Carrageenan is a thickener used in many ready-made and free-from foods to improve the texture and stop things like yoghurts and plant milks from separating.
A long-standing puzzle is why this “harmless” emulsifier is used to induce gut inflammation in experimental medical research, yet it is also approved as a food additive. Associate professor of Clinical Medicine Joanne Tobacman from the University of Illinois has reviewed the data on this ingredient. Although in experimental research the degraded carrageenan used to produce inflammation was different from the undegraded carrageenan used in foods, there was in fact a marginal to non-existent distinction between types of carrageenan. Her conclusion was that this common additive causes colon inflammation. It causes inflammatory substances to invade your protective gut lining, causing ulcerations and evidence of colitis.
There is evidence to show that our increasing intakes of dietary emulsifiers like carrageenan are partly responsible for the explosion of inflammatory bowel disease. IBD has been steadily increasing in the late 20th century and has doubled worldwide since 2000.
Dr. Tabacman and her team went on to trial a no-carrageenan diet for people in remission from inflammatory bowel disease. They put all patients on a carrageenan-free diet. One group a capsule containing less than an average daily exposure amount of carrageenan. The other group got a placebo capsule with no carrageenan. The results were striking. Half the carrageenan capsule patients relapsed. None of the 100% carrageenan-free group did. Information kindly provided by Dr. Ben Brown writing in IHCAN.
What else might you be eating that’s keeping you ill?
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Toxic or “heavy” metals include mercury, lead, arsenic, and a few more. Many studies link high levels of heavy metals with autoimmune diseases, especially autoimmune thyroid conditions. 90% of people with hypothyroidism have autoimmune hypothyroidism. Standard medical tests miss this or get a false negative.
One study even found that women with high mercury exposure were more than twice as likely to have the antibodies found in Hashimoto’s and Graves’ disease. And unfortunately, these chemicals are a lot more common in our environment than most people realise. Mercury can be found in many things dental fillings and fish to vaccines to cosmetics. It can also be in the air as emission from coal-burning plants.
Lead can be found in old paints as well as old water pipes and cheap imported consumer goods. If you cycle on the roads a lot, you might be inhaling lead particles from road paint! The US FDA found traces of lead in over 400 lipsticks in 2012!
Arsenic accumulates in rice if the soil contains arsenic. It can also be in the water.
If you are short of nutrients because of digestive issues or a non-great diet of toxic metals your body will take up heavy metals more readily. This produces more toxic effects.
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“Sugar-free” products usually contain zero-calorie sweeteners aspartame, sucralose saccharin. You might think “what’s not to like?” One of the problems with sucralose and saccharin is that they stop you from digesting properly. They impair protein-digesting enzymes called proteases. This is a problem because when you can’t digest a protein, it becomes food for disease-causing bacteria in your bowel. Protein-rich foods include milk products, eggs, meat, fish, and beans. The now-overgrown disease-causing bacteria trigger inflammation resulting in damage to your gut lining. You cannot have IBD, IBS, or any autoimmune condition unless your gut lining is damaged.
Sucralose and saccharin also reduce friendly gut bacteria by 50%. Friendly gut bacteria are critical for bulletproof immunity, keeping inflammation under control, and restoring your bowel to perfect health. In fact, if you get your digestive and bowel health in order the rest of your health will follow.
According to research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology eating apple polyphenols (substances found in apple peels) can suppress out-of-control immune cell activation to prevent colitis. This study (on mice) is the first to show a role for T cells in polyphenol-mediated protection against autoimmune disease and could lead to new therapies and treatments for people with disorders related to bowel inflammation, such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and colitis-associated colorectal cancer.
What this means in plain English: substances in apple skins help heal your bowel, reducing the out-of-control inflammation that’s the hallmark of IBD. Stewed cooking apples also are a fantastic source of prebiotic fibre. Prebiotic fibre feeds beneficial gut bacteria that make daily repair substances to heal your bowel. When my patient’s test results show up with low levels of bacteria-produced bowel healing substances, one simple thing we do is get them eating either non-sugar home-stewed apple or a high-quality shop-bought product to build good gut bugs and soothe those inflamed linings.
Jerod A. Skyberg, Amy Robison, Sarah Golden, MaryClare F. Rollins, Gayle Callis, Eduardo Huarte, Irina Kochetkova, Mark A. Jutila, and David W. Pascual. Apple polyphenols require T cells to ameliorate dextran sulfate sodium-induced colitis and dampen proinflammatory cytokine expression. J. Leukoc Biol. December 2011 90:1043-1054; doi:10.1189/jlb.0311168
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Did you know that gut infections can kick off inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)? Why this is usually not obvious is that the infection might not cause any symptoms until your body comes under additional stress from something else. A stressor could be a traumatic few months, a viral infection, food poisoning, a course of antibiotics. Lack of physical activity, not enough sleep, too much alcohol are also stressors. Sadly, hospital testing usually does not look for these infections. An episode of food poisoning or “traveler’s diarrhoea” can cause IBS or IBD, sometimes many months down the line. Infections that can produce IBD include Proteus mirabilis or cytomegalovirus or overgrowth of normally harmless fungus. In IBS, many types of infection can cause your symptoms to develop. Together with your symptom history lab tests are a powerful tool for delivering you a truly personalized wellness plan.
