Category Archives: Conditions

Unknown's avatar lassesen 4:37 am on July 16, 2013  

Bifidobacteriun Infantis – another interesting probiotic

Health Rising did a recent post on Bifidobacteriun infantis 35624. There are some 27 hits on pubmed on this probiotics, not as many as for Mutaflor, but respectable. The latest study is available in full text and found that inflammation of CFS patients decreased significantly. Another study found the amelioration of symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (but required constant use).  Since IBS and CFS are co-morbid to a large extent, the two studies confirm each other’s results.

The need to constantly take it, makes the manufacturer, The Procter & Gamble Company, probably very happy (and partially accounts for the studies occurring).

This specific species is available on amazon.com, the price clearly shows that P&G is seeking a premium market.

Since the full text is available for free, it may be worthwhile to at least read them for information on the experience of taking an effective probiotic.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 2:34 pm on July 13, 2013  

Lactobacillus Reuteri and recommendations on how to take it

Update: 2018 Summary on L Reuteri.

Lactobacillus Reuteri is near the top of my list of probiotics. The reason is simple, in almost all mammals it is the species that is usually most seen in healthy individuals. Often studies reported something like 55% of the Lactobacillus species are Reuteri. It is NOT in most probiotics. L.Reuteri is by far the Lactobacillus that is most likely to persist in the gut, most Lactobacillus are literally flow-thru, they have an impact, (in fact, one antibiotic (not used much today) is extracted from Lactobacillus Acidopholus), but do not establish a colony. It produces reuterin and cobalamin (B12), which no other Lactobacillus does.

My own practice is to buy as many different strains of L.Reuteri that I can find. For maintenance, I do a week of it every 2-3 months. It should be taken before meals and with some fat, see this post for details.

For a more technical description of L.Reuteri, see

Glutathione

Glutathione is one of L.Reuteri essential foods (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21585317 ) so make sure that you supplement with it (I would suggest taking that 1 hr before the L.Reuteri) . This feeding of L. Reuteri may be one reason that it has positive effects on CFS patients (although the why of taking it comes from a different model).

The reason that some people may be non-responders to Gluthathione could be as simple as having no L.Reuteri left to feed!

Bottom line:  L Reuteri and Glutathione should be taken together – taking one without the other may result in little or no effect.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 3:22 am on July 12, 2013  

How vaccines can cause Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – a Model

I saw this in the news today:
The vaccine known as hepatitis B has been ruled by a United States Court of Federal Claims that “a dose of the hepatitis B vaccination caused [a patient] to develop chronic fatigue syndrome.”  Article

This type of claim has been asserted many times and view skeptically by many (including me, once upon a time).

How do vaccine work? Usually they provoke a minor version of the disease or a close relative (for example, one of the first vaccines used cow-pox to protect from smallpox).  This is now it happens… whether you have a mild form or a severe form, the infection causes some alteration of the microbiota. If the microbiota returns to its prior state, there is no problems. If the microbiota does not return but stays in it’s altered state then we slide into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.  It is that simple!!!

Should you avoid vaccines? In general, vaccines are good for the general population and result in a significant benefit from having less deaths and illnesses. I went to school and later taught with someone that had Polio as a child and apparently recovered fully. She later was confined to a wheelchair (a too common occurrence with those that recovered from polio as a child).  Would I tell anyone not to get a Polio shot?  Absolutely not, unless there is autoimmune in the person’s  blood relatives. If there are, then I would say avoid it — the risks are significantly higher for problems.

This is the conclusion of a 2005 study:
In genetically susceptible individuals or together with some other triggers such combination might confer the risk of developing a continuous autoimmune response in an individual. Anti-phospholipid antibodies following vaccination with recombinant hepatitis B vaccine.

NOTE:  a variation of anti-phospholipid syndrome (Hughes Syndrome) is what Dave Berg (Hemex) described the coagulation issues he saw in CFS patients.

