Few years ago I was in bad health. Got sick 4 times a year had a lot of pain going to the bathroom and was in a general state of depression. Started taking probiotics in 2 weeks I felt happier and my over all health improved. Did some research and found that it is estimated that 90 percent of the body's serotonin is made in the digestive tract. Who knew, get your body right added some probiotics in your diet.
We haven't spent much time tracking it closely, but the relationship is obvious enough to be a no brainer for us.
Funny thing, she once went through a phase of making home-made yogurt and also bought some kefir "seeds", little white blobs of culture. I saw that it's quite simple to multiply/generate a regular home production, so I'm going to recommend that she start the hobby again, for improving her health and immune system.
The issue you described of sneezing and stuffy nose every morning affects quality of living, and I hope fermented foods can help clear it up.
I wish you the best! Gut health is important, and very much still a black art.
Another thing we're trying with regards to allergies and other immune issues, is medicinal mushrooms. But that's a whole topic in itself and maybe only tangentially related to gut flora.
It's fascinating the medicinal/curative potential of bacteria, molds and fungi. The posted article mentioned 100 trillion microorganisms in the human microbiome, that's astronomical.
Before this point I was highly critical of people with pretend/made up food sensitivites and ate anything I wanted on the basis that if there was a problem my doctor would tell me. Recently (a few months ago) I stopped eating wheat as an experiment as I had some Celiac-like symptoms showing up more and more. It changed my life.
76% of people with this gene who are not diagnosed with Celiac yet and consume wheat have a serotonin-based psychiatric disorder because the undigested wheat starts acting negatively on the serotonin system, making you volatile and anxious. My diagnosed Generalized Anxiety Disorder took a matter of weeks to disappear.
Genetic self awareness and choosing your foods carefully cannot be overstated as a means to improved quality of life.
I'm considering trying to cut out wheat-based foods to see how it affects my anxiety, but it'd be good to know whether just cutting out obviously wheat things is pointless.
I notice when restaurants use it but it doesn't really ruin my life or make me descend back into bad health. I just notice I am more anxious/blood sugar volatile for a few days after. So I avoid obvious large sources of wheat, but I accept that restaurants regularly use it in sauce, etc. and it causes noticeable but manageable issues.
I have the heterozygote version (1 variant of HLA gene) rather than the homozygote version (2 variants of HLA gene) so it is less severe and only affects some of my cells. If you have both variants, your risk of Celiac goes to about 50% and you normally find out early in life.
I would also confirm it is not some other category of food sensitivity affecting you - my fiance went through a similar process and found some links to IBS which leads to a low FODMAP diet. Wheat is a FODMAP but other FODMAP foods affected her also where for me it is 100% wheat.
TL/DR: obvious wheat things is a big step, I noticed difference in anxiety, skin health, brain fog, focus, migranes, sleep. 80% of those issues for me went away by getting rid of obvious sources at home.
As someone with immediate family members with autism, people claiming that removing wheat and dairy from their child's diet would "fix" their "autism" was offensive to me. I trust doctors for the most part to be a superior model to the mommy blogger/anti vaccine crusade. GMOs are another example of misinformation and fear mongering trumping science.
I have since learned the value of genetic self awareness and how little we understand about health and diet issues, especially chronic ones, and so have reversed my position towards people with food sensitives, made up or otherwise, to empathize with the fact that we probably don't understand a given issue well enough yet to fix all of the eating problems people have and so people can do whatever they want.
L. reuteri ATCC PTA 6475[0]
L. reuteri DSM 17938[0]
Lactobacillus reuteri Protectis[1]
[0]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AH3RT9Y
[1]- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001XUQNN4
I was taking others too, as well as some prebiotics but I stopped for awhile and been taking these two again for about a week and already feel much better - at least as good as before when I was taking more.
Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this means they are dead but the remaining proteins are "active". They'll only last as long as proteins are available. The industry really needs to clarify this stuff. Independent evaluators need to check out their claims.
Live strains will reproduce.
There are many tricks to get them to survive the stomach acids: imbed them in gelatin or psyllium. Another trick is to prefeed them in airtight, dark bottle so they're growing before you eat them. Just put it in your pocket for a couple of hours.
Clinical trials need to be done to firmly establish efficacy; but I've given this concoction to several people and they were very happy with the results.
More research needs to be done on which species of fungi, bacteria , and arachea give good results.
The gut microbiome is an interdependent environment. Restoring the balance occasionally may benefit lots of folks.
Many probiotics are labeled as "active". I think this
means they are dead but the remaining proteins are
"active". They'll only last as long as proteins are
available.
Labdoor (which is advertising-supported) tests probiotics based on how accurate their CFU numbers are: https://labdoor.com/rankings/probiotics (These tests, of course, don't say if the probiotic in question is actually good for you or not.)
I've taken both General Biotics Equilibrium and (115 strains, 1 billion CFUs, shipped unrefrigerated) and Renew Life Ultimate Flora Extra Care. (10 strains, 50 billion CFUs, refrigerated)
If either of them had any effect at all, I didn't notice it.
I'd bet that a lot of these species die on the shelf.
The industry might still benefit from consistently labeling as "live" on the bottle if the probiotics are live.
I suspect that not everyone has an imbalance that would benefit the user.
A good strategy might be to try various species until something works.
An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes assays might help; but that's a few years away.
An over the counter "23 and me" for gut species genomes
assays might help; but that's a few years away.
Costs $89.
I'm not sure I got a lot of actionable information from either, though. Certainly not as much of detailed interest as from the 23andme data.
Real science behind the strains they choose and I've never seen a probiotic with more of them (115 different bacteria).
Starting taking these, suddenly was able to use the washroom normally. No coffee needed, finally quit that. No diarrhea.
It's been about three weeks. So I doubt it's a coincidence. In a span of that length I would have had multiple problems in the past. Only alternate cause I can think of is that I was reducing coffee before I took them, but still drinking decaf. However, digestion had been entirely the same during this reduction process.
And I was on the pills + coffee for about 10 days, with improved digestion, so I suspect the pills.
BTW antibiotics is usually the cause of C. Diff and can be a cause of other bowel diseases
It does affect blood pressure and a few other things, so you get indirect effects.