Disease Archives

Prebiotics May Help Treat Osteoarthritis

Disease, Healthy Aging / By Staff Writer

If your joints begin to stiffen and feel painful — especially when you wake up in the morning or as swelling becomes more common — your body could be telling you that osteoarthritis may be just around the corner.

Osteoarthritis is one of the most common chronic conditions that harms the joints, often affecting the lower backs, necks, small joints of fingers and the knees of nearly 10 percent of all Americans.

A deterioration of cartilage is the common culprit in osteoarthritis, leading to breakdowns that spur inflammation, pain and joint damage. Because this discomfort makes it harder to move around, you may be dealing with other health problems related to a sedentary lifestyle that lead to obesity and cardiovascular problems like heart disease or diabetes.

Osteoarthritis also increases your chances of experiencing more falls (30 percent) and debilitating fractures (20 percent) than someone in good health.

You may be very surprised to learn the health of your gut could be a driving force behind osteoarthritis and that prebiotics — non-digestible carbohydrates/plant fiber that feeds the good bacteria living in your gut — may play an important role in treating this condition, according to a study appearing in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Prebiotics to the rescue!

Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center discovered how prebiotics could help in treating osteoarthritis while studying mice fed high-fat foods, not unlike the cheeseburgers and shakes humans eat in a Western diet.

After 12 weeks on a high-fat diet, mice experienced all of the telltale signs of eating a poor diet (obesity, diabetes) and their gut health showed it.

Not only were their microbiomes dominated by bacteria that triggered inflammation, they were nearly depleted of beneficial bacteria, including Bifidobacteria.

(These symptoms are also linked very strongly with leaky gut, a serious health condition that occurs when unintended substances seep through the intestinal barrier to the bloodstream.)

These internal changes were evident with signs of inflammation prevalent all over the tiny bodies of obese mice, along with a faster progression of osteoarthritis (nearly a total loss of knee cartilage within 12 weeks after a meniscal tear) compared to leaner mice.

However, the damage done by obesity was prevented almost completely when obese mice were fed a prebiotic (oligofructose). Although their body weight remained the same, the effects of osteoarthritis lessened greatly.

In fact, obese mice that were fed prebiotics had healthy knee cartilage indistinguishable to those of leaner mice and signs of diabetes diminished too.

“This reinforces the idea that osteoarthritis is another second complication of obesity, just like diabetes, heart disease and stroke, which all have inflammation as part of their root cause,” says Dr. Robert Mooney, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, according to the URMC Newsroom.

These positive results of the mice study have set the stage for a follow-up study with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs using probiotics and prebiotics to help vets suffering from obesity-related osteoarthritis.

Just a reminder that EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Jr. (Chewable and Powder) contain multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, and the prebiotic FOS (fructooligosaccharides). Both are proven weapons for fighting obesity that could also protect your body from the damage done by osteoarthritis.

Prebiotics May Help Treat Osteoarthritis Read More »

A Dog’s Gut Health May Look Like Yours

Disease, Misc, Probiotics / By Staff Writer

How many of you think of your pets as if they were members of your own family? You’d probably have a hard time finding anyone who doesn’t feel that way about their four-legged family members, especially dogs.

Did you know a dog’s gut health has developed very similarly to ours, and good gut health may be beneficial to dogs and their human masters?

Not only did researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory discover great parallels in the gut health and microbial composition of 64 retrievers and beagles, they concluded our gut health could be more similar to dogs, according to their study published in the open access journal Microbiome.

The latter finding is an interesting one, given that pigs and mice are used commonly in gut health research, which led scientists to study how the gut health and diversity of lean and overweight dogs changed when fed low carb/high protein diets.

Just like their overweight masters, the microbiomes of heavier dogs changed significantly when fed high protein/low carb food, but not those of leaner dogs (a sign that thinner canines had healthier, more resilient gut microbiomes).

“These findings suggest that dogs could be a better model for nutrition studies than pigs or mice and we could potentially use data from dogs to study the impact of diet on gut microbiota on humans, and humans could be a good model to study the nutrition of dogs,” says Dr. Luis Pedro Coehlo, as told to BioMed Central.

