Diet Archives

Is the Paleo diet good for your gut and losing weight?

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

Think about that bad morning when you got ready for work and nothing in your closet fit. You had been losing the battle of the bulge for so long that you were willing to consider extreme dieting fads just to fit into those old but favorite clothes.

Perhaps, that desperation has led you to consider the Paleolithic diet, better known as the Paleo diet, based on what scientists speculated cavemen/women ate during that era, ending some 10,000 years ago.

Some experts (Loren Cordain, Ph.D. and Robb Wolf) assume that shunning the many unhealthy staples of the Western diet—dairy products, processed foods filled with extra salt and sugars, carbs, starches, and grains—for a more basic diet made up of lean meats, fish, fruits and vegetables and “good” fats can be a healthier way to lose weight.

Unfortunately, the Paleo diet isn’t open to everyone. Vegans aren’t allowed in the party due to their specific dietary restrictions (no eggs, seafood or meat), plus Paleo dieters aren’t allowed to eat veggie sources of protein (beans and other legumes).

So, despite its limitations, does the Paleo diet really work? A study published by the American Society of Microbiology earlier this year that compared the gut microbes of humans and animals questioned the Paleo diet’s ability to suppress hunger.

A scientist at Imperial College London compared fecal bacteria samples taken from human vegans to those from gelada baboons, the only modern primate that mostly eats grass.

Then, researchers fed the samples one of two diets—a predigested grassy, high-fiber diet or a predigested potato, high-starch diet—then tracked the changes in bacteria.

Interestingly, human cultures fed the potato diet by scientists produced the best results: High levels of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), chemicals associated with triggering appetite-suppressing gut hormone peptides.

What’s more, baboon cultures fed the potato diet produced more SCFAs than those given grass. When some of these potato cultures were added to the colon cells of mice, the animal cells produced appetite-suppressing, gut hormone peptide YY (PYY).

Simply put, these results demonstrate the belief among many dietary experts that the appetite suppression connected with following a Paleo diet may not be entirely accurate, or that plant-based, high-fiber diets may not increase the presence of SCFAs or inhibit appetites after all.

If you want to overcome obesity and improve your health, eating like Fred and Wilma Flintstone may not help you very much.

Along with eating the right foods and starting an exercise plan, taking a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic will increase the diversity of bacteria in your gut that will assist you in beating obesity and improving your health for the long term by helping to produce the SCFAs that decrease your appetite.

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Gut bacteria can change very quickly

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

If you read our blog regularly, you appreciate how good gut health, supported by taking a multi-species probiotic, affects the overall quality of your bodily health, from lowering your blood pressure to obesity.

However, an important part of treating any health condition is knowing how long it will take before your health returns to normal.

A pair of American studies published this year have concluded the human gut microbiome is uniquely flexible and may change in as little as a single day, a good thing to know when monitoring health problems like inflammatory bowel disease.

The microbial shift between diets is fast!

In one study published in Nature, Harvard University scientists tested the composition of gut bacteria on humans after discovering how flexible and responsive the microbiomes of mice were each day.

Researchers tested their premise on nine human volunteers who were prescribed radically different diets for five days with a break in between them. (The gut health of the nine patients was tested before, during and after each diet.)

The first diet centered on meats and cheeses—ribs, eggs and bacon—then followed after a break by a high-fiber diet focused on plant-based foods—granola, lentils, fruits, rice and vegetables.

“The relative abundance of various bacteria species looked like it shifted within a day after the food hit the gut,” Duke University researcher Lawrence David told Nutraingredients-usa.com.

After three days on each diet, the collective behavior of human microbiota had changed along with the way gut bacteria behaved.

Checking your microbiota easy as checking out an iPhone app

MIT researchers came up with similar findings, published in Genome Biology, and were helped with the use of an iPhone app.

The two study participants were monitored for a full year via the collection of daily stool samples and tracking various health measures (sleep, exercise, emotions, diet) using an iPhone app.

“On any given day, the amount of one species could change manyfold, but after a year, that species would still be at the same median level,” explained Eric Alm, MIT associate professor and senior author of the paper. “To a large extent, the main factor we found that explained a lot of that variance was the diet.”

For example, increases in dietary fiber matched boosts in Roseburia, Eubacterium rectale and Bifidobacterium (one of the species contained in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Advanced Junior).

