I know that by avoiding fiber, I also avoid all kinds of discomfort. I lean more and more carnivore lately; one of these days I'll try Zero Carb, but I don't have the control over my environment I would need, managing that with my health issues.

I have a small glass almost daily and rinse at night before bed. It could be what cured my gum disease and stopped tooth staining? I also brush with essential oil mouth blend. Kefer has helped with regularity and constipation issues too I believe.

It varies some from batch-to-batch and according to incubation temperature. Have you tried washing the grains with spring water? I do that every few days or weeks.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...80510203730.htm



One thing that occurs to me in this is the effect of a varied diet on gut bug variety. If the SAD with excess reliance on refined wheat, sugar, and refined vegetable oils results in a decreased gut biome variety, it's also true that it has a less varied, maybe less complete nutrition for us.

If it's leading them away from relying on cholesterol and LDL-C as valid heart health markers, it's good. The more I read this the more the word "correlation" jumps out at me. Yes, they have an association at this time, and it's an interesting one. Much, much more to learn.

Yeah, my current diet's carbs come pretty much from heavy cream and eggs. I sort of doubt that gives the the sort of microbiome these guys think is a good idea.

I give points any time somebody doesn't mention that there are more bacterial cells than human cells in our body. I'm not sure that's true. But there are more bacteria in my house than human beings, that doesn't make them more relevant.

Not that you can trade teaserpoints(tm) for anything useful.

TMI Warning:

Yeah, well I eat very little 1 to 2 X a day and still have 2-3 huge BM's everyday -- so where is all that coming from?

Your gut bugs have clearly gone rogue and are busy digesting your gut lining.

If that's possible, could it be the Kefir grains used to culture his Kefir? I bought the same grains from the same tea vender in Texas. The Kefir that I had a strange allergic reaction to!

Whoops. I must have said that with too straight a face.

The one kind of "gut lining munching" bacteria I know anything about seems to actually be good for the gut lining. A few years ago a post on the Free the Animal blog called something like Attention low carbers; your gut bugs aren't that into you or some such looked at some low carber's gut bacteria population. Akkermansia Mucophilia was increased, they like the protective mucin coating in mammals guts. So the article was about how we're all likely to get leaky gut. So I looked up this gut bug, the studies in mice all showed a protective effect--they do ferment mucin, but they also signal the goblet cells that produce mucin to produce more--the gut actually ends up better protected. In mice, the connection between leaky gut, fatty liver and insulin resistance is fairly robust, these Akkermansia protect against this.

Another recent study in mice looked at the ketogenic diet, gut bugs, and seizures. Mice that had a protective effect from the diet had more Akkermansia, and more of another bug, a protobacteriode, whatever that is, that also has some sort of protective effect in the gut. Combined, these two gut bugs showed protection against seizures when given to mice who weren't even on the ketogenic diet. The evidence that the ketogenic diet is bad for the gut--I don't know that it's anything more than an assumption. There seems to be evidence that it can be good. I don't know that you can assume that adding fermentable fiber--even fermentable fiber certain to do good in a high carb diet, if you could be that certain--would do any good in a ketogenic dieter. The akkermansia obviously have an advantage if other fermentable foodstuff are in short supply, increase fermentable fiber, maybe some other population of gut bugs would get the advantage of them. I wouldn't present this as a fiber menace sort of thing, just an obvious possibility.

I've read two of Dr. David Perlmutter's books; Grain Brain & Brain Maker, and he delves heavily into the gut-brain connection.

The Empowering Neurologist - David Perlmutter, MD, and Dr. Michael Ruscio 5-20-2018 [ Perlmutter's bio ]. He describes patients where probiotics improved their situation, sometimes drastically. He talks about the gut-brain connection - through the vagus nerve. He mentions how the vagus nerve is considered by some to be the second brain.

Think Twice: How the Gut's "Second Brain" Influences Mood and Well-Being - The emerging and surprising view of how the enteric nervous system in our bellies goes far beyond just processing the food we eat - 2-12-2010

How Does the Vagus Nerve Convey Gut Instincts to the Brain? 5-23-2014

They say that mitochondria was commonly believed to once have been bacteria that were engulfed by eukaryotic cells.

Perlmutter also explains the relationship between the gut bacteria and the immune system. Also, there is a passing of a mother's microbiome to the newborn child during vaginal delivery, and a distinct lack of gut flora if they are born by caesarean section. And he sees advantages when newborn are breastfeed for at least a year instead of formula fed. That does not mean you are SOL if born by c-section and not breast fed - probiotics will restore what you may be lacking.

Mood, Gut Bacteria, and the Immune System 4-6-2011

In Brain Maker, he lists 5 Core Species:

Lactobaccilus plantarum
Lactobaccilus acidophilus
Lactobaccilus brevis
Bifidobacterium lactis (also called B. animalis)
Bifidobacterium longum

I just started taking Garden of Life - RAW Probiotics Ultimate Care and have started on some of the prebiotics (feeds gut bacteria) he lists; jicama (tastes like water chestnuts), dandelion greens, kimchee, sauerkraut, raw leeks, raw garlic, and some others. They all pass the taste test (I was brought up on kimchee).

I believe Perlmutter said the gut is the largest producer of immune hormones in the human body, more than the brain produces.

Stress & the gut-brain axis: Regulation by the microbiome 10-2016

5.4. Immune signaling

The immune system plays an important intermediary role in the dynamic equilibrium that exists between the brain and the gut (Bengmark, 2013). The HPA axis, ANS and ENS all directly interact with the immune system (Bateman et al., 1989; Genton and Kudsk, 2003; Hori et al., 1995; Leonard, 2006; Nance and Sanders, 2007), and the gut itself is an important immune organ that provides a vital defensive barrier between externally-derived pathogens and the internal biological environment. Gut-associated lymphoid tissues form the largest immune organ of the human body, comprising more than 70% of the total immune system (Vighi et al., 2008).

I see you were joking Teaser but seriously, what about all of these internet sales of cultures of Kefir grains and Kambucha tea or whatever it's called being sold by individuals without a lab backing up it's purity? I just wonder if some if it might do more harm than good. After all, cultivating a science experiment on your kitchen counter and then ingesting it, not really knowing what's in it, the strains of bacteria could have been altered or contaminated at some point and who would know.....

I don't know. I think certain cultured foods are distinctive enough--it's hard to mistake a lacto-fermentation for an alcoholic one for instance--that maybe there are strong clues, especially if somebody's experienced enough, that things have gone right.

When it comes to gut bacteria and precisely what to do about them, I'm a bit skeptical about some people like Dr. Perlmutter and Dr. Davis whom I think are doing a lot of people a lot of good, and whether they really know what I should do about my gut bacteria. If something was obviously wrong with my doo-doo, I might change things up, but I think there are still clearer lights to steer by, how I feel, blood glucose, energy levels reductions in aches and pains (way less of these about a week and a half from fifty than I had when I was 30), better blood pressure now than then, etc.

The local health food store has a “kombucha bar” as part of their deli section, and a small amount each day does wonders for my digestion. And this is after I thought I had peaked going gluten free and how well that went.

So in my case, I tried it and I liked it.

Going to try and make some Kefir. I know I liked those yogurt drinks they sold in Asia in the small bottles (Yakult I think) - so this should be good. Got some goat milk ready. Never tried kombucha - but I'd give it a go.

From what I've read when you consume Kefir, the yoghurt is eaten to feed the kefir. The yoghurt has to be replenished but the Kefir actually colonizes in your body. I may have gotten to the saturation point. IDK. I could never find any info on how much is enough or too much.