The hygiene hypothesis connection

You may be wondering how the microbiomes of dogs and their masters became so interconnected. That’s where the hygiene hypothesis may come into play due to Western cultures living in more sterile environments that are too clean for our good.

On the other paw, dogs only get soapy when they’ve been dirty (and probably bad) and they tend to scratch, sniff and lick spots on their bodies and those of fellow canines that most of us would never do.

Dogs may not be the only animals that provide microbial protection to humans either. Based on a 2016 study from the New England Journal of Medicine, Amish children raised around farm animals were up to six times less likely to experience asthma.

What can you do to protect the microbiomes of your family if you don’t live on or near a farm and caring for a pet just isn’t realistic?

Taking a probiotic, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Kids Probiotic for kids, containing multiple strains of beneficial bacteria can make a healthy difference in your gut health profile even if Fido isn’t available to help.

(Anecdotally, my wife and I have given our dogs EndoMune for seven years with no problems. All of them have a healthy GI tract and have experienced no gas, bloating or diarrhea during that time.)

A Dog’s Gut Health May Look Like Yours Read More »

a plane in the sky flying over a small town

How to Stay Healthy While Flying

Disease, Misc / By Staff Writer

Right now, we’re in the midst of a blazing hot summer when many of us are traveling in airplanes to cooler vacation destinations for some well-deserved R&R.

Along the way to that relaxing vacation hideaway, most of us have to put up with a lot of inconveniences — TSA security checks, overpriced foods in airport lounges and sitting next to or behind screaming kids and seat kickers — for hours surrounded by a lot of strangers.

Sounds like a lot of fun doesn’t it?

While your body is feeling out of sync due to traveling, your gut is experiencing something familiar. That’s because the typical commercial airplane has a “microbiome” too, and it’s very similar to the ones that occupy our homes and offices, according to a recent study that appeared in Microbial Ecology.

Scientists at Georgia Tech and Emory University studied 230 bacterial samples taken from commonly-touched areas in the typical airplane cabin — seat belt buckles, lavatory door handles and tray tables — and sampled cabin air before and after 10 transcontinental flights.

Although the microbiomes that inhabited airplane flights varied from flight to flight, the bacterial strains scientists detected were pretty ordinary.

“What we found was bacterial communities that were mostly derived from human skin, the human mouth and some environmental bacteria,” says Dr. Howard Weiss, a professor at the Georgia Tech School of Mathematics who worked on the study (according to a press release).

The bacterial communities that were found seemed benign and not unexpected. But, what about fellow travelers who may have the flu or a respiratory infection? In this case, closeness counts a great deal…

In a companion study featured earlier this year in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, passengers who may be fighting the flu or another virus probably won’t spread their sickness much farther than two seats laterally or one row in back or front of you on a plane.

That distance sounds pretty safe, unless you’re traveling out of the country to an international destination or flying long distances. Plus, can you count on the person sitting next to you to admit they’re sick while traveling?

Some simple tips to keep in mind when you’re traveling:

Keep your hands as clean as possible with plain soap and water and limit your use of antibacterial soaps. Antibacterial soaps can make your body more vulnerable to superbugs, a growing worldwide health problem, due to the overuse of antibiotics and disinfectants.
Keep up with your sleep, especially when traveling across multiple time zones. Jet lag will disrupt your body’s natural circadian rhythms just like shift work does.
Give your natural immunities an extra boost by taking a probiotic, ideally with multiple strains of beneficial bacteria, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic.

How to Stay Healthy While Flying Read More »

a man holding whole foods standing near a window

Fight Type 2 Diabetes with a Healthy Gut

Digestive Health, Disease, Healthy Aging / By Staff Writer

There’s no disputing the health benefits of eating whole foods — legumes, vegetables, fresh fruits and whole grains – rich in dietary fiber.

For a long time, science has recognized the role good gut health plays with help from dietary fiber in treating diseases like type 2 diabetes without really understanding how both converge to promote better overall health.

The results of a Chinese study that treated type 2 diabetes patients partly with a high-fiber diet may offer a critical clue, based on a tiny group of bacteria in the human gut.

