1). Gut biome is wrong and we can fix it by probiotics and what we eat, faecal transplants etc
There is very little real evidence to suggest that any of the treatments are really effective in the long term. My personal view as an ex microbiologist and food scientist is that this has risks and low benefit associated with it in terms of treatment. your gut biome may be imbalanced, but this probably has more to do with other factors that are not changed with any treatment. Any small change that may occur as a result of "treatment" will be a losing battle against the natural tendency for the gut biome to return to the imbalanced state. Treatment needs to be more about the reasons why it has become imbalanced in the first place. I suspect that the desire to "reset" the biome and fix everything else is a little like wishful thinking. We don't know enough about why this happens, so more research is needed. Some people report a short term gain, but the maintenance of this is akin to "painting the forth bridge" and any benefits have to be weighed up against the symptoms. I doubt anyone really can say that they did a course of treatment and then went back to eating normally and their gut flora was fixed and their CFS disappeared?
While it's very true that we don't know what the optimum microbiome composition is, it's well known that many drugs, diet, toxins, and parasites alter its composition. And contrary to what some say, studies have shown that these alterations persist for a very long time.
Furthermore, certain inhabitants, like c. difficile, h. pylori, candida, firmicutes, tapeworms, roundworms, etc. are known to have specific health consequences, that left untreated, can be very serious.
Paying attention to what caused an imbalance is smart. But so is identifying any specific offenders, getting rid of them, and replacing with species known to dwell in the guts of healthy people.
2) leaky gut.... change your diet to repair your gut
There is no compelling evidence that I have seen here other than anecdotal so I take all of this talk with a pinch of salt. It seems to be a pet theory picked up by the "gluten is bad" movement. Gluten is bad for coeliacs but when you deviate away from this condition it tends to get a bit shaky in terms of real evidence. There is no doubt a lot of pseudoscience around this and this is driving a perception in the media that is driving a growth in free from products. All consumer research I have seen shows that people are only working on perceptions rather than facts in this area and the main area of confusion is that gluten is equated to starch which is clearly wrong.
Reasons to avoid gluten:
1) avoiding RoundUp, which is damaging to mitochondria
2) avoiding folic acid, which many of us cannot process due to our genetics
3) relying too heavily on gluten containing foods promotes candida, SIBO, obesity, diabetes, and cancer due to excessive carbohydrates (sugar) which feed these things
4) many people develop gluten sensitivity, which impacts gut health and nutrient absorption - see Aristo Vojdani's work on how it develops without having celiac genes. Most testing gas been inadequate - Cyrex Labs has the most comprehensive test available.
I don't avoid gluten because it's fashionable. I do it because it's made my entire family sick.
3) improve energy and reduce symptoms of imbalance/ modify diet to work with dysfunctional ATP synthesis
There is good logic here from the most recent studies that diet could improve wellbeing. This seems to be around eating a diet less dependent upon carbohydrates and focussing more on fats. There seems to be a lot of debate about how severe to go (I.e. Fully ketogenic or just lower carbs). I favour the lower carbs route (100-150g per day) since I prefer to take nutrients from food rather than supplements.
Agreed. The recent studies seem to support lower carbs, higher fat, with adequate amino acids. The carbs we eat should be nutrient dense, like non starchy vegetables.
However, though we should get as much nutrition as we can from food, we need to supplement.
It is impossible to get the daily value of each and every nutrient from food in under 10,000 calories a day and many of us need far more than the daily value.
4) prevent allergic reaction, exclude food groups
There may be something in this in terms of inflammation response and histamine due to dysfunctional metabolism, however there is a lot of woolly science talked up that confuses the issue. Modifying diet and being mindful of high histamine foods and adopting a balanced approach seems to make sense though if keeping histamine under control is an issue. I limit cheese, wine, cured meats for this reason.
Everything I've seen makes me belive that regimes that exclude food groups are too extreme and difficult to maintain. I think focussing on balance is the key and finding out what this is is quite individual and should be thought as symptom relieving and an adjustment to dysfunctional metabolism rather than cure.
Personally I have modified my diet to eat less carbs (I don't distinguish between sugar and starch), eat more fat (50% of total calories) eat moderate protein (100g) and focus on nutrient dense foods and whole foods that help me with essentials vitamins and minerals (eggs, almonds, pumpkin seeds, dark chocolate, avocados, peppers, spinach etc). I have also cut out caffeine to 2 shots of espresso in the morning with my breakfast.
Excluding what makes you sick makes sense.
Personally, I don't find I miss grains at all, and I've yet to find why I should add them back into my diet.
Having a mindset to GAIN nutrients works better than trying to AVOID foods. I find I get full with the things I need to eat and don't have room for those that harm my body.
I've made the same dietary modifications as you have, and it's been sustainable over a long time. But there will be individual variances... one child is allergic to eggplant and carrots, while the other is allergic to fish and coffee...