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Irritable Bowel Syndrome Clearly Linked to Gut Bacteria

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
Hi Sara,

Thankfully I don't need it anymore but it used to be 1 or2 x 500 mg/day and it helped back then in 2010/2011 when I had bad cramping.
 

Glynis Steele

Senior Member
Messages
404
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne UK
Thanks, hadn't refreshed the page from an earlier visit so missed the intervening updates before I posted. The new study looks much better, though not as compelling as the authors imply

Here's the abstract [I've calculated the relevant numbers in square brackets to match the given percentages]


A few comments:
  • Although the sample of 112 IBS patients is quite large, they were IBS patients who had been given an upper GI endoscopy so may well not be representative of IBS patients in general.
  • Most IBS patients (62%) did not have SIBO
  • As others have pointed out, correlation is not causation
Given that IBS is often cited as another 'Functional Somatic Syndrome' it would be nice to nail it to a gut bacteria problem but this research isn't strong enough to do that.


However, using the data above, compared with the other endoscopy patients IBS patients had an Odds Ratio of 5.6 of having SIBO (95% CI 3.1-10.3, my calcs, PM me if you want the spreadsheet). Such a high Odds Ratio is rare and does suggest something important is going on.

Thanks Oceanblue,

Also according to our GI, aspiration and cultering bacteria from the small bowel, although this is the accepted gold standard, may have it's limitations as a bacterial overgrowth may be patchy and might take more than one attempt to locate.
 

Glynis Steele

Senior Member
Messages
404
Location
Newcastle upon Tyne UK
Thanks, hadn't refreshed the page from an earlier visit so missed the intervening updates before I posted. The new study looks much better, though not as compelling as the authors imply

Here's the abstract [I've calculated the relevant numbers in square brackets to match the given percentages]


A few comments:
  • Although the sample of 112 IBS patients is quite large, they were IBS patients who had been given an upper GI endoscopy so may well not be representative of IBS patients in general.
  • Most IBS patients (62%) did not have SIBO
  • As others have pointed out, correlation is not causation
Given that IBS is often cited as another 'Functional Somatic Syndrome' it would be nice to nail it to a gut bacteria problem but this research isn't strong enough to do that.


However, using the data above, compared with the other endoscopy patients IBS patients had an Odds Ratio of 5.6 of having SIBO (95% CI 3.1-10.3, my calcs, PM me if you want the spreadsheet). Such a high Odds Ratio is rare and does suggest something important is going on.

Thanks Oceanblue,

Also according to our GI, aspiration and cultering bacteria from the small bowel, although this is the accepted gold standard, may have it's limitations as a bacterial overgrowth may be patchy and might take more than one attempt to locate.

Sorry for the duplicate post, I had an error message come up, telling me to post again, so I did!
 

SilverbladeTE

Senior Member
Messages
3,043
Location
Somewhere near Glasgow, Scotland
*takes a paint brush up, loads it with black paint, smears it across all the bullshit pyschobabble crap about IBS being "Psychsomatic" *
or, waahtever mental-masturbatory name they wish to use, like, you know, "somatoform!"

more proof those assholes are FAKE, they are not anything to do with medical science, they are todays "phrenologists".
Up yours, Weasels!
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
http://www.gidoctor.net/small-intestinal-bacterial-overgrowth.php

This part is new to me ...

After antibiotic treatment is finished and the symptoms improve, then we treat the underlying muscular disturbance with either low dose erythromycin or naltrexone each night at bedtime. Erythromycin is a common antibiotic has properties of a hormone that stimulates small intestinal muscular activity.

Medication is often needed as a long term treatment to prevent relapse of SIBO. For those who are allergic to erythromycin, Align probiotic can be taken once nightly to try to help prevent SIBO. Naltrexone is an anti-opioid medication that can stimulate small intestinal activity. In cases where erythromycin, naltrexone, or Align are not effective, then periodic or maintenance doses of Xifaxan may be prescribed.

Some individuals may benefit from other medications.


In individuals where we suspect that there has been damage to the lining of the small intestine by SIBO, we will try to help repair this intestinal permeability (also known as “leaky gut”) with 1 month of Zinc 200 milligrams daily and a probiotic capsule (healthy bacteria – examples include Align and Flora-Q).

If there is a relapse of the infection with return of the original symptoms, then Xifaxan or other antibiotics will need to be prescribed again.
 

mellster

Marco
Messages
805
Location
San Francisco
Interesting, I definitely feel that my former cramping and general longer GI episodes have done something akin to muscular disturbance. Maybe a purely functional effect of misfiring/cramping or "headless" motility often seen and described patients with GI issues and stomach sounds.
 