One recent study is interesting:

Transiently or persistently increased levels of autoantibodies or appearance of new autoantibodies was demonstrated in up to 15% of apparently healthy adults after the influenza vaccination. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18700173

Microbiota tend to be inherited in families, thus the presence of autoimmune in blood relatives implies (but does not prove) a greater risk of the microbiota not returning to normal.

So, do I believe that vaccine can cause CFS — yes, because there is both a model to explain how and published studies describing the the appropriate changes do occur.

Unknown's avatar lassesen 5:04 am on July 9, 2013  

Icelandic Disease, Polio and Up-regulation of Immune System.

Recently I saw on Facebook:

“Reading a book about CFS and although I knew there was a big outbreak of CFS in a region of Iceland in the 1940’s (over 1000 cases, mostly high school students), I didn’t know that 7 years later the same region of Iceland had a serious Polio outbreak and for some reason all of those who had gotten CFS were immune to the Polio virus. This led some researchers to believe that there is a virus that causes at least some cases of CFS and it may be closely related to Polio.”

I recall reading this in Osler’s Web: Inside the Labyrinth of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Epidemic(1996) back in 2000. I also read of the appearance of the immune system being up-regulated because CFS patient rarely catch other illness. Iceland or Akureyri Disease and polio is described in this study.

The light went on today that the microbiota hypothesis would explain both of these observations perfectly.

If we assume that most infections reprogram the microbiota by sending deceptive chemical signals to produce the chemicals it needs, or to surpress the chemicals it does not want then things become obvious.

If another infection comes along, it’s attempt to reprogram will likely fail. Without the chemicals to supply it’s reproduction the infection fails to get established.

This actually leads to the stable microbiota dysfunction being of evolutionary advantage. Having 2-4% of the population in this state means that if a nasty nasty deadly infection hits a population, this group will survive while all around them the healthy microbiota folks are being reprogrammed to eventually kill the person.

 

Unknown's avatar lassesen 3:12 am on July 6, 2013  

Memory Issues and Gut Bacteria

During my last CFS episode I had a SPECT scan done. The results matched that reported on PubMed for chronic lyme and for chronic fatigue syndrome. I was having severe memory issues, especially short term and recent events. The radiologist read the SPECT as indicative of Alzheimer’s Disease. The areas of the brain impacted were the same area seen with Alzheimer. With recovery, memory issues reduced every month. I suspect it could easily be 2 years before I hit the 99.9999% of my prior level. I suspect that my SPECT will be near normal if done again. Many people will not notice the memory issues remaining, but I frequently (daily) notice minor memory failures for example inability to recall a word or tie a name to a face.

Since the recovery of memory was a result of actively altering gut bacteria, it suggests that old age dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease may have a very significant cause being gut bacteria.

Looking at pub med, there are just two studies that have looked at AD and the microbiota, both published in 2013:

Age-Related Memory Issues

There have been several studies on how gut bacteria changes with age:

  • Role of the gut microbiota in age-related chronic inflammation. (2012) “A growing body of literature implicates age-related perturbations in the gut microbial ecology as contributing to a global inflammatory state in the elderly.”
  • Enteric pathogens through life stages. (2012) – Full Text Free “Recent gut microbial surveys have indicated dramatic shifts in gut microbial population structure from infants to young adults to the elders.”
  • Aging of the human metaorganism: the microbial counterpart. (2012) – Full Text Free (and an excellent article that details results from specific species of probiotics!)
    “The total diversity of a healthy adult gut ecosystem is generally reported to be around 1,000–1,200 species.. of which 75–82% is estimated to remain uncultured.” This means that we likely have no idea of what 75% of the bacteria produce or interacts..

The question of testing often arises, the above article summarizes the current state of testing:

The prosequencing is what is needed. We have more unknowns than knowns…

I am hoping that there will be studies of Prescript Assist and Mutaflor on neurodegenerative diseases — I suspect that the results will be very interesting.