During the yearlong study period, both subjects became sickened, which changed their gut bacteria considerably. In both cases, the relationship between specific groups of bacteria and diet occurred in one day.

While living in a developing country, one patient experienced a two-week bout of diarrhea and severe problems with his microbiota. However, once he returned stateside, his microbiota recovered and returned to its original composition.

Interestingly, the second patient experienced food poisoning fueled by Salmonella. During that time, Salmonella levels tripled to 30 percent of the gut microbiome while the Firmicutes phylum of beneficial bacteria almost vanished.

Beneficial levels of Firmicutes bacteria increased with the patient’s recovery to some 40 percent, but the strains were different from those present at the start.

The long-term goal of this research, said Dr. Alm, is to ease the data collection process so patients suffering from inflammatory bowel syndrome or other diseases could be fitted with a personalized monitoring system that warns them ahead of a flare-up so it can be avoided.

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A probiotic every day keeps listeria away!

Diet, Disease, Probiotics / By Staff Writer

The norovirus isn’t the only infectious disease sneaking up to harm the health of unsuspecting Americans.

Over the past six months, America’s once safe food supply—from whole foods including plums, peaches and nectarines to processed foods like bagged salads, cheeses, salsa, peanut butter, fruit pies, hummus and pre-packaged meals—has been plagued by the harmful foodborne L. monocytogenes bacterium, better known as listeria.

Unfortunately, this latest outbreak of listeria doesn’t have any boundaries, as major grocers, including Target, Trader Joe’s, BJ’s, Costco, Hy-Vee, Sam’s Club, Whole Foods, Wegmans and Giant Eagle, have sold foods that have been recalled due to potential contamination.

Listeria popped up on the radar of food safety experts and consumers most notably in 2011 when an outbreak infected cantaloupes grown at Colorado-based Jensen Farms that sickened 147 Americans in 28 states, including 40 in the Centennial state.

Of those who were sickened, 33 people died and a pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage, culminating in the worst foodborne outbreak in the U.S. in at least a century.

The human targets of listeria

Listeria is a very hardy bacteria—it can survive even in refrigerated and freezing environments—and is very common in our environment, yet very few Americans (1,600) are sickened by it annually.

Symptoms range from the light—fever, muscle aches, nausea and diarrhea—to the more serious—headaches, stiff neck, loss of balance, confusion and convulsions—and the incubation period could stretch out to 70 days. Yet, pregnant women may only feel a mild flu.

However, in the right environments, listeria can be very deadly, as it is the third leading cause of death from food poisoning. Patients at the greatest risk of harm:

Pregnant women and their newborns
People with weakened immune systems
Seniors age 65 and older

The six ways to avoid listeria infections

The good news: People who are prone to develop more serious problems due to listeria or other food poisoning issues can take some very simple steps to avoid them:

Avoid unpasteurized (raw) milk or soft cheeses.
Refrigerate any leftovers within two hours and reuse them in no longer than four days.
Maintain the same low temperatures in your refrigerator (40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower) and freezer (0 degrees or lower) with a thermometer.
Don’t eat hot dogs and deli meats until they’re steaming hot.
Avoid eating risky foods by monitoring websites like Foodsafety.gov.
Take a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic or EndoMune Advanced Junior for kids can help prevent infections caused by contaminated foods by boosting your intestinal immunity.

A probiotic every day keeps listeria away! Read More »

Avoid the Norovirus on your Cruise

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

You’ve spent a lot of time and effort saving up for that once-in-a lifetime vacation: a leisurely cruise taking you and your loved ones across the ocean to some exotic locale.

Then, you get “that” call from one of your fellow travelers warning you about the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas ship disaster last winter during which some 650 passengers and crew members were sickened by a gastrointestinal illness.

As you dig deeper on the Internet, you learn that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified 53 separate outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness between 2010-13 and start to wonder if the CNN headline “Are cruise ships floating petri dishes?” isn’t true.

The likely target of this massive illness: norovirus, an infection that causes the sudden onset of severe diarrhea, abdominal pain and vomiting, and a leading cause of acute gastroenteritis, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Typically, symptoms can last up to three days and most people recover on their own. But, in some instances, the norovirus may hit older adults, infants and those with underlying diseases harder, necessitating medical attention.

(Cruise ships aren’t the only places where the norovirus infections can spread. Schools, hospitals and nursing homes can be breeding grounds, too.)

