Hi happychick, I was wondering what you had heard about Propionibacterium shermanii.

I have had an ileostomy since 2006. There has been very little scientific research done on people who have no colon; the current wealth of positive information and growing body of knowledge about the biome is great news for people who still have somewhere to house all those millions of microbes in their biome, but not so encouraging for those of us whose biome has nowhere to go. Or does it? People without a colon cannot rely on medical advice about food because doctors and nutrionists do not know what is going on in their bodies. We have to proceed largely by trial and error and find out what works best for us in the hope that more research will be done. I lost my colon in two stages: the whole colon up to the rectum in 2006 and the final rectal stump was removed in 2012. Since then I have survived in reasonably good health despite (apparently) nowhere to house my biome. I feel medical science still has a long way to go to discover how the body manages a situation like this.

Please check with the dieticians and/ or oncologists at the hospital diagnosing and treating you.

Safety may depend on which specific microbes are in a given fermented product, as well as which drug treatment(s) you are prescribed. The effect of treatment on the lining of the mouth and gut may be relevant.

Unpasteurised cheeses and DIY kefir will contain a wide variety of bacteria and yeasts, some of which may act as opportunistic pathogens given the right conditions.

Take a look at 5:2 diet- quite a lot of evidence that fasting has a specific benefit in cancer…

In terms of the Kefir I can’t see any basis to be concerned but can you post the specific wording on the leaflet? Might be worth double checking with the oncology team

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-41848461

I would like to sign up for the potato starch study

I have recently been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and am about to start a course of chemotherapy.

I have just been given a diet sheet concerning the safety of food when the immune system is virtually knocked out by the chemo.

It recommends yoghurt, but then at the end of the sheet says you should not take probiotics or yoghurts such as Yakult or Actimel. I have never eaten either of the latter, and normally eat organic live yoghurt or kefir.

Does anyone know if it could be be dangerous to eat kefir while undergoing chemotherapy? I would far rather continue taking it.

Sarah Small: just seen in your profile that you are interested in the link between diet and mental health. Particularly consider your intake of long chain omega-3s, magnesium, zinc, vitamin D3 and the B group vitamins.

There are plant foods that are truly rich in magnesium (cocoa/ low sugar dark chocolate/ certain seeds) but there are not for zinc, vitamin D3 or the O-3s.

Sarah Small: you may find the threads ‘Iron Deficiency Anaemia’ and ‘Quorn Products’ (Newbies forum) useful.

In general your detailed food diary – with servings weighed and measured – will be invaluable in ensuring you eat the widest possible variety of wholefoods and proper balance of nutrients.

Ideally you would have your food diary and supplement regime assessed by a registered dietician. As a vegetarian hopefully you are already addressing some nutrient gaps, such as long chain omega-3s, haem iron, vitamin D.

I am vegetarian , planning to go vegan. Have been trying to follow clever guts advice ( guts now much better) but concerned by lack of meat and dairy free recipes etc – any thoughts/ experiences …?

More from the good people at quorn products just now

“Dear Bill,

Thank you again for contacting us.

Regarding your latest enquiry, how Quorn influences the microbiome in the guts, please see following information:

Researchers of the Universities Glasgow and Wageningen in the Netherlands have shown that Mycoprotein, the basic ingredient in Quorn products, is fermented by the bacteria in the human gut to produce a range of short chain fatty acids including propionate. This may be important as a causal mechanism for many of the physiological benefits reported for diets rich in Mycoprotein such as satiety and insulin response.

Short chain fatty acids are also known to positively impact the microbiome. We are therefore extending this research area and have set up collaborative projects at different Universities to investigate this further. This will complement the work underway at the University of Exeter which is already showing that our protein is as good as animal proteins.

We hope this helps!

Kind regards,

Customer Support”

So ive just spent the morning looking into this . Ive checked stores in my area, louth ireland. Tescos , dunnes stores, aldi, centra, holland and barrett . I ve also been doing some online research and what i have come up with is that Australia and chile produce the best and safesest EVOO with california coming in a cool third.
Of all the stores ive checked, tescos seem to have the poorest evoo , if you go by origin colour and what it says on the label.. eg ‘cold pressed’ , apparently olive oil needs to be put through high heat to be pressed so cold pressed is null and void.
Aldi came up as the best of what i can find, with my limited knowledge, holland and barrett dont do evoo or any cooking oil really in the two stores i checked and centra do stock brands , none of which id trust.. nothing against any of the stores, just my humble opinion.
None stock austrailian or chilian evoo , id imagine its expensive to import so im going to stay clear and stick with coconut oil till there is a more obvious, safer easier accessible and a more definitive result on the whole evoo debacle .

