News Briefs – 03/19/2023

Gut health is complicated, because everyone’s flora is different, and everyone will respond differently to different flora. As a result, IMO attempting to regulate your own gut health is a product of trial and error. All of this is stuff which I have seen recommended for use under a doctor’s supervision:

Probiotics will be entirely hit or miss, so give it a shot, and see what happens. More likely than not, nothing happens, because if you have a problem, that microbe has already dominated all the other microbes down there, and is like Mike Tyson in the rung down there. Dumping in probiotics is like grabbing some kids off the street and throwing them in the ring with Tyson. They will probably not do well. But you never know.

Glutamine seems helpful in a lot of reports, but might have no effect.

Nutrient breakdown. Shifting from high carbs to high fat to high protein, and conversely restricting protein, restricting carbohydrates, and restricting fat will all change what is growing down there, and since problems are often a single bad species, changing it by giving other microbes the advantage by feeding them and starving the bad one can get rid of it. No way to know which will work best for you other than to try, since there are a lot of different microbes with different preferences.

Nutrient restriction, ie going from a balanced diet with everything, to just limited nutrients, can restrict what is growing down there. Most microbes have B vitamins in the minimal media they require to grow, and while you will not starve them entirely from shifting to just hamburger for few days, or just chicken, it can help.

Motility, speed of transfer through the GI tract, can be changed with things like coffee, or even stimulant laxatives. Some microbes need time, and will even emit stuff into the GI tract to dull nerves and slow things down to give themselves an advantage. Although likely to only offer temporary relief, if used with something which restricts growth of the bad species, speeding motility can make it possible to entirely purge something bad, by slowing its growth and purging what little there is for a week, until it is no longer in there entirely and able to reproduce in sufficient numbers to compete. Again, stimulant laxatives are a big deal, and you can get addicted in a way, so do this with a TCM doc, who has that as a technique they use regularly. Bulk, or hydroscopic laxatives do not seem to do much, although I have heard of stuff like Miralax in maximal dosing being used to clean people out. And that polymer is reportedly soothing and anti-inflammatory just by itself.

Ions, like Magnesium supplements in particular seem to have a decent effect. In higher concentrations, Epsom salt mixes an ionophore-type effect which can kill some microbes with a laxative effect, completely altering gut health.

And finally, even fasting changes the nutrient profiles down there, and could make it more hospitable for good species and less so for whatever is in there while you are eating.

The general theory I have seen is if something is down there now causing inflammation and upset, try to look at the environment you are creating now, and change it. Inside that lumen it is dog-eat-dog, and thousands of species are fighting it out, with only a handful coming out on top regularly. If one of those is a bad species, changing things, just a little, can allow another species to get the upper hand, and once that happens, the shift can be rapid, and due to how it works, if you maintain that shift long enough, the last of the bad species can die off and you can get clear.

And again, TCM has been doing that professionally for thousands of years, so a good TCM acupuncture/herbalist can be worth their weight in gold. Just sometimes you will have to ask to add the laxative effect.