A worldwide problem

A recent report in The Lancet Infectious Diseases spelled out the problems with the norovirus on a worldwide scale, featuring data from 48 countries on some 187,000 cases reported from 1990-2014.

You may be very surprised to learn the frequency of norovirus was slightly more common in developed countries (20 percent) than in undeveloped nations (14-19 percent).

“Norovirus spreads from person to person and through contaminated food and water and contact with contaminated surfaces,” said Dr. Benjamin Lopman, the lead author of this study who works in the Division of Viral Diseases at the CDC in Atlanta.

“The virus is contagious that as few as 18 viral particles may be enough to infect a healthy person, while more than a billion viruses can be found in a single gram of an infected person’s stool.

“Our findings show that norovirus infection contributes substantially to the global burden of acute gastroenteritis, causing both severe and mild cases and across all age groups,” Dr. Lopman concluded.

Unfortunately, the study authors believe their conclusions justify the development of a norovirus vaccine. However, there’s really no need for one more vaccine, as long as you follow the six ways to avoid traveler’s diarrhea outlined in a recent blog post.

Research has concluded taking a probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic or EndoMune Advanced Junior for kids before a long-distance vacation can boost your family’s immunities naturally and help them avoid norovirus infections altogether.

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How can white bread be healthy? It’s all about your gut!

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

In a recent blog post, we discussed how the human body can experience measurable health benefits by eating dark chocolate that interacts with Bifidobacterium in the gut to produce anti-inflammatory compounds.

The trick about deriving nutritional benefits from dark chocolate hinges on eating bitter-tasting brands that are minimally processed.

A recent study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry demonstrates just how versatile the healthy gut can be by taking advantage of the most popular processed food in the Western diet: white bread.

The white bread scoop

Because our diet has a direct impact on gut health, Spanish researchers from the University of Oviedo compared the intake of fibers and polyphenols (commonly found in fruits, vegetables, teas and spices) consumed in a normal diet in fecal samples taken from 38 healthy adults.

Many previous studies linking the gut microbiota to diets have focused on single foods full of soluble fibers that work as prebiotics (defined as nondigestible food ingredients that benefit human health by stimulating the growth of one or several bacterial species in the gut including Lactobacilli and Bifidobacteria).

In some of those studies, pectin alone, a gelatinous polysaccharide present in ripe fruits, usually evades digestion to reach the colon where it stimulates the growth of various gut bacteria.

However, pectin was also associated with a drop of certain fecal bacteria (C. leptum and B. coccoides) in this study, leading researchers to believe that it interacts with other chemicals in oranges to create this effect.

The most interesting finding: Eating plain white bread, made with refined grains, was responsible for a spike in Lactobacillus, one of the strains of bacteria contained in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic.

Until this study, prebiotic spikes in gut bacteria were mostly observed from eating whole-grain cereals due to the fiber content.

Don’t do it!

Before you consider adding white bread to your diet, there are plenty of healthy reasons to avoid it.

The most recent study on the consumption of white bread—scientists tracking the health of some 9,200 Spanish college grads during a five-year period—found patients who ate only white bread and two or more portions each day were 40 percent more likely to become overweight or obese compared to those who ate just one portion a week.

Conversely, no significant risk was found by eating only whole-grain bread with more fiber and various kinds of carbohydrates.

These results go hand-in-hand with dietary recommendations posted by the Mayo Clinic to prevent heart disease.

Yes, white bread is better than sweets, but it has a high glycemic value, so eating a lot of it can add to your risks of obesity and diabetes, said UK nutritionist Dr. Carrie Ruxton to BakeryandSnacks.com.

For your health’s sake, the best choice to promote good gut health is taking a multi-strain probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Advanced Junior that contain no dairy products, preservatives and artificial colorings and are GMO- and gluten-free.

How can white bread be healthy? It’s all about your gut! Read More »

Is kombucha tea really the “Champagne of Life” or an imposter?

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

A diet rich in colorful fruits and vegetables and protein sources that aren’t red meat, along with cutting back on your daily caloric intake, can do wonders for your overall health, waistline and, particularly, your gut health (promoting the presence of beneficial bacteria, including Lactobacillus).

So, you may be thinking eating probiotic-rich foods in addition to taking a good probiotic is a good thing for your health. However, the jury is very much on the fence about the true benefits of eating probiotic-rich foods.