Hi,
I have planter fasciitis and my heel pain has decreased considerably since I have been wearing Orthofeet. It’s great to find a shoe at a reasonable cost that seems to be just what I needed.

And here is a link to the great olive oil fraud …
Included is a list of those that failed a particular test and some that passed
http://www.realfoodforlife.com/which-olive-oil-to-buy-the-olive-oil-fraud/

Ok i just did a google search and found this…
http://www.realfoodforlife.com/the-complete-list-of-authentic-extra-virgein-olive-oils-and-how-to-buy/

I would much prefer to be able to walk into my local shop / healthfood store and buy it, so im going to see if any of these have made it to the shop shelf… anybody else have any good recommendations, id appreciate a heads up. What we cook our foods in is paramount to the gut so this thread really should be hopping with recommendations
Cheers
Bill

Why two such different recipes/ methods? What is the recipe author’s background?

Which specific vegetables? Do you know how each were grown (eg. organic, hydroponic, outdoor field) and prepared for sale (scrubbed clean, rinsed in dilute chlorine, plastic packed)?

Other variables include how you sterilised the jars and equipment, how well you measured the ingredients (scales/ level measuring spoons), storage conditions during fermentation (may favour certain microbes).

Are you saying you have avoided drinking your tap water, scalp contact with your tap water or both simultaneously?

If your drinking water is contaminated that may affect health. Contamination is more likely if you have well water, old lead pipework, leaking pipework, do not run the tap sufficiently before filling your glass, or drink stored water from a tank rather than from the mains.

But normal levels of chlorine or suchlike should be well diluted by food before they reach the colon.

Contact your water company if you have concerns about the quality of the water supply to your property.

PLEASE do not randomly put fermented food into the nostrils/ sinuses/ eyes/ ears etc.

Most components of kimchi juice have no business there, and have the potential to cause or worsen irritation, inflammation or infection.

By all means *read the full text* of any studies on L. sakei, and discuss with your ENT (ear-nose-throat) specialist with a view to replicating the results.

Thanks. I checked out lactobacto.com and they seem to have had huge success just by putting kimchi juice up their noses. (But of course, don’t go and do that without reading all their information!)

The Healthaid pro-biotic range are well formulated:https://www.healthaid.co.uk/Probiotics/kidzprobio-5-billion-powder . Might well be worth having his stool analysed tho as a first step

Sorry,.. my point being that without some detailed analysis of your microbiota, you are steering blind in making dietary and lifestyle changes. On the other hand, if you send off a sample and get back a load of scientific gobbledegook that you can’t interpret then you are poorer (its expensive) but no further ahead. So I’m in the process of sourcing another provider who gives meaningful interpretations that one can act on..

I had an association with Prof Tim Spector (The Diet Myth – highly recommended) but they’ve pulled the map my gut service

No, I don’t work for anyone (except myself)

The skin microbiome undoubtedly plays a role in inflammatory skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema. 5:2 diet is profoundly anti-inflammatory and worth investigating also take a look at the BBC Trust Me I’m a Doctor website and specifically Gladskin

Hi,
Having had psoriasis of the scalp for around 40 years I have been trying dietary changes and logging it for the last two and half years. The only thing that seems to have made a real difference is avoiding tap water and only drinking natural mineral water.
Having now read the Clever Guts Diet, I wondered if the chlorine and possible other chemicals in tap water damage the gut biome. From the last month of avoiding tap water my skin has almost completely healed. It took about 3 weeks of following this regime for the improvement to come, but I can’t think of anything else I have done that could account for this eureka moment.
I was interested in others experiences on this or if it might help anyone.

Thank you for the advice Graham. What exactly are you working on please?

