Article Library

Definitions:

• Probiotics  (Food-Info.net article)

  Oral probiotics are living micro-organisms which, upon digestion in certain numbers, exert health benefits beyond inherent basic nutrition.

  Probiotics  (Wikipedia article)

  Probiotics are dietary supplements containing potentially beneficial bacteria or yeast, with lactic acid bacteria (LAB) as the most common microbes used. LAB have been used in the food industry for many years, because they are able to convert sugars (including lactose) and other carbohydrates into lactic acid.

  Note: Genki Foods differ from most probiotics supplements in that Genki Foods are fermented foods. Probiotic supplements are produced in laboratory environments and usually contain only the freeze dried microbes and possibly one or more stabilizers and/or culturing substrates. Genki Foods are shelf stable because the microbes have not been removed from the environment they were created in. This environment is a whole food complex containing lactic acid and other organic acids which helps to naturally preserve both the microbes and their food source.

  What are Probiotics?  (WebMD article)
  

  Probiotics are small organisms that help maintain the natural balance of organisms (microflora) in the intestines.

• Gut Flora  (Wikipedia article)

  The gut flora are the microorganisms that normally live in the digestive tract and can perform a number of useful functions for their hosts.

• Prebiotics  (Wikipedia article)

  Prebiotics are a category of functional food, defined as: Non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon, and thus improve host health.

  Typical dietary sources of prebiotics are soybeans, Jerusalem artichokes (which contain inulin), raw oats, unrefined wheat and unrefined barley. The prebiotic oligosaccharides that naturally occur in breast milk are believed to play an important role in the development of a healthy immune system in infants.

  Note: The raw malt in the Genki Foods powders serve as prebiotics.

What to Expect When You Change Your Diet
by Dr. Stanley Bass, N.D., D.C., Ph.C., Ph.D., D.O., D.Sc., D.D.
Holistic vs. Allopathic in Nutritional Health by Dr. Michael Breen BPE(Hon) DC
12 Points on Lactobacillus Acidophilus by Prof. Dr. Sir John Whitman Ray
12 Points on Enzymes by Prof. Dr. Sir John Whitman Ray
12 Points on Minerals by Prof. Dr. Sir John Whitman Ray

1146 Reasons Why Sugar Is Ruining Your Health by Nancy Appleton, Ph.D.

White flour contains diabetes-causing contaminant alloxan by Dani Veracity

Unhappy Meals by Michael Pollan. Published in the New York Times: January 28, 2007

The story of how basic questions about what to eat got so complicated reveals a great deal about the institutional imperatives of the food industry, nutritional science and journalism.

'Healthy' bacteria help keep you in balance  (CNN.com)

(CNN) -- A daily dose of good bacteria may be just what your doctor orders. A probiotic supplement or food product helps to replenish the good bacteria in our bodies, help fight infection and boost immune function.

A new Canadian study has found that simple "probiotic" bacteria are effective in treating ulcerative colitis, a painful disease caused by an immune system attack on the body's intestinal tissue and colon.

Although typically we think of bacteria as being bad things, there are many, many bugs in the bowel that are good bacteria, and in fact, we need to have that balance to keep the bowel in check and to fend off bad bacteria.

Lindsey Edmunds' work on probiotics began as a Grade 10 science fair project. Lindsey, 17, is now in Grade 12. She became interested in the subject when her sister Andrea had digestive-tract problems after taking antibiotics to treat a sinus infection.

It had turned out that the antibiotics had killed all of the friendly bacteria that you need in your intestines to keep you healthy, and that just made her really sick and the doctors just didn't know that's what was going on, so they just kept giving her more antibiotics, which was just making the process even worse, said Lindsey on Canada AM.

People with inflammatory bowel disease have too many bad bacteria, and not enough good bacteria (probiotics).

Researchers believe that at least some of these native bugs crowd out invading organisms that cause illness, by using resources that the bad bugs need and producing chemicals that kill them. Eat more of the helpful bacteria, the theory goes, and you can stave off stomach problems.