These mixed messages haven’t slowed down the meteoric popularity of kombucha tea—affectionately called the Champagne of Life, Fungus Japonicus and Mushroom Infusion—on grocery and book store shelves as a complete cure-all nor has it changed the minds of foodies about its perceived value as an energy booster or “fountain of youth.”

Looking for the cultures

Tart and bubbly, kombucha tea is made when brewed black tea is steeped with sugar, then fermented with cultures of bacteria and yeasts in a glass container. After at least a week’s time, billions of microorganisms ferment, soon forming a kombucha mushroom or SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) on top of the tea.

The bacteria cultures contained in kombucha tea can vary greatly, from Saccharomycodes ludwigii to Candida stellate and Pichia fermentans. (Depending on how and where kombucha tea is made, it may also contain molds and fungi.

Despite the questions, people are buying millions of bottles of kombucha tea from companies like GT’s, Tonica and Celestial Seasonings at $4 per bottle. Last month, a new book by Steve Lee, the Portland-based entrepreneur behind Kombucha Wonder Drink, entitled Kombucha Revolution: 75 Recipes for Homemade Brews, Elixirs and Mixers, shows people how to incorporate the popular drink into daily diets.

The reality versus the hype

Unfortunately, the perceptions don’t match the debatable health benefits of kombucha tea. Surprisingly, the verdict from most conventional health sources (WebMD, Mayo Clinic, American Cancer Society) matches some of the same concerns voiced by alternative health expert Dr. Andrew Weil.

For one, it’s tough for consumers to make kombucha tea in germ-free home environments and at room temperatures for as long as 12 days where it can become contaminated with harmful bacteria. In an op-ed, Dr. Weil expressed grave concerns about the contamination of home-brewed kombucha teas, as some have contained aspergillus, a toxin-producing fungus.

The high amount of alcohol in home-brewed kombucha teas is another concern, according to Dr. Melissa Wdowik of Colorado State University. In fact, the Whole Foods grocery chain pulled all brands of kombucha teas four years ago due to fluctuations in alcoholic content above the legal 0.5 percent limit, until those amounts dropped.

Also, the “real” health benefits of kombucha teas from the scientific realm are almost non-existent. Although some research has been done with animals, no clinical studies related to kombucha tea have been conducted on humans.

Finally, never assume you’re getting the beneficial strains good bacteria you’d normally receive from taking a probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic in kombucha tea.

Taking a daily probiotic made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria is far more effective in treating a wide range of problems, from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to traveler’s diarrhea, than drinking kombucha tea with no measurable benefits.

Is kombucha tea really the “Champagne of Life” or an imposter? Read More »

Dark chocolate’s healthy benefits start in the gut

Diet, Digestive Health, Disease / By Staff Writer

Thanks to its polyphenol powers, dark chocolate has gained a healthy reputation as modern science has discovered the delicious ways it beats life-threatening diseases.

Consuming the chemical components of dark chocolate has been linked to suppressing the growth of colon cancer cells and to improving glucose tolerance that may prevent type 2 diabetes.

In fact, the chocolaty path to better health may start in the gut, according to a recent Louisiana State University (LSU) study.

Determining how chocolate mixes with gut bacteria to produce measureable health benefits was a “rather disgusting process,” according to LSU food sciences professor John Finley (as told to Scientific American).

First, three kinds of cocoa powder were doused with enzymes to recreate the upper digestive tract in humans, then traveled to a gut filled with feces harvested from nine grad students (you were warned).

The gut microbes inside the, um, poop, then consumed the remainder of the cocoa. What was left at the end: Fermented fiber and non-digestible compounds, including catechin and epicatechin (also found in green tea, skins and seeds of some fruits). These were broken down into smaller, more easily absorbed molecules that display the beneficial anti-inflammatory activity, which other studies have previously revealed.

The minuses about eating chocolate

If the positive benefits from these studies has piqued your curiosity about eating chocolate a bit more regularly, there are caveats to consider.

A growing number of studies have demonstrated these health advantages come from eating dark chocolate, not processed chocolate candy bars containing milk and sugar. The real plus, health experts say, comes from eating chocolate containing the highest percentages of cocoa.

“The good microbes, such as Bifidobacterium and lactic acid bacteria, feast on chocolate. When you eat dark chocolate, they grow and ferment it, producing compounds that are anti-inflammatory,” says co-study author and LSU student Maria Moore.