Waverunner

Senior Member
Messages
1,079
Thanks for posting this, xchocoholic. I'm allergic to Erythromycin but zinc, as well as Align were the only things that helped me. I have not tried Rifaximin for the last 4 years but I'm eager to try it again. It's very interesting, that Naltrexone stimulates gut motility, I didn't know that. Taken together these findings could imply that zinc, Align, Naltrexone as well as Rifaximin are a very viable treatment approach for low motility caused SIBO.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
I'm looking for who needs to retreat .. I suspect since I have celiac disease and gastroparesis, I need to follow his suggestions. I'm going to run these articles past my doctors ask about getting tested for SIBO. tc ... x

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC420464/


Celiac disease is a common cause of chronic diarrhea and malabsorption syndrome all over the world. Though it was considered uncommon in India in past, it is being described frequently recently. Some patients with celiac disease do not improve despite gluten free diet (GFD). A study described 15 cases of celiac disease unresponsive to GFD in whom small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) or lactose intolerance was the cause for unresponsiveness.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20027008
CONCLUSIONS:

SIBO is very common in gastroparetics with predominance of abdominal pain and bloating, especially those with a longer duration of gastroparesis. Awareness of SIBO in the setting of gastroparesis will facilitate separation of the 2 entities and allow appropriate therapies to be instituted.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Based on the other ibs studies on that same page, I'm guessing their using the term ibs as
an excuse for continuing research on a symptom disguised as a bogus illness. Research is big business.

Ibs is from a varirty of factors like celiac, divertuculi ,
food intolerances, intolerances to chemicals we shouldn't be ingesting anyways, parasites, etc etc

Functional medicine looks for causes of ibs like the ones I mentioned above .. Tc .. X
 

voner

Senior Member
Messages
592
Hey,

I just got done reading Dr. Pimentel's book.

http://www.amazon.com/New-IBS-Solution-Mark-Pimentel/dp/0977435601

I found it pretty fascinating & highly recommendable.

Has anybody else out there read this book and understand the details of his theory?

He even has a chapter on fibromyalgia and the gut.

I found his take on probiotics, where the bacterial overgrowth is actually occurring, and the importance of reestablishing a cleansing wave to be new and convincing material for me.
 

nanonug

Senior Member
Messages
1,709
Location
Virginia, USA
I just got done reading Dr. Pimentel's book.
http://www.amazon.com/New-IBS-Solution-Mark-Pimentel/dp/0977435601
Has anybody else out there read this book and understand the details of his theory?

Yes, I read that book when it came out. Based on Pimentel's ideas, I got my first successful treatment for IBS-D in 2007, if I am not mistaken. However, these are no longer Pimentel's ideas. At the end of 2011, rifaximin was established via clinical trial as an effective treatment for IBS-D: Rifaximin therapy for patients with irritable bowel syndrome without constipation.
 

voner

Senior Member
Messages
592
Yes, I read that book when it came out. Based on Pimentel's ideas, I got my first successful treatment for IBS-D in 2007, if I am not mistaken. However, these are no longer Pimentel's ideas. At the end of 2011, rifaximin was established via clinical trial as an effective treatment for IBS-D: Rifaximin therapy for patients with irritable bowel syndrome without constipation.

Thanks for the reference. I know from reading his book, he separates constipation and no constipation out his patients. He appears to be doing the same thing here.

I wonder what is his current thinking?

rifaximin is extremely expensive.....

But the thought occurs to me that using rifaximin for irritable bowel syndrome might get approved through insurance a heck of a lot easier than for me/cfs...

I haven't read the paper, but I did not have to attend that doctor Pimentel this getting consulting fees from the pharmaceutical company that owns the patent. The upside of that is that it might get approved for insurance much faster.

Hmmmmmmm.....
 

voner

Senior Member
Messages
592
Sushi and nanoug,

Thanks for the great information. I'm going to pursue his protocol.
 

voner

Senior Member
Messages
592
So at the end of the video, Dr. Pimental mentions that it is a nervous system dysfunction rather than the overgrowth of critters that's out the source of the problem, according to his current thinking.

So do you guess this is going to connect into an autonomic nervous system dysfunction?
 

xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
nanonug in the video that doctor claims that nerve dysfunction causes overgrowth. I'm not sure I completely buy that. My symptoms started after I came from Mexico. I got sick there eating their fruit. (they irrigate a lot of their crops with sewer water).

Chicken or egg, simple doxycycline kills whatever lives in my gut. I have a hard time believing that 10% of americans with this bacterial overgrowth have nerve dysfunction.

H pylori in mice destroys dopamine and dopamine neurons. That in my mind can be a major cause of CFS. Again, they do not have to induce nerve dysfunction, all they have to do in mice is load them up with bacteria and boom they have parkinsons shortly.

The bacteria induce nerve dysfunction, it is not the other way around.

In fact I can prove my theory so well that I have actually infected my significant others while I was sick with the gut bacteria.

The fact of the matter is we have immigrants and people traveling overseas picking up bugs we do not have innate immunity to. You know what happened to the Indians when the Pilgrims came over? Yes, they died of disease. That is what is causing a lot of CFS IMO.