A select group of gut bacteria

Researchers split patients into two groups: A control group who received standard dietary recommendations and patient education and a more active group who was prescribed a high-fiber diet containing many kinds of dietary fiber from whole grains, prebiotics and Chinese medicinal foods, according to the study featured in Science.

After 12 weeks, patients following the fiber-rich diet created by scientists that jump-started the development of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) had done its job.

Those patients in the active group experienced sharply reduced blood glucose levels at faster rates and lost extra weight too.

How did high-fiber diets make such a difference?

Researchers believe diseases like type 2 diabetes may occur as a result of problems in producing SCFAs in the gut. Surprisingly, a tiny number of gut bacteria – 15 out of a possible 141 strains – were affected by eating a high-fiber diet. In fact, this select group became the dominant strains in the guts of patients, after increasing butyrate and acetate levels.

Simply, the presence of higher levels of butyrate and acetate (both are SCFAs) created mildly acidic environments that decreased the amounts of bad bacteria in the gut, leading to a greater production of insulin and improved blood glucose control.

“Our study lays the foundation and open the possibility that fibers targeting this group of gut bacteria could eventually become part of your diet and your treatment,” says Dr. Liping Zhao, lead author of the study and a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology at Rutgers University, according to a press release.

More whole-grain goodness

This select group of gut bacteria may also be at work in the results of a study appearing in Gut, in which 60 Danish adults followed a high whole-grain diet (more than 100 grams per day) and a low refined grain diet (13 grams per day) alternately for eight-week periods.

Compared to the refined grain diet, patients eating a diet rich in whole grains lost weight and lowered the number of markers associated with inflammation that causes metabolic syndrome.

That’s a cluster of conditions ranging from elevated blood sugar levels to extra body fat around the waist that increases your risk of serious cardiovascular problems and diabetes.

Are you having trouble losing weight? Are you fighting a losing battle against metabolic syndrome?

To prevent metabolic syndrome from harming your health further and begin the healing process, restore the proper balance of gut bacteria with the help of EndoMune Metabolic Rescue and its unique probiotic blend of Bifidobacterium lactis and the prebiotic XOS.

How EndoMune Metabolic Rescue works

Unfortunately, the number of Bifidobacteria in your gut decline as your body ages, largely due to a changing diet that usually contains more fiber-free foods.

That’s where your adult gut needs extra help from a prebiotic, a substance made from non-digestible starches that literally feed your gut by promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria.

In recent years, XOS has emerged as a versatile, natural prebiotic that can provide many benefits, for example, reversing imbalances in the human gut during the development of type 2 diabetes to healthier ones.

EndoMune Metabolic Rescue’s unique formulation of Bifidobacterium lactis (a beneficial subspecies of Bifidobacteria) works as a synbiotic to produce SCFAs, stimulating the production of hormones that could slow down activity in the appetite center of your brain.

This hormonal action also slows down the motility (emptying) of your stomach, which promotes the sense of fullness or satiety. In other words, it takes less food to feel full.

Research related to consuming XOS has found increased amounts of Bifidobacteria in test subjects. Other studies have shown how patients given Bifidobacteria lactis can metabolize resistant starches like XOS, producing the SCFAs that act as signals to reduce appetite and slow down stomach motility, ideally resulting in weight loss and a healthier gut.

Fight Type 2 Diabetes with a Healthy Gut Read More »

Heartburn Drugs Harm Your Health

Disease, Healthy Aging / By Staff Writer

Once upon a time, treating chronic heartburn problems often required a visit and a healthy amount of monitoring by your family doctor.

That was certainly true until a few years ago when the FDA deregulated specific classes of heartburn drugs to over-the-counter (OTC) status: Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) like esomeprazole (Nexium) omeprazole magnesium (Prilosec) and H2 blockers like famotidine (Pepcid).

As their prices have fallen, heartburn drugs have become some of the most overused and over-prescribed products on the U.S. pharmaceutical market.

With this overreliance on heartburn meds – Americans spend about $11 billion annually on PPIs alone — reports of related health problems have risen too, especially for people have taken these drugs in large doses for more than year.