"It seems to work with the body's natural defenses to prevent the overgrowth of a bad bug," says Dr. Sherwood Gorbach, a professor of community health and medicine at Tufts University in Boston.

Probiotics: Are Bugs a Man's Best Friend?  (Healthology.com)

Natural bacteria have been a popular folk remedy for intestinal afflictions for thousands of years, and can be found in various forms at most health food stores. Dairy foods, particularly yogurt that contain live bacterial cultures, have long been used to prevent or treat common intestinal problems.

A new review article focuses on the use of probiotics in childhood gastrointestinal disorders, emphasizing the importance of balancing the diverse range of microbes in the gastrointestinal tract for effective prevention and treatment of conditions such as diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and inflammatory disorders.

Changes in gut microflora caused by widespread use of antibiotics and today’s high-fat, low-fibre diet could be responsible for a major increase in allergies in recent years, say researchers.

Medical researchers are finding that one of the keys to good health could be living in our guts - specifically, in the world of microbes that live in our digestive tracks.

Medical researchers are finding that one of the keys to good health could be living in our guts - specifically, in the world of microbes that live in our digestive tracks.

Probiotic bacteria appear to tackle the HIV virus and may even stop it from being transferred from a mother to her children, said researchers at the American Society for Microbiology general meeting.

Mothers taking probiotic supplements appear to have higher levels of an anti-inflammatory molecule in their breast milk, which could offer their babies better protection against allergy and other diseases, according to new findings.

Recent medical studies at the Shinshu University in Japan find that Lactobacillus acidophilus bacteria can suppress the reabsorption in the liver of bile acids carrying cholesterol and improve the removal of cholesterol from blood.

Irritable Bowel and other Gut Disorders:

• Healing Colitis, Crohn's, Diverticulitis & IBS Is An 8-step Process (Listen2YourGut.com article)
  
  1. Rest the bowel
  2. Eradicate pathogens
  3. Re-populate the gastrointestinal tract with good bacteria
  4. Heal inflammation and ulceration
  5. Resolve nutrient deficiencies
  6. Detox your living environment
  7. Heal emotional contributors
  8. Balance your endocrine system
• 9 Key Body Ecology tips you can follow to promote your own natural IBS cure: (BodyEcology.com article)
  
  1. Remove sugar, alcohol, processed foods, and caffeine from your diet.
  2. Pay attention to protein digestion. (Digestive enzymes may be helpful)
  3. Increase the amount of fiber in your diet but obtain this fiber from cooked vegetables and cultured vegetables.
  4. Soak nuts, seeds AND your Body Ecology grain-like seeds.
  5. Focus on cleansing your system.
  6. Do not overeat!
  7. Follow the principle of food combining.
  8. Add fermented foods and drinks to your diet.
  9. Take care of your emotional health.
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome Diet, IBS Diet, & IBS Recipes (HelpforIBS.com article)
• Dr. Snow’s Holistic Gastro-enterology Method for healing all inflammatory Bowel Disease without drugs or surgery
  

Dr. Albert Snow has been practicing Natural Medicine for 30 years. He holds a doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine, Herbology and Orthomolecular Biochemistry from the American Institute of Natural Healing and is a certified nutritionist from the Nutrition Institute of America.

Dr. Snow is the creator of the Holistic Gastro-enterology Method. This method has evolved over his 30 years of treating Inflammatory Bowel Disease with natural medicine. You can make a full - permanent recovery without drugs or surgery and have no dietary or lifestyle restrictions.

• Irritable Bowel Syndrome Links (thanks to HelpforIBS.com)

The intestine and its microflora are partners for the protection of the host  (Amercian Journal of Clinical Nutrition)

The intestine is an extremely complex living system that participates in the protection of the host through a strong defense against aggressions from the external environment. This defensive task is based on 3 constituents that are in permanent contact and dialog with each other: the microflora, mucosal barrier, and local immune system.

Recently Desreumaux et al. (Nature, dec 2006) have shown that Lactobacillus acidophilus can modulate intestinal pain.

Probiotics and prebiotics are known to have a role in prevention or treatment of some diseases.

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