"There is a need for microbes to cohabitate and repopulate, refloralize the gut"

6:00  What are antibiotics?  Fungus of a potato.  It's another microbe, right?  There is a need for microbes to cohabitate and repopulate, refloralize the gut, right?  So the whole process.  Instead of microbiome transplant, figure out what are in the foods.  How do you supplement?  So you're missing the gut microbes, firmicutes, and Bacteroides.  The importance of firmicutes:

This process is called fermentation. When bacteria ferment dietary fibres, they produce metabolites, including vitamins and short-chain fatty acids, like butyrate. Butyrate helps prevent inflammation and fuels the cells of the gut lining, which maintains a healthy colon.

Many members of the Firmicutes phylum are probiotic. Lactobacillus, a probiotic bacterium often found in yoghurt and other fermented dairy products, belongs to this phylum. These microbes make acetate, another health-promoting short-chain fatty acid, as well as lactate, and antimicrobial substances that prevent pathogens from disturbing your health.

 

Some pathogenic species belong to the phylum, too. For example, Clostridium perfringens is a type of bacteria that causes gastrointestinal infections. There is also Staphylococcus aureus, a common cause of some serious infections.   

8:13  Fecal transplant is only approved for Clostridium difficile.   

As a specialist in gastroenterology, internal medicine, and hepatology, Dr. Hazan has used her expertise in many regards over the last two decades. Dr. Hazan is also the Founder & CEO of the Malibu Specialty Center and Ventura Clinical Trials, where she conducts and oversees clinical trials for cutting-edge research on various medical issues. Dr. Hazan is a top clinical investigator for multiple pharmaceutical companies and also acts as the series editor of Practical Gastroenterology on the microbiome, a peer review journal that reaches 18,000 gastroenterologists. She was and is a speaker for World Congress of Digestive Disease, MAGI, Microbiome Congress, International Drug Discovery Science and Technology Conference, and NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology).

12:20 Bacteria is 20x bigger than a virus. A virus secretes cytokines. Bacteria secrete toxins. The key is to keep them from secreting.

PROBIOTICS

The problem with probiotics is that they're not really tested at the level. We looked at patients that were given low-quality, these over-the-counter, CVS generic probiotics, and those people had zero bifidobacteria in their gut as opposed to people taking products from GMP [Good Manufacturing Practice] facilities, where they're validated, and verified, where they see that it's a live microbe that we're giving, and they have a lot of . . . . You may not need probiotics. Kids who are healthy do not need anything. What you want to do is make your body work. You want your enzymes to If you've trashed your microbiome, you're going to need your probiotics. and bifidobacteria are very fragile. It's something that goes up one day, and the next day you're doing something that causes it to go down, and then it's up again. Stress and alcohol cause your bifidobacteria to fluctuate up and down. Fighting with a spouse, friend, or coworker followed by 2 glasses of tequila, eating shrimp infected with whatever and eating strawberries with e coli, and all of this stuff. Or you took antibiotics prescribed by your dentist, and all of a sudden you take all that great bifidobacteria that were fighting against COVID is no longer available, and now you have that perfect storm. I went to the dentist, got antibiotics, and two weeks later I got COVID.

She does admit that she likes Paxlovid, a Pfizer product, but I'd heard too many concerns to trust that myself. She likes Regeneron for the Delta strain. So many strains of the virus, we're seeing Delta, we're seeing Omicron, is it Omicron Plus? When we were in "Omicron," in Ventura, we were seeing Delta still. Because they test the septic, right, they're not testing the individual. As they were removing Regeneron, I was still seeing Delta. Wait, a minute, why are we removing Regeneron? Because I am seeing the whole strain in my office, in my lab. Had doctors had the ability that I have, which is a genetic sequencing lab that sees and follows the evolution of the virus, doctors would have been more equipped to treat COVID. We want to have the ability, as we write more data, to make it available to doctors

FOR THEIR LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, THE PEOPLE PERISH

This was a decent presentation, meaning that it took a complex topic and made it comprehensible. It did fail, however, to answer how to balance gut microbes so that you restore your body and your health returns to a more normal state.  Dr. Sears' Zone Diet focused on balancing hormones.  His diet plan definitely does that, for sure.  And as a target, balancing hormones is a good one.  But maybe balancing the whole body is not as easily as we think since certain organs and organ systems, due to their size and volume, play a larger role in health maintenance than others.  The gut is large system.  In fact, the gut starts at your mouth.  Never heard that before.  

The gut (gastrointestinal tract) is the long tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the back passage (anus).  

The key is to know how to repair and remedy a leaky gut. A leaky gut is exactly what it sounds like--it means your gut is porous with all kinds of bacteria spilling out gradually perhaps into other compartments of your body.  That's a large area, so let's be specific.  A leaky gut refers mainly to the small intestine.  You may not even feel any specific pain other than a tire or weak stomach. Or it may show up in the form of dry or flaky skin. It may show up in the form of bruises or scarring.  

CAUSES OF LEAKY GUT  
The list is long.  One thing that tops the causes of a leaky gut is a poor diet.  What does that mean?  We're all guilty of that.  Even if one follows the best diet, we're always tinkering with so as to accommodate our preferences, little cravings, and must-haves.  Eating all vegetables is not good enough.  Prebiotics are perhaps the best foods to eat to restore the gut.  See this list:

Low-fat diets that never satisfy and only induce more food craving instead of a varietal diet rich in prebiotics like mushrooms, pickles, sauerkraut, miso soup, bran, oats, barley that populate our gut with bacteria that produces lean, non-diabetic humans.