Some of the more widely reported problems with taking PPI heartburn meds have been related to unhealthy disruptions of gut bacteria that leave patients vulnerable to serious C. diff superbug infections.

A pair of recent studies have raised new and possibly deadly concerns about the health risks of taking PPIs.

Altering gut bacteria worsens liver disease risks

In previous research conducted at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, scientists observed changes in the composition of gut bacteria that affected a patient’s risks of chronic liver disease.

Their latest study on mice featured in Nature Communications took it one step further, adding gut-disrupting PPIs that suppress gastric acid in the stomach to the mix.

UCSD researchers discovered suppressing gastric acid that triggered an overproduction of Enterococcus in the guts of mice. (Health problems related to Enterococcus include urinary tract infections, diverticulitis and meningitis.)

This increase of Enterococcus promoted a worsening of three types of chronic liver disease: Alcohol-induced liver disease, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

In a second phase of their study, scientists confirmed a connection between PPIs use and alcohol-related liver disease in a review of more than 4,800 human patients who abuse alcohol. Of that total, about 1,000 took PPIs actively and nearly two-thirds didn’t.

Not only did PPIs increase the amount of Enterococcus in stool samples, the risk of alcoholic liver disease soared by more than 20 percent among patients who used them regularly. Plus, for people who had used PPIs but stopped taking them, the risk for alcoholic liver disease was still elevated at about 16 percent.

Can PPIs kill you?

The health outcomes collected from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs database of nearly 350,000 American vets who used PPI or H2 blocker heartburn drugs, then reviewed by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine revealed even more sobering results.

Compared to an H2 blocker, using PPIs for at least a year increased the risk of death among vets by 25 percent. In very simple terms, that’s one extra death for every 500 patients taking a PPI, according to the study appearing in BMJ Open.

In addition, that risk of death was nearly as high among patients who took a PPI drug versus an H2 blocker at 24 percent even though they didn’t have the proper symptoms.

Also, the longer patients took a PPI, the greater their mortality risks. For people taking them for 1-2 years, the risk of death spiked by 50 percent.

Unfortunately, too many patients just keep taking PPIs even though the recommendation duration of treatment shouldn’t exceed 8 weeks. “A lot of times people get prescribed PPIs for a good medical reason, but then doctors don’t stop it and patients just keep getting refill after refill after refill,” says senior study author Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, according to a press release.

The good news is that you can take safe steps to reduce your need for heartburn drugs by taking some simple healthy steps:

Eat smaller meals with reduced amounts of fat.
Avoid alcohol, tobacco and rich foods that trigger heartburn.
Work on keeping your weight down.
Make sure you leave a two-hour gap between eating an evening meal and bedtime.
Take a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic that maintains the beneficial bacteria in your gut.

Heartburn Drugs Harm Your Health Read More »

Beat The Flu With Probiotics

Disease, Probiotics / By Staff Writer

If you and your family have stayed healthy throughout this latest flu season — one that many experts say may be one of the worst ever — consider yourselves lucky.

The huge majority of this year’s flu cases in America originates from the H3N2 strain, one that hit Australia hard last year, sending countless patients to hospitals and killing four times more people than the most recent five-year average for a flu season.

Also, treating the flu is very expensive for all of us, accounting for more than $27 billion annually in direct medical expenses and lost wages.

A very timely study appearing in Scientific Reports demonstrates how a single strain of beneficial bacteria may protect you from some of the worst symptoms of the influenza A virus and its many variations.

Scientists at Georgia State University treated mice with a proprietary strain of Lactobacillus casei (one of the 10 strains of beneficial bacteria used in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic) before infecting them with a lethal dose of the influenza A virus.

Surviving the flu

All of the mice that were treated with Lactobacillus casei survived their run-ins with influenza A, according to Dr. Sang-Moo Kang, lead study author and a professor at Georgia State’s Institute for Biomedical Sciences.

Among the survivors, their immune systems were strong enough to resist deadly primary and secondary strains of the flu and protect them from losing weight.