Undiagnosed food sensitivities can be major. Food sensitivities are hard to pinpoint because it can take up to 48 hours for symptoms to manifest. The two most common symptoms involve your brain and your energy levels. Brain symptoms can include anxiety, mood issues, and brain fog. If you have IBD you will not be digesting a certain type of sugar (in many healthy foods) called a disaccharide. This is often also the case in IBS. The undigested disaccharide sugar can’t be absorbed into your bloodstream to give you energy. It lingers in your bowel and becomes food for harmful microorganisms. The toxins they give off damage your bowel. It becomes too permeable. Now undigested foods and toxins spill into your bloodstream. Your immune system reacts – causing inflammation and symptoms. Now you are starting to develop a food sensitivity. Some of the most common food sensitivities are foods that are hard to digest. Soya, egg, milk protein, and an array of grain-based proteins are collectively termed gluten.
High meat low veg low fruit diets correlate with IBD (both Crohn’s disease and colitis). In IBS the picture is a little different as certain vegetables can make matters worse until you’ve resolved the underlying infection or imbalance in gut bacteria. High meat diets impair the production of two very important families of bacteria you need for perfect bowel health. Bifidobacteria and lactobacillus. Who knew??
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Yes, viral infections can cause Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis!! When you get infected with a virus it never ever leaves you. It remains (hopefully) latent inside forever. In the event, your body has a big challenge the viruses can reactivate. You see this in cold sores. And in the reactivation of Epstein Barr virus which is seen in the majority of long covid sufferers. Why do viruses reactivate? It’s due to you being under metabolic stress. Something as simple as wiping out your good gut bacteria with a necessary course of antibiotics can do it. This is because 70% of your immune cells live in your gut! The good news is that you can get viruses back into latency so they are not harming you. I did this with a collection of viral infections that had kept me ill for 8 years.
The cytomegalovirus can cause uveitis (an inflammatory eye condition) AND inflammatory bowel disease. I first saw this in a patient a couple of years back who had come to me with Crohn’s AND uveitis. Alarm bells rang immediately. I use Elispot and cutting-edge PCR testing to check for viruses when relevant. Even if you’re on immunosuppressant medication the Elispot test works.
Some other complications of cytomegalovirus can include hearing loss, vision loss, seizures, lack of coordination, immune suppression, hepatitis, inflammation of your retina, pneumonitis, oesophagitis, high blood pressure, polyradiculopathy, transverse myelitis, subacute encephalitis, heart disease, and aortic aneurism.
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Despite there not being many conversations about it, IBD (Inflammatory Bowel Disease) is a severe condition and an umbrella term for an inflamed digestive tract. IBD refers to two kinds of inflammation:
Ulcerative Colitis: If you have inflammation and ulcers in your colon and possibly your rectum, you’re dealing with Ulcerative Colitis.
Crohn’s disease: Crohn’s disease refers to a severe inflammation of your digestive tract and it can spread to other tissues too.
Why is it crucial to deal with IBD as soon as it happens? The problem is that the infamous Bowel Disease is a type of auto-immune disease. As the condition worsens, the body’s immune system begins to attack itself. IBD generally isn’t a fatal medical problem, but it does need medical supervision and natural therapies because it may create life-threatening situations.
What action can you take: The cause behind the bowel disease “isn’t known” BUT THERE ARE PROVEN LINKS TO ANTIBIOTIC USE, HIGH GRAIN-CARBOHYDRATE DIETS, INDUSTRIAL EMULSIFIERS IN PROCESSED FOODS, GUT INFECTIONS AND NUTRIENT DEFICIENCIES (ESPECIALLY VITAMIN D, RETINOL, ZINC AND B VITAMINS SUCH AS B5 AND FOLATE). We do know the factors that aggravate it. Processed diet, low fibre diets, poorly-managed stress, a family history of IBD, sedentary life, smoking, whether you live in an industrialized country or not – all these factors and more contribute to your likelihood of getting IBD.
Here are a couple of things you should keep in mind:
Micro-nutrients: Make sure your intake of micronutrients meets the optimum (not the minimum) requirement. This varies from person to person depending on your genetics and life stressors. A healthy intake of nutrients like Zinc, Folate, and Vitamin D can have a lasting impact on your body, protecting you from any chances of having IBD. Even if you do contract IBD, the presence of the three nutrients can help your body heal much faster. Zinc helps heal the tissues in the gut, Vitamin D significantly reduces the chances of getting IBD (is essential for day to day gut repair) and Folate helps maintain or repair the digestive tract and intestines.
Anti-inflammatory foods: The whole point of bowel disease is that it inflames the bowel and this inflammation spreads to other tissues. Regularly eating anti-inflammatory foods or adding bioavailable forms of vitamins and minerals as part of your diet can really help. SUPPLEMENTAL OMEGA 3 IS OFTEN VERY HELPFUL IN ULCERATIVE COLITIS BUT NOT IN CROHN’S, WHERE IT’S BETTER TO JUST EAT FISH RATHER THAN SUPPLEMENTING. Omega 3 oils help fight inflammation, but you’ll also need the right vitamins and minerals required by the body to make use of the Omega 3 oils.
Stress: Stress is a major factor in causing or aggravating IBD. Stress can cause your body to use up most of the anti-inflammatory nutrients from foods you’ve consumed. That’s how the body reacts to stress. Of course, you should maintain a healthy diet and take measures to lower stress. But if you know you’re more stressed than usual, MAKE SURE TO GET A NATURAL WHOLE FOOD DIET RICH IN DIFFERENT COLOURS OF VEGETABLES, HERBS AND SPICES, OMEGA 3 OILS FROM FOOD, ADEQUATE PROTEIN AND CUT BACK ON THE NUTRIENT ROBBERS LIKE REFINED FOODS, INDUSTRIAL EMULSIFIERS, ALCOHOL AND STIMULANTS. AND GET LOTS OF WATER.
Want more information about how nutritional and lifestyle change could help you heal your bowel?
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