Hi Graham – thanks for the update and I live in Pulborough, West Sussex by the way – I am intrigued as to why you were interested?!
Do you work for Atlas then? Many thanks

I concur entirely with Firefox’s posts above. Also there is no reason to assume antibiotics will necessarily irreversibly damage the microbiome. It depends on all sorts of factors: lifestyle; diet; genetic; which antibiotic; how long the course ..and probably much more I’ve missed. To properly answer your questions you need to provide details

Diet; lifestyle; exercise; medical history; symptoms etc. Then I might be able to give you a few tips…

I wouldn’t rush to Altlas either YET. Again it will provide an awful lot of detail that is hard to digest and interpret. I’m working on something but its early days..

Hi MeredithAnne if you are happy posting a fair amount of detail on your health status, diet, exercise status and any ongoing prescribed meds I might be able to make a few suggestions. Almost always in these cases the devil is in the detail..

Yep we make our own Kombucha its great fun and easy to do. Take a look at Fermenting Friends facebook group. I also highly recommend The Fermentarium if you are London based

What makes you think you have it and what are your symptoms? What have you tried already and did anything help??

Heres the reply from QuornFoods.com
“Dear Bill,

Thank you for contacting us and for showing such interest in Quorn Foods.

We are currently investigating your enquiry and should get back to you as soon as we have the information requested.

Thank you for your patience.

Kind regards,

Customer Support Advisor

Any data held is for the purpose of answering your contact with Quorn Foods and will not be passed to any third party without your permission”

No you can only buy it online from South Korea.
from http://www.buykorea.org/product-details/LACTOPY,Lactopy-Healthy-properties–3017503.html

Can you now get lactobacillus sakei in Australia? I’ll be there for 10 days over Christmas. I have just bought a Neti Pot, this might be good timing🤧

I’m having a go at fermenting veggies for the first time. I’m using glass flip top jars, and a little ceramic ‘sour dough starter’ pot. One jar is nicely filled with mixed veggies, and is bubbling away, rather than fizzing. I used a table spoon of course sea salt to iirc a pint of water, (bottled spring water and I made sure the salt was all dissolved before I added the brine to the veggies).
The other jar, is only half filled with red cabbage, I added (again iirc) a tablespoon of salt for each 200g of cabbage, squidged it about every few minutes, until it had let out enough juice to dissolve all the salt. I then left it for a couple of hours until it looked like it had enough liquid to hopefully fill in any potential air pockets and a bit over, to cover the top, and I rammed it down into the jar. There was just enough liquid to cover the cabbage, but the jar is nowhere near full. I don’t think that’s the problem though.
Both jars took a day or two to show any signs of life, but while the mixed veg is still bubbling away, the saurkraut fizzed a bit, for a day or two, and now looks like it’s dead. Although it does have a bubble or two when I loosen the lid in the morning.
I am wondering if the higher concentration of salt has killed off what few bacteria there were on the very clean and tightly formed cabbage to start with. Is there anything I can do to get it fermenting properly?

No luck as yet. I am going to try some Lactobacillus Sakei in the neti pot. Some have had good success with it.

I am still waiting to be signed up for the potato starch study, however I have started taking 2 level teaspoon and I am having a better sleeping pattern, I forgot to take it one day and I had the sleeping pattern of 2 hours sleep and waking up. This is the pattern that I was having due to the untimely death of my daughter from a very late diagnosis of Colon cancer.

Hi, I’m just about to start this program with the goal of fixing my sinus problems. Have you had any luck? I have been on Allegra for four years and am wondering if it might be negatively affecting my microbiome.

I don’t think I have it now, but am pretty sure I did have an overgrowth at one point. I followed a diet about 6 years ago called Whole Approach and my symptoms disappeared to the extent that allergies and symptoms I had suffered with from being a teenager are now not an issue at all. This starts out quite similarly to Clever guts I think (not totally sure as I am more of a BSDer with an interest in my new healthier microbiome than a true clever guts) with quite a lot of restrictions and then gradual reintroducing of suspect foods after a longish period to cause the overgrowth to die off.

Haha yes indeed we would have no problem there 😉
However , its the little doses over a long period of time cause the most damage , so avoiding sugar and salt, the processed kind especially ,makes a big difference I’m hoping , over a life time. Sugar and salt are two of the biggest killers in the world today , but ill take a trip tomortow and see what i can find ✌️

Obviously it is impossible to know for certain how much sugar and salt is added, but the nutrition chart would suggest not that much. Bear in mind there is sugar naturally in the tomato and (sea) salt naturally in the fish.