By comparison, the control mice that weren’t treated with Lactobacillus casei experienced severe weight loss within nine days after being infected with the flu, had 18 times more influenza virus in their tiny lungs and eventually died.

These results aren’t surprising, considering the findings of an older study that found treating patients with another proprietary strain of Lactobacillus after giving them a flu shot held onto a protective amount of the vaccine for at least four weeks.

Even if you hate getting a flu shot in the first place, there’s many simple steps you can take to boost your immune system, from washing your hands early and often with plain soap and water (no antibacterial soaps) to getting the right amount of sleep and staying hydrated.

Taking a multi-species probiotic with important strains of beneficial bacteria, like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic and EndoMune Kids Probiotic (for kids), can also be a safe and effective non-drug way to protect your family’s health from the flu too.

Beat The Flu With Probiotics Read More »

How Antibiotics Caused an Epidemic

Disease, Drug interactions / By Staff Writer

If you do a random search of my blog, one of the most popular topics you’ll find is antibiotics, and for a good reason too.

Not so long ago, antibiotics were considered “the Holy Grail” of modern medicine. Unfortunately, that advantage lasted only until our bodies had absorbed way too much of a good thing.

Additional exposure to antibiotics in flesh foods we eat and powerful anti-microbial substances contained in cleaning solutions and hand soaps have done much to tip the scales in the opposite direction, however.

The result: Creating unintentional and serious harm to human health via our overtaxed and compromised immune systems.

Along those lines of too much being a bad thing for your health, the very same concerns are true about overdoing antibiotics, especially for those who never needed them in the first place.

A good case in point is a recent study conducted at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that appeared in the September 2017 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Researchers reviewed medical records of some 1,500 patients admitted to Johns Hopkins for many reasons, including chronic diseases and trauma, and all were treated with antibiotics for a minimum of 24 hours.

No surprise, 20 percent of the patients who were tracked experienced unexpected health issues, including kidney, blood and gastrointestinal problems. Also, between 4-6 percent of patients were stricken with Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infections and other antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

Although scientists reported no deaths associated with antibiotics, many suffered complications just the same.

More diagnostic testing
Repeat admissions to the hospital
More visits to the emergency room or local clinics
Longer hospital stays

The real takeaway of concern for you and me in this study: Nineteen percent of patients were prescribed antibiotics they didn’t need. Of that subgroup, 20 percent sustained adverse effects from taking medically unnecessary drugs.

One way you can protect your health from unnecessary antibiotics: Don’t be afraid to ask your doctor questions about potential side effects and how to recognize them, says lead study author Dr. Pranita Tamma, director of John Hopkins’ pediatric antimicrobial stewardship program, according to a press release.

“Too often, clinicians prescribe antibiotics even if they have a low suspicion for a bacterial infection, thinking that even if antibiotics may not be necessary, they are probably not harmful. But that is not always the case.”

Even when taking antibiotics are necessary, however, be aware they can do great harm by affecting the balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut that governs your health and recovery from disease in so many ways.

That’s why taking a probiotic, ideally with multiple species of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, is the best, safest and most effective way to protect your gut and boost your immune system, even when you need to take an antibiotic.

If you need guidance on how and when to take a probiotic, especially when you’re sick, be prepared by reviewing my updated probiotic protocol for kids and adults today.

How Antibiotics Caused an Epidemic Read More »

Probiotics May Help Inhibit Colon Cancer

Disease, Probiotics / By Staff Writer

Your gut microbiota is an incredibly diverse environment populated by trillions of tiny organisms that perform all sorts of important functions behind the scenes in the human body.

The average human gut is dominated by about 150-170 different species of bacteria, although as many as 1,000 unique species can be found. That’s a lot of diversity, although humans commonly share about a third of the same species of gut bacteria.

The more diverse the bugs that inhabit your gut are, the better your health will be. Unfortunately, diseases like colon cancer harm that healthy, stable mix of gut bacteria.

A growing number of studies have shown how probiotics made from multiple strains of beneficial bacteria do a great job of making up for fluctuations in diet that deplete your diverse microbiome and treating conditions like constipation.

