some viruses such as herpes and rotavirus and the primary measles virus. None of them has been proven as a real and exclusively pathogenic factor.”

Returning to CFS specifically, from the Aussie 1998 conference report, we know that escherichia coli populations is very low in CFS patients. E.Coli produces NADH, and this would account for the benefits of NADH supplements for CFS that have been reported from several studies.

E.Coli also impacts other metabolites. I did a query on PubMed for “Escherichia coli Methylation” and got 3244 hits today!

One paper from 1973 was very interesting:

Location of DNA methylation genes on the Escherichia coli K-12 genetic map

Location of DNA methylation genes on the Escherichia coli K-12 genetic map

So E.Coli is involved with methylation!

Another study from [1972] found that Bacillus subtilis is also involved. B.subtilis was used in WW2 to treat dysentery (as was E.Coli Nissle in WW1). It should be noted that the use of such fell out of favor with the introduction of antibiotics. It is very interesting to note that Nattokinease is produced by a member of B.subtilis family (Bacillus subtilis natto).

My conclusion is that methylation issues in CFS could be explained as a result of a gut bacteria alteration. The methylation issues are down-stream from the gut (i.e. it would be much harder to argue that methylation issues causes gut bacteria alteration).

I find myself asking the same question that I ask of antibiotics use and CFS:

  • When success occurs, are the antibiotics dealing with infections in the blood and tissues OR are they altering gut bacteria that allows re-activation of prior infections?
  • When success occurs, are the change of diet etc. correcting/compensating the methylation issues OR are they altering gut bacteria that interfere with methylations issues?

“Chronic illness can be physiologically due to blocked biochemistry of methylation.” – the question is What is blocking the methylation? It could be DNA, but I believe the greatest factor (which happens to also be correctable!) is gut bacteria…

Unknown's avatar lassesen 1:54 am on March 3, 2013  

Vitamin A: Pulses and Gut Bacteria

For years, we have done Vitamin A (beta-carotene) pulses as a method of heading off an infection. The reason is experience and this statement from Springboard:

“Vitamin A seems to stimulate the immune system and the production of white blood cells. Often when some kind of infection like the flu or a cold hits an intake of 100,000 to 150,000 IU for not more than three days will effectively turn on the immune system to the extent that the infection is stopped. The implications of this for other health problems should be obvious adequate supplementation of vitamin A on a daily basis will keep the immune system up and ready to fight back, although it is certainly no miracle cure for all the ills and abuses of the body.” springboard4health.com as well as other alternative health sites [evitamins, herbalhut].

I recently appear to start a cold (which the wife appear to have brought home) and could feel something developing — in fact, I noticed a shift in digestion. I did a pulse and things appear to return to normal. This left me with an interesting question because of recent readings…

Studies have found that gut bacteria distribution can be used to reliably predict what infections a person has (at least for the set of infections that the study was tried on). This raises the question — is the impact of vitamin A a disruption of a new invasive (infection related) set of gut bacteria?

As usual, I decided to check out PubMed studies and see what I could find:

  • ” a reduction in the intestinal microflora resulted in an increased storage of beta-carotene, alpha-carotene and vitamin A in the liver.” [1998]
  • “an association between carotenoid-rich food intakes with a low incidence in chronic diseases” [2006]
  • “Retinoic acid (RA), a well-known vitamin A metabolite, mediates inhibition of the IL-6-driven induction of proinflammatory Th17 cells and promotes anti-inflammatory regulatory T cell generation in the presence of TGF-beta….  RA deficiency altered gut microbiome” [2010]
  • ” deficiency in retinoic acid-related orphan receptor c(-/-) mice resulted in a complete failure to control the [fungal] infection”[2013]
  • ” mitochondria participate in innate immunity to viral infection through the pattern recognition receptor retinoic acid inducible gene-I and are involved in inflammasome activation.” [2012]
    Translation: Vitamin A increases the body ability to recognize infections…
  • ” However, stimulation of dendritic cells via TLR2 increases the expression of host genes associated with generation of the immunoactive form of vitamin A (retinoic acid) while enteric infection has been linked to vitamin A deficiency ….  vitamin A has the potential to modulate immune responses through direct interactions with immune cells, or indirectly by modulating the composition of the microbiota.” [2011]

While not finding an ideal study, we do find that Vitamin A has been documented to change the microbiota (gut bacteria) as well as causing the immune system to be more active against infections.

Going through notes (from pubmed articles), I see:

  • Availability affected by microfloras
  • Decreased in Fibromyalgia patients
  • Decreased with Lyme and symptoms worst with lower levels
  • Deficiency associated with susceptibility to infection and altered microfloras
  • Deficiency increases IL-12 production
  • EBV and CMV alters Vitamin A metabolism
  • Low intake seen with IBS/IBS patients
  • Low level in active Crohn’s disease, but normal when inactive
  • Retinoic acid down-regulates colon inflammatory responses in patients with IBD
  • Supplements may reduce inflammation

Thus vitamin A levels should be checked, and if not in the top 75%ile, supplementation may be of significant help.