Healthy people live in harmony with their "good" bacteria, or normal intestinal flora. This is called symbiosis. We provide the bacteria with a home and food, and in return they do some great things for us. These bacteria are called "probiotics."

Although there are thousands of different bacteria, the best-known friendly bacteria are Lactobacillus acidophilus and Bifidobacterium. Lactobacilli are also the bacteria that change milk into yogurt, and they are present in acidophilus milk. Bifidobacteria, which have been shown to provide many health benefits, are particularly high in the intestines of breast-fed newborns. A healthy intestinal system has more of both these friendly bacteria than other unfriendly bacteria.

One of the most important services good bacteria provide is preserving the correct balance of bacterial populations within the body. By their very presence they prevent the establishment and spread of "bad" bacteria and yeast, because harmful bacteria and yeast generally have no place to grow if friendly bacteria are thriving. You can never have too many of these great bacteria.

However, eating yogurt, drinking acidophilus milk or taking acidophilus supplements does not guarantee that you will have adequate colonies of good bacteria. Many people are so deficient in good bacteria that only larger doses will replenish the digestive tract, and often the presence of another bacteria or yeast/Candida must first be treated before good bacteria will be able to colonize and take hold. As well, many acidophilus products are woefully inadequate, and do little to replenish good bacteria.

More information:

The presence of good bacteria can be measured with a simple test.
Information on the highest quality probiotic products available on the market here.

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Image thanks to colouringbook.org

This article has been making the rounds online and we wanted to take a moment to review. The argument is that people who have Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) are simply having trouble digesting certain carbohydrates.

The challenge is that the idea behind this hypothesis are close to correct. The down side is that the diet probably restricts a lot of foods that any given specific individual IBS patient doesn't need to avoid. They are removing many of the common food allergens, but in a shotgun fashion. So it's not surprising that people are getting better.

Another challenge is that people don't really know exactly why they feel better, so when they cheat they don't know why the consequences differ from one food to the next. And when it doesn't work, which these shotgun approaches often won't, then they don't understand that either. And of course it's not nearly as effective as they claim. Those claims are always overstated. If we took every study that said that 75% of IBS sufferers improved, then we'd have over a 1000% success rate!

Excerpt from WSJ.com:

As many as 20% of adults at some point suffer from a painful digestive disorder that is difficult to diagnose and has no cure. Treatment is hit or miss, and many sufferers never seek help because they find the symptoms hard to discuss.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has long baffled gastro-intestinal experts. Some think it is caused by imbalances in gut bacteria; others point to psychological stress. Now, a small but growing contingent of specialists is focusing on food intolerances as a possible culprit—and a new dietary approach, called the low-Fodmaps diet, is gaining attention around the world.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome, a painful gas-and-bloating condition, plagues 10 to 15% of adults at some point and has long divided GI experts. As Melinda Beck on Lunch Break explains, a growing contingent of specialists are focusing on diet as a culprit.

The theory is that many people with IBS have trouble absorbing certain carbohydrates in their small intestines. Large molecules of those foods travel to the colon, where they are attacked by bacteria and ferment, creating the telltale IBS symptoms of gas, bloating, constipation or diarrhea.

A long list of foods—including dairy products, some fruits and vegetables, wheat, rye, corn syrup and artificial sweeteners—can potentially create such problems in susceptible people. Collectively, they're known as Fodmaps, an acronym that for stands for Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides and Polyols.

In people who have bacterial deficiencies (not enough of the good bacteria we all need - often due to antibiotics, infections or other factors) it is possible that they are not producing enough of the enzymes needed to break down the carbohydrates the FODMaps diet is tying to avoid.

In these cases the diet helps, but the patient would be far better served by having their underlying bacterial imbalance fixed - then they wouldn't need to avoid any of these foods because they would be able to digest them normally. But there is another factor - food allergy. It is no coincidence that the FODMaps diet is both relatively successful and avoids the most common allergenic foods.

There are many good studies showing that IBS patients often have immune system reactions in which immunoglobulin to foods can cause a person to have all the symptoms of IBS. The most common allergenic foods being dairy, soy, and gluten grains (including non-gluten parts of these grains).

The most worthwhile quote in the entire article: "We've been missing the boat in not recognizing the role of foods in functional GI disorders," Dr. Chey says. "We'll see much more attention to this in the next few years."

The IBS Treatment Center hasn't been missing the boat. We have been helping patients from all over the world identify their food allergies and intolerances for 6 years.

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Read this article in its entirety on WallStreetJournal.com
Image thanks to ranker.com

The article below just came out in the journal Digestive Diseases.

Even though they overemphasize the psycho-social factors, at least they acknowledge the food and antibiotic factors in IBS.

From Karger.com:

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is characterised by abdominal pain and an erratic bowel habit, which depending on the definition used affects 5-10% of the population.

As a typical complex disease, it is likely that the condition will develop when a genetically susceptible individual is exposed to an appropriate environment stimulus.

This bio-psycho-social model assumes that there is no one cause of IBS, but rather that it is the product of complex interactions between host and environment.

Host factors include gender, age and psychological characteristics, while environmental factors include psychosocial stressors, gastrointestinal infections, antibiotics and food.

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Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Source
University Hospital, Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, Nottingham, UK. robin.spiller@nottingham.ac.uk
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