Multi-species probiotics may play a larger role in the treatment of colon cancer too, based on the recent findings of a small study featured in BMJ Open Gastroenterology.

A Swedish research team at the University of Gothenburg tracked the health of 15 patients with malignant cases of colon cancer who were given probiotics.

At the start, scientists studied the gut health of colon cancer patients by taking biopsies and fecal samples, then comparing them to similar samples from 21 healthy patients.

Eight patients received a probiotic containing proprietary strains of Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium lactis (these bacterial strains are contained in EndoMune Advanced Probiotic), while the rest received no probiotic.

Biopsies on colon cancer patients showed a different composition of the microbiota in tumor tissues and surrounding mucosa compared samples from healthy patients.

However, the gut health of colon cancer patients treated with probiotics improved due to the increased production of butyrate, a short chain fatty acid linked to promoting better colon health and anti-inflammatory benefits as well as inhibiting the growth of cancer cells in the intestines.

The next phase of research for researchers: Working with a larger group of patients whose colon cancer diagnoses are in a pre-malignant stage in hopes of working toward prevention.

Besides taking a multi-species probiotic, what else can you do to reduce your risks of colon cancer? Here’s four more things you can do today.

Avoid excess contact with antibacterial soaps and antibiotics linked to antibacterial resistance.
Take a daily supplement that includes the right amounts of calcium (1,000-1,200 mg) or vitamin D (1,000 IU) per day.
Fight the obesity epidemic by losing a few pounds and moving a bit more with exercise.
Get screened for colon cancer with annual blood work (a high-sensitivity fecal occult blood test) and less frequently with a flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy.

Probiotics May Help Inhibit Colon Cancer Read More »

Do You Live in a Hurricane Zone? Take Your Probiotics!

Children’s Health, Digestive Health, Disease / By Staff Writer

Despite all of the modern conveniences we enjoy in America, the safety of our nation’s food and water supplies remains a consistent problem due to contamination from nasty strains of bugs like Escherichia coli, better known as E. coli bacteria.

Most strains of E. coli are common and relatively benign, especially those living in the guts of animals and humans. However, the most popular strain of E. coli — Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) — seems to find its way into our food and water more often these days due to unforeseen contamination.

More than 250,000 Americans are sickened annually as a result of contact with the STEC form of E. coli, according to the CDC.

Many who come in contact with this sickening kind of E. coli usually suffer from watery diarrhea, gas and severe abdominal cramping, but it passes within 10 days.

Yet one very serious health problem related to E. coli infections reported in previous food outbreaks, hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), can destroy red blood cells and may lead to kidney failure if not treated quickly and appropriately.

E. coli concerns have risen to new levels over the past few weeks with Hurricanes Harvey and Irma slamming into the coasts of Texas and Florida, respectively, destroying homes and property along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (with more on the way).

How bad is it?

Some Houston neighborhoods were slammed by E. coli contamination after rains from Hurricane Harvey flooded local sewage plants, according to reports in the New York Times and Houston Public Media.

In fact, area scientists measured E. coli levels in one Houston home exceeding 135 times beyond what’s considered safe.

The problem: Warm temperatures coupled with stagnant water that’s trapped inside a flooded home and tainted with sewage can become a safe haven for bacteria multiplying at a much faster rate than it would outdoors, creating massive health problems.

The same kind of damage with sewage overflows has been reported all over the Florida peninsula, with spills reported from Miami to Jacksonville due to Hurricane Irma, according to New Republic.

The bad bugs swimming in Florida waters may have exposed residents to noroviruses that people encounter on cruise ships and other nasty pathogens, such as giardia and salmonella, says Dr. Valerie Harwood of the University South Florida.

Unfortunately, your town doesn’t have to be hit by a hurricane to have a problem with E. coli. Residents of Atlantic Beach, N.C., recently experienced this problem when local officials ordered a boil order for 24 hours due to E. coli found in a local water sample, according to Food Safety News.

And, that’s just one bacteria…

Exposure to Vibrio vulnificus from coastal flooding via hurricanes also creates the rare but deadly possibility for harmful infections that harm those with open wounds who could lose limbs or even die.