Additionally, researchers found patients could achieve even greater benefits by eating dark chocolate with fruits, like acai and pomegranates.

The Bifidobacterium connection

To derive benefits from dark chocolate, however, be sure you’re eating minimally processed chocolate containing higher percentages of cocoa. The higher the percentage of cocoa, the more bitter the dark chocolate will taste.

Also, even though dark chocolate may be good for your health, you can’t eat it all the time. Any extra ingredients can add lots of extra fat and calories your body doesn’t need and limit any health benefits.

However, your gut must be healthy to take advantage of these dark chocolate benefits. Bifidobacterium, one of the beneficial strains of bacteria identified by LSU researchers, is one of the active strains contained in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Advanced Junior.

In addition to the multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, both EndoMune probiotics contain no dairy products, preservatives and artificial colorings and are GMO- and gluten-free.

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Gut bacteria controls your weight, cholesterol levels

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

While scientists have shown a strong connection between gut health and obesity, their research has stopped short of pinpointing the origin. Irish researchers are now closer to finding the missing link — bile salt hydrolase (BSH) — in a recent study that could explain how gut bacteria controls your weight and cholesterol levels.

Bile salt hydrolase is a protein produced by gut bacteria that alters the chemical properties of bile acids (chemicals produced in the liver that are an important component of bile secretions) in the gut.

Previous studies have shown how “bile acids work as signaling molecules in the host, almost like a hormonal network, with an ability to influence [the] host metabolism,” says co-author Dr. Cormac Gahan of the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre at University College Cork (Ireland).

This latest study concluded that increasing levels of BSH slows down weight gains as well as serum cholesterol levels in mice.

The next step in their research is looking for a human connection to this discovery. “The findings may be used as a basis for the future selection of probiotics or dietary interventions which target this mechanism to regulate weight gain or high cholesterol,” says co-author Dr. Susan Joyce.

Even better, Dr. Joyce says, “We now have the potential for matching probiotic strains with specific end-user needs.”

These latest findings go hand-in-hand with a 2013 review of studies that examined the value of BSH as cholesterol-lowering agents. Many studies concluded BSH-active bacteria were efficient in lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol as well as total cholesterol.

They may also explain the findings in a recent blog post that demonstrated how a healthy diversity of gut bacteria may prevent obesity and protect patients from the damage done by cardiovascular diseases, including chronic inflammation and diabetes.

The best and easiest way to maintain a diverse mix of bacteria in your gut: Take a multi-species probiotic made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic every day.

Protect the gut health and boost the immune systems of your kids by giving them a daily probiotic made just for them, like EndoMune Advanced Junior.

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Are probiotic foods really beneficial for your gut?

Diet, Probiotics / By Staff Writer

Not only does eating a nutritious diet go a long way toward helping you live a longer life, it also helps you maintain good gut health.

I’m often asked if a diet focusing on probiotic-rich foods can have the same positive effects as taking a concentrated probiotic supplement.

The answer is complicated. Suffice it to say, the jury is still out about the advantages of consuming foods often associated with probiotics. Let’s take a closer look at foods that are made with bacteria to see how they compare to probiotics.

Kombucha: Made with sugar, bacteria, yeast and tea, this non-alcohol beverage is an often marketed as a “probiotic food.” Even its supporters say kombucha is an acquired taste due to its fermented odor and sour flavor. Also, the Mayo Clinic reports adverse effects linked to drinking kombucha (infections, allergic reactions and stomach problems).

Sauerkraut: Another famous probiotic food, sauerkraut is thinly cut cabbage that has been fermented with various lactic acid bacteria, including lactobacillus and leuconostoc and pediococcus. Unfortunately, most brands you’ll find at the grocery store are pasteurized, so they contain no live bacteria.

Miso: This traditional, thick Japanese paste, made by fermenting barley, rice and soybeans with salt and a fungus (kojikin) can be added to sauces, spreads or soups.

Sourdough bread: This kind of bread contains lactobacillus in higher amounts compared to yeast than others due to the fermentation process.

Pickles: The pickled cucumber is a popular food that has been put in a brine, vinegar or another solution and left to ferment for a specific time. But, avoid pickles made with vinegar, as they aren’t naturally fermented (like those made from water and sea salt).