Given your family keeps active, you should easily burn off a little extra sugar and sweat out a little extra salt. 🙂

Brilliant,
I didnt know that a out the tuna, thanks.

Yea my biggest gripe is the sugar and salt in most processed foods sardines included.
Yes the veggie mine field is a well navigated one,
Going to the supermarket is like going to the library with all the reading involved 😉
Cheers
Bill

No problem!

Canned tuna is cooked before canning, so losing the beneficial fats. Mackerel is a particularly good choice in terms of nutrition and sustainability.

The cheapo canned sardines I have (Good Fish Company, probably not ‘good’ at all) are in a simple tomato sauce with a little cassava, sugar and salt.

Some of the beneficial fats disperse into the canning oil, water, brine or sauce so it should be eaten where possible. Avoid fish canned in omega-6 rich vegetable oils: they will ‘cancel out’ the omega-3s.

Similarly consider the omega-6 content of your nuts and seeds. A real minefield for vegetarians, vegans and those who don’t eat oily fish.

Fantastic ,
Thanks for the response.

Yes twice a week we eat quorn . With three days in betweeneach portion.
Our diet is mainly organic and quorn would be the only proccessed food we would eat.
Yes oliy fish is the catch of the day when we do it .
We also add pulses, nuts, eggs , cheese, coconut milk/oil, and a multitude of other goodies, in the daily / weekly diet , . But i have been thinking more about adding fish on a couple of more days, the problem is that its hard to get the sardines pilchards without them swimming in some low grade sauce. But thanks for that , ill delve some more.
Mackerel and salmon along with some tinned tuna in spring water, is the regular go to. ( the mecury content is a bit of a worry)

Ill write to quorn and see whats occurin ,
Thanks again for all your suggestions,
They are very welcome,
Bill

You might e-mail Quorn’s manufacturers about research specific to their products and the gut microbiome. Please post here if you get a response.

From memory some Quorn products have far better ingredient/ macronutrient profiles than others. As you probably know, the overall variety and balance of the diet is key to health outcomes over the the long term. If you only eat processed meat substitutes occasionally and have not noticed any adverse effects, you are likely fine to continue.

It would definitely be worth upping your family’s intake of small oily fish (eg. sardines/ mackerel/ herring/ anchovies) to meet official recommendations. For UK adults this is up to four servings a week. Even with marine algae supplements it is difficult to get enough long chain omega-3s.

Oily fish is also a good source of vitamin D, vitamin B12 and certain minerals (zinc, magnesium, haem iron) depending on the species.

HTH!

You also need to keep an eye out for aspartame . Its in a few gum brands. There is quite a bit on the web suggesting its link to cancer .
I will say though there is one huge benefit to having a litre of coke in the house , its fantastic at cleaning the stubborn rust off the chrome on my bike … !

I make a concoction every morning in the nutri bulet . Anything could end up in there( all good stuff) but i use Koh coconut water as the main ingredient. Koh doesnt go through a tenth of the processing most others do. ( so they say)

Half the jug would be filled with mainly veg , some fruit/ berries , pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds , nuts , ginger, a tea spoon of applecider ( the mother) and a tea spoon of tumeric, then topped up to the level marker with coconut water. Its a great kick start to the day!
( this is not part of michaels eating plan, just something ive been doing for a couple of years) .
Bill

Howdy folks
New to the forum so a big shout out from irelands east coast.
Just wondering if any of you know if there have been any tests done on quorn products and how it affects the biome.
We eat fish on an odd occasion but are mainly veggie and my boys have never eaten meat ( apart from fish) , but they love quorn, especially the sausages and rashers. Having nothing to compare it to, they have no problem with the taste. 😉
We are not having any adverse affects and we have been eating it for years, although I know from trawling through the web, some have had some pretty nasty reactions.

Our guts are working well and the boys are fighting fit , they have never really been sick or on antibiotics , apart one stint with my eldest when he was a wee nipper and had an ear infection.
Mine and my parteners health is great. We are an active family and I teach yoga ,previous to that I was a personal trainer, so I have a fair knowledge and try to stay clued in and on top of things.
Any info greatly appreciated
All thats good
Bill

Hi Graham do you make your own or purchase Kombucha?

I’ll be interested in hearing how you go with the 16:8 optionMeredithAnne. I think it would be a better option for me than the 5:2.