In fact, open wounds and scrapes infected with Vibrio can worsen in just 10 hours to the point that limbs may require amputation, experts say.

Take these steps to protect your health

If you live in the harm’s way of natural disasters like hurricanes or severe storms that flood your home, there are simple steps you can take to protect the health of you and your family.

If you have an open wound, avoid any exposure to flood waters, and seek medical attention quickly if it worsens.
Wash your hands with warm, clean water and plain soap if you have to return to your home to do repairs or pick up clothing, especially before meals. Skip antibacterial cleaning products that create opportunities for more powerful superbugs.
Don’t allow your children to play with toys that have been floating in dirty floodwater, until they have been disinfected.
Are you current on your vaccinations? Call your doctor!
Don’t skip taking a daily probiotic, ideally one containing multiple strains of beneficial bacteria like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic, as it gives your immune an extra boost that protects your health from E. coli and other nasty bugs.

Do You Live in a Hurricane Zone? Take Your Probiotics! Read More »

Your Gut Health Connection to Parkinson’s

Disease, Healthy Aging / By Staff Writer

Now that modern science has finally embraced the gut-brain axis, it was only a matter of time before researchers began to find other pathways that connect the two.

Recent studies have linked both to Parkinson’s disease, one of the most common neurological brain disorders Americans face. Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disorder related to the brain’s shrinking production of dopamine, which leads to problems with tremors, stiffness and balance.

Interestingly, your gut health connection to Parkinson’s disease may be tied to some common problems, like constipation and imbalances in gut bacteria.

Does Parkinson’s start in the gut?

One study, appearing in Neurology, examined the health of patients receiving resection surgery or a vagotomy, a procedure that removes the main portion or branches of the vagus nerve, the longest cranial nerve in the human body extending from the neck to the abdomen, to treat ulcers.

Researchers discovered the gut health connection to Parkinson’s when comparing two types of vagotomy surgeries that fully or selectively (partially) resected the vagus nerve.

Over the scope of the 40-year study, three times as many patients who had a selective vagotomy eventually developed Parkinson’s versus a full resection. Plus, patients who had a full resection were 40 percent less likely to experience Parkinson’s.

The “bread crumbs” left behind by a partial resection led researchers to conclude that Parkinson’s origins may start in the gut, says study author Dr. Bojing Liu, MSc, of the Karolinska Instituet in Stockholm, Sweden, according to a press release.

In fact, gut health problems like constipation that manifest decades sooner may be a sign that Parkinson’s could emerge later on in a patient’s life, says Dr. Liu.

Can a gut bacteria imbalance lead to Parkinson’s?

A lot closer to home, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) may have found another telltale sign of Parkinson’s disease via the composition of bacteria that inhabit the human gut.

Scientists discovered the connection while comparing the health of some 200 patients from three distinct regions of America (Northwest, Northeast and Southeast) with Parkinson’s to 130 healthy controls, according to the study appearing in Movement Disorders.

Unfortunately, health experts couldn’t figure out what came first:

Are changes in a patient’s gut bacteria balance a red flag that Parkinson’s is a possibility?
Does this disease play an active part in the disruption of gut health?
Could a Parkinson’s drug be causing problems?

One clue that may determine which way this gut bacteria imbalance goes is the method in which the microbiome helps the body get rid of environmental pollutants not typically found in the human body.

The balance of bacteria tasked with eliminating these chemicals was different in Parkinson’s patients, a critical finding since exposure to herbicides and pesticides in farm settings increases one’s risk of this debilitating disease.

These discoveries may lead to new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, says Dr. Haydeh Payami, a professor in the Department of Neurology at the UAB School of Medicine, according to UAB News.

“Therapies that regulate the imbalance in the microbiome may prove to be helpful in treating or preventing the disease before it affects neurologic function.”

Could taking a multi-species probiotic like EndoMune Advanced Probiotic be a possible solution?

While scientists were quick to discourage any quick fixes, taking a probiotic does boost the body’s natural immunities and is a healthy and effective way to treat constipation without a drug.

Your Gut Health Connection to Parkinson’s Read More »