Chocolate: A recent study found one probiotic strain (Bacillus indicus) combined with lemon fiber and maltodextrin in dark chocolate (50 percent cocoa) did survive processing at high rates and texture, taste and color wasn’t significantly affected.

Moreover, previous research concluded chocolate may be a better “carrier” for some probiotics because bacterial survival rates were four times greater.

Kefir: Called the “champagne of milk,” kefir is made from fermenting the lactose contained in milk to lactic acid and yeast that converts lactose into carbon dioxide, giving it a bubbly consistency.

However, consuming kefir may cause intestinal cramping and constipation, particularly when you start using it, according to WebMD.

Yogurt: This probiotic food is the most popular, but you have to make sure the yogurt you eat contains live cultures that are beneficial for your gut health. But that’s not all.

Part of the process in making commercially made yogurt brands includes high-heat pasteurization that kills any harmful bacteria and the introduction of new kinds of bacteria in widely variable amounts that may or may not make a difference to your health.

You’ll also have to choose between yogurt brands containing dairy fat versus sugar or artificial sweeteners, which come with their own individual sets of health problems.

And, if you like frozen yogurt, only a portion of the milk used to make much of it has been fermented, so not many brands offer the probiotic benefits you’re seeking.

The real problem

To enjoy bacterial benefits via this list of foods, in most cases, you’ll have to make them yourself. Also, you’ll have to change your diet substantially to make a dent in your gut bacteria.

Unlike studies in which patients are eating it two or more times a day, some experts believe consuming yogurt just once in a while won’t make a difference at all.

The good news: Taking a daily probiotic made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, such as EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, is far more effective in treating a wide range of health problems, from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) to traveler’s diarrhea, than eating foods containing limited amounts, or a single strain, of bacteria.

For children, giving them EndoMune Advanced Jr. will help protect their gut health and immune systems too.

Are probiotic foods really beneficial for your gut? Read More »

What is IBS?

Diet, Digestive Health / By Staff Writer

What is IBS? Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can be an uncomfortable condition, but it is nowhere near as serious a health problem as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

However, IBS is still far more common, affecting up to 20 percent of the Western world. Symptoms include gas, constipation, diarrhea, cramping and abdominal pain.

Understanding the combination of conditions that trigger this unpredictable health problem can be a mystery due to multiple contributing factors. Among the causes, according to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearing House (NDDIC):

Stress and anxiety
Food sensitivities
Hypersensitivity to pain
Motor problems that cause irregular movement in the bowels
Altered levels of gastrointestinal hormones and body chemicals that transmit nerve signals

The genetic effect

Near the bottom of the list of causes, the NDDIC cites genetics as a common source among family members with a shared history of IBS problems, but is noncommittal about its overall effect. A recent Mayo Clinic study may shed some new light on the genetics of IBS.

Researchers have identified a genetic defect, a mutation of the SCN5A gene that affects the absorption of water and electrolytes. Disruption of this sodium ion channel can lead to constipation or diarrhea.

After comparing the tissues of 584 IBS patients to nearly 1,400 healthy patients, scientists discovered the genetic defect in 2.2 percent of IBS patients.

Is a drug always the best, safest treatment?

Mayo Clinic researchers treated patients with genetic-based IBS successfully by using mexiletine, a drug that improved the sodium ion transport and eased the symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea and constipation for this small group of patients.

Mexiletine is part of the antiarrhythmic class of drugs that works by blocking some electrical signals in the heart to stabilize heart rhythms. (It has also been prescribed to treat nerve damage caused by diabetes.)

Unfortunately, medications may come with adverse effects. Antiarrhythmic drugs like mexiletine have been linked to reports of increased risk of heart attack and death, according to MedlinePlus. Those risks are especially elevated among patients who have suffered a heart attack over the past two years.

Taking mexiletine may also increase the chance of experiencing an irregular heartbeat and hasn’t helped people who don’t experience life-threatening arrhythmias to live longer. MedlinePlus warns against using mexiletine unless a patient has suffered life-harming arrhythmias.

Probiotics: The safer, better treatment option

The real problem with taking prescription medications like mexiletine: Too many of them only treat superficial symptoms but neglect to correct the real health problem. However, there is a safer IBS Treatment option that treats the “whole” patient holistically.

Taking a probiotic made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic every day not only alleviates symptoms for many IBS sufferers, but corrects the underlying disorder and does it without the risk of any adverse side effects.

What is IBS? Read More »