Dr. Myhill’s site gives description for growing Mutaflor, which I quote below. There is a very nice monogram on the history of Mutaflor available A second set of similar instructions are here. Experience with Mutaflor (with special emphasis on it’s impact on methylation therapy) is here.

Quote Starts…

Mutaflor is a preparation containing Escherichia coli (E. coli) strain Nissle 1917 and is manufactured in Germany by a company called Ardeypharm. It is available as a suspension and the best-value source of it on the Internet appears to be Linda VersandApotheke. The website is in German, so I have prepared Instructions for buying Mutaflor at Berlinda VA. If you still have problems with placing your order, you are welcome to e-mail the office asking to be put in touch with me (i.e. the author of this page). I will be happy to talk you through the ordering process.

The bacteria can be cultured at home just like normal yoghurt. I have not yet experimented with different substrates, sugars, times or temperatures, so do not know what is likely to give the best results, but here is a method I have found to work.

Ingredients/Equipment

Ingredients/equipment and notes

• ½ litre unsweetened soya milk – If using sweetened soya milk, reduce the sugar accordingly – aim to make the milk taste slightly sweet but not sickly.
• 2 dessertspoons sugar – Some sugars may work better than others; I had success with 1 dessert spoon each of unrefined cane sugar and Sweet Freedom syrup (a honey-like substance made from concentrated fruits). Probably best to avoid real honey as it has antibacterial properties.
• 5 ml Mutaflor suspension – After the first culture use some of the previous batch as a starter for the next.
• Large jar, flask or plastic container and somewhere warm for the culture to grow (around 37-40°C) – I strongly recommend using a yoghurt maker. Yoghurt can be cultured in a thermos flask, airing cupboard or oven, but it is very hard to maintain the right temperature. Too cold and the bacteria won’t ferment; too hot and they will be killed.

Method

• Heat the soya milk in a pan until nearly boiling to kill any existing bacteria.
• Allow the milk to cool to about 38°C – use a thermometer or wait until it is just slightly warm to a (clean!) dipped finger.

• • Top tip: If using a new carton of long-life milk you can skip step 1, and save on washing up by simply leaving the carton to warm up in the airing cupboard or oven before opening.

• Dissolve the sugar in the milk and pour into the container.
• Stir in the Mutaflor suspension or yoghurt from previous batch.
• Place container in the yoghurt maker, airing cupboard or other warm place and leave it to do its thing. It should take about 6 – 10 hours, depending on the conditions, and will appear thickened, with a mildly acid taste.
• Once the required consistency is achieved, scoop out a couple of tablespoons worth to keep in a sealed jar for use as the starter in the next batch.
• Allow to cool then keep the yoghurt in the fridge for up to 5 days.
• Enjoy!

….QUOTE ENDS

Some variations to the above instructions to try

We have been crossing the border into Canada to buy our Mutaflor, but are planning to start making out own soon. I will update with the results

• Using cow or goat milk instead, we happen to have access to non-pasturized whole milk at our local co-op
• The above uses Mutaflor suspension which is not available to me, so openning one capsule should suffice

We have been using this yogurt maker, Yogourmet-Multi-Electric-Yogurt-Starter – $60 which is from Canada, for other yogurts we have made and it has produced consistantly good results. We are considering adding one like this (6+ separate containers)
[UK Moulinex Yogurt Maker £24 ] when we start producing Mutaflor — mainly because it allows us to experiment quickly with different composition of the base ingrediants.

Concerning Mutaflor, a reader wrote:

Here are two places to get Mutaflor in the US:

Uriel Pharmacy in Wisconsin, if ordering as a prescription item. 100 mg. tablets are $2.95 ea. and 20 mg. tablets are $2.15 each (at March 2014). The 100 mg. tablets can be cut if one wants to start at a smaller dose. The pharmacy number is 866 642 2858.

http://urielpharmacy.com/index.php

Feel Good Natural Health Store in Canada
You MUST pay for the Express shipping if you live outside Canada, which is about $23. Even though the sales page says “Canada Only”, when you get to the shopping cart, you can select any state in the U.S. I ordered from here and received my order in a couple of days.

Home page:

After I posted about Prescript-Assist probiotic, a local CFS friend dug into some of the bacteria listed [I have not had time] and discovered that one of them was used commercially to product B12.

The pseudomonas denitrificans (P.Dent) “produces Vitamin B12 in great quantities….This
particular microbe is the main commercial producer of the vitamin. Without
vitamin B12 in one’s diet, a person may develop pernicious anemia.” [Source]

The other known B12 producer is Lactobacillus Reuteri which I covered in a prior post.

P.Dent has been known since at least 1969 to produce B12. Over 30 articles on P.Dent and B12 are on PubMed..

Another benefit of P.Dent. is that it does denitrification which may benefit the reactive nitrogen species reported in CFS.

Bottom line: Both Lactobacillus Reuteri and Prescript-Assist should be used by any person with low B-12 levels.

About a month ago, Nature published Genomic variation landscape of the human gut microbiome (Dec 5th, 2012). There are a few findings that are interesting:

“There were 88 individuals from the US cohort that were sampled at different time periods (~1 year) with no antibiotics in between. Looking at the composition and genomic variation of these gut microbiomes, the authors found that while species abundance changed over time within an individual, the variation patterns were remarkably stable. In other words, healthy individuals retained (for a long term) specific strains of microbiota. Also, there were no clear geographical differences between European and U.S. cohorts. All of this suggests that every human has a unique metagenomic profile that’s stable over time. Almost like a fingerprint…  Further, the low pN/pS ratio observed for genes related to type IV secretion systems suggests that interaction with the host’s immune system is under purifying selection, and maintaining genome plasticity (as well as antibiotic resistance) is essential for gut species..” Source, I recall reading elsewhere that gut bacteria was inherited/influenced by DNA…. the complexity of autoimmune disease thickens…

The interesting aspect is that over 929 species were identified in common…

There are several exciting projects/studies that have started which may result in a clear understanding of gut bacteria and the human over the next decades. A quick review of these and results to date is warranted. Our lack of knowledge about gut bacteria is shocking, and may explain why many autoimmune diseases are not understood.

Washington University in St. Louis: Project: Human Gut Microbiome

“The total number of genes in the various species represented in our internal microbial communities (microbiome) likely exceeds the number of our human genes by at least two orders of magnitude… Our microbiome is largely unexplored… The HGMI seeks to deliver a more comprehensive view of our biology by providing deep draft whole genome sequences for 100 species representing the bacterial divisions known to reside in the distal gut. Fifteen of these genomes will be selected for finishing…” White Paper

National Institute of Health: Human Microbiome Project

“Within the body of a healthy adult, microbial cells are estimated to outnumber human cells ten to one. This community, however, remains largely unstudied, leaving their influence upon human development, physiology, immunity, and nutrition almost entirely unknown… the vast majority of microbial species have never been successfully isolated as viable specimens for analysis, presumably because their growth is dependent upon a specific microenvironment that has not been, or cannot be, reproduced experimentally.”

The have a nice news page and publication page worth reviewing

“They found that the gut microbial communities are species-specific, and have tracked with their hosts over evolutionary timescales. This evolutionary signal appears to be discernable even when gut communities are disturbed by such factors as disease…Host phylogeny is the overriding factor determining the microbial composition of the great ape gut microbiota,” Ochman and his colleagues concluded in their study, adding that the finding “contrasts with previous notions that diet is the most important factor governing the gut microbiotae within primates.” “