At another site, Sardi points out how unhealthy bacteria, the kind that causes your intestines to leak, produces inflammation at the back of your eyes and is responsible for macular degeneration.  Healthy gut bacteria inhibits invasive blood vessels that destroy vision.  

Healthy gut bacteria inhibit inflammation.  Unhealthy gut bacteria generates low-grade inflammation that is characteristic of accelerated ageing.

Fermented foods like pickles, sauerkraut, miso soup, apple pectin, beta glucans (barley), resveratrol and other foods are recommended to restore and maintain healthy gut bacteria.

Unhealthy gut bacteria increase intestinal permeability and allow undigested proteins to enter the blood circulation, sparking allergic and autoimmune reactions.  [EMBO Molecular Medicine Oct 11, 2016]

This explains how fermented and prebiotic foods listed above spare your vision, spare your gut health, spare your immune system.  And how the Biblical saying of "For their lack of knowledge, the people perish" is no small statement.  The gut and its healthy and unhealthy bacteria is a complex topic.  Though the solutions have already been discovered.  We know what works--prebiotics.  Dairy prebiotics may not be the best.  On probiotics versus prebiotics, this might be helpful.  



Probiotics are “good” bacteria that help keep your digestive system healthy by controlling growth of harmful bacteria. Prebiotics are carbohydrates that cannot be digested by the human body. They are food for probiotics. The primary benefit of probiotics and prebiotics appears to be helping you maintain a healthy digestive system.

One of the best sources of probiotics is yogurt. It has good bacteria like lactobacillus or bifidobacteria. Look for “live or active cultures” on the label to be sure your favorite brand of yogurt is a rich source of probiotics. Other good food sources are sauerkraut, miso soup, fermented, soft cheeses (like Gouda), and even sourdough bread. The common feature of all these foods is fermentation, a process that produces probiotics.

There is nothing in particular about probiotics or prebiotics that will give you energy. However, one of the best probiotic-rich foods, yogurt, is an excellent source of lean protein and calcium. Prebiotic foods are a great source of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that give you the energy you need to get through the day. Prebiotic-rich foods include whole grains, onions, bananas, garlic, honey, and artichokes.

SERIOUS PROBLEMS FROM A LEAKY GUT  

One of the problems with diagnosing conditions and knowing what you're working with is that the symptoms show up in distal points and start as something else.  Bill Sardi points this out elegantly

Some autoimmune conditions start as something else. Take, for example, Lyme disease. An infection (Borrelia burgdorferi) may or may not result from a tick bite. Such an infection may or may not be quelled by antibiotics. If people are low in zinc, the medication is less likely to be effective. If they are low in critical nutrients and/or have an imbalance in gut bacteria, they be more prone to autoimmune reactions.  So, seemingly out of nowhere, an infection from a tick bite mysteriously becomes an unremitting chronic problem. That effect is reported more frequently among those who are zinc-deficient. Tick bites and the infections have been around throughout human history. The new element may be zinc deficiency made worse by a craving for sugar that is too often satisfied with high fructose corn syrup. 

So in addition to those fermented probiotics, like miso soup, sauerkraut, mushrooms, and others, you need to be on zinc.  The best form of Zinc is OptiZinc.  Bill Sardi explains that high-fructose corn syrup depletes zinc.  We really need to be careful of the sweeteners we're consuming.  

Zinc is crucial for proper function of the immune system (and so much more). Zinc deficiency is rampant in the American population. Anyone who doesn’t get enough zinc or can’t use it properly is prone to autoimmune reactions. It is possible to get enough zinc in the diet, but it takes adequate selenium to release the zinc from its binding protein. And you should know that high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) depletes zinc. Given the high consumption of HFCS in the US, the increasing incidence of autoimmune disorders is not surprising. 

So there's that.

BEWARE OF HOSPITALIZED ANTIOBIOTICS
I write this because my mother died from hospital antibiotics.  The hospital protocol killed her.  Due to a weakness, she was taken to the Emergency Room where after a series of useless tests the ER doctor assigned her a room--you guessed it--for more tests.  Once they learned of her full insurance coverage, the hospital protocol is to treat anyone coming in as an ATM from which to perform cash withdrawls.  Once she was hospitalized, the doctors put her on an IV of Zosyn.  It was slow-drip biological trauma, slowly and effectively destroying any of her remaining good bacteria, leaving her system open to stress and weakness.  And true to the intentions of that restorative protocol [burning sarcasm], ten days later she was dead.  The best place for your loved ones to be IS OUT OF THE HOSPITAL.  Don't just sign their life over to aloof and fully-licensed professionals.  Instead, provide your loved ones with the protocol that Bill Sardi offers up above:

Low-fat diets that never satisfy and only induce more food craving instead of a varietal diet rich in prebiotics like mushrooms, pickles, sauerkraut, miso soup, bran, oats, barley that populate our gut with bacteria that produces lean, non-diabetic humans. 

Find ways to deliver these in delicious, life-affirming dishes.