yes I have suffered from eczema on my hands and recently saw a naturopath who found blastocystis hominis am currently taking 3 types of anitibiotics for 10 days

Did you perhaps intend to post this on the Blood Sugar Diet forums?

Some links here on Clever Guts transfer to the BSD website, and have caught me out!

Any healthy eating plan or ‘diet’ worth its salt emphasises balance and variety, and is flexible.

That holds true for the principles of the Clever Guts Diet, and for the official guidelines of many countries.

Have you had a gastroenterologist/ other doctor diagnose this, or advise whether treatment is required? Expensive tests are only useful if the results are correctly interpreted.

Pharmacist ? Yes that’s me!

Best people to ask would be a good pharmacist, or the original drug manufacturer/ patent holder.

If there are any gut related side effects listed in the patient information leaflet they would hopefully be able to explain why. Diarrhoea would certainly mess with the gut flora.

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That’s very generous Graham.

I have them as a PDF but don’t think this forum provides for that.
Kind regards
Angus

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Thank you Graham.
This is an excellent video, very encouraging. I think all three agree that we are entering a new era of nutrition. I have given up potatoes, rice, pasta and sugar. I can give up the deep seated notion that there is a right diet for all, or even for different groups.

I remain intrigued by Estep’s not on of “antagonistic pleiotropy”.
I shall follow Goldfarb’s advice to buy a blood sugar monitor for home use. In my heart I know the most important thing to do was to give up white bread. I have my results from my fecal sample (British Gut Project) though I am still way short of understanding the results.

Hello again, a few of you have bought Kefir from me, thanks for your support.
I have now set up a Facebook page to sell my grains, it’s called Devon Kefir, and also I sell on etsy, my shop is called Devonkefirgrains.
Thank you for reading my post.

Hi ..

I think this is over simplifying matters. Its not a simple question of one oil over another. Its a complex array of the totality of what you eat (I’m talking nutritional value not calories) and the interchange with your microbiome. This might help:

Take a look at this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z03xkwFbw4&app=desktop

I’m with Michael all the way….

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Hi Pia, I suffer from atopic eczema and have done since birth, I also have polymorphic light eruption and severe asthma, hay fever and other allergies. I am really interested in trying these capsules. My 17 yr old daughter has icthyosis and very flaky skin, so I think it would also be a great thing for her to try. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you GrahamSPhillips do you know how i have this done?

This is a controversial issue in medical circles, however I believe this bug does not cause disease and doesn’t need to be “gotten rid of”. It should not be treated with antibiotics. The reason it is being found more in people’s guts these days is only because new tests can detect it more easily. As for your low diversity, Michael Mosely’s book offers lots of advice on how to improve that :-).

If you go to the HOWARU website you will see that the study referred to in Michael’s newsletter concerns Upper Respiratory Tract infections, while the Optibac blog refers to asthma, which I think is an inflammation and not an infection.

I would dearly love to use the new clever gut app, but have no device except my computer. Is it possible to download an app on a computer ? I am not very savvy on these things…….can anyone help me ?

jillyB

Thank you Bugs for your advice on mixing potato starch with kefir. I have been doing this , so perhaps this is why I am still not sleeping well. The first 2 nights it worked well, but I can’t remember if I took it with kefir then. Unfortunately I had already had my PS with kefir just before I read your blog last night……..and didn’t sleep !

jillyB

I was diagnosed with that many years ago. I have found that a large daily dose of Omega 3 (high strength) capsules has made a huge difference. So much so, that I forget I have psoriatic arthritis until I stop taking the omega-3. Then my symptoms come back and I’m reminded so i take the omega-3 and then I forget… you get the picture. I try to take 6 capsules a day. It takes a bit of time before you notice a difference.

I’ve been told I have a lot of this stuff in my gut. My naturopath says it’s very difficult to get rid of. Wondering if anyone else has dealt with it. Apparently it’s a parasite of some description. It was discovered through a very expensive poo test. I also found out that my gut is low on diversity. Woe is me. 🙂

Greedily at the same time that I bought the excellent Clever Guts I also bought ‘The Mind Span Diet’ – (Estep, Director of Gerontology at Harvard). I am about half way through and I wondered if anyone else had come across this? He seems, so far, much more focused on iron-enriched food, especially in the US but also the UK. Otherwise there are strong crossovers. Mosley makes clear references to the need to personalise – mainly on genetics, environment and circumstances.

Estep is a geneticist by background. He raises this, to my mind entirely logical and fascinating, suggestion that one of the ways to understand changes is to realise that genes evolve with a focus on reproduction. Once the possibility of reproduction is over other genes may become more dominant, the reproductive drive fades. He refers to this as”antagonistic pleiotropy” – the AP rule. In so far as I understand, which is not a lot, one of the underlying points here is that genes are not designed for life efficacy, just for reproduction (or rather not designed at all). Many genes are harmful to life efficacy, most are generally redundant.

Members of this forum cover all ages as I understand it, from pregnancy to old age. I think that is great. I like the notion of Mind Span as opposed to Life Span, no doubt it will be controversial. It needs a lot of work. On the other hand how many of us have not at some point heard (or said) ‘No Grandad that’s not good for you, that’s for Alice [granddaughter]?’ Science is mapping new understandings, but much has been there for millennia.

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Symprove is a water-based multi-strain supplement that contains 4 unique strains of live activated bacteria. These include: L. rhamnosus, E. faecium, L. acidophilus, and L. plantarum. Normally a healthy gut would already contain all four of these, however when it doesn’t, it can soon become unbalanced.

Sorry to bother you more but do you know how much the map my gut test costs approximately? There’s no one near me – I live in West Wales – so I would have to travel or use Skype. I have a daughter living in London though.

Thanks for this. I am taking it for dysbiosis which is causing constipation and fatigue. I have had gut candida overgrowth in the past which I improved dramatically with diet but I think I have had some more die off with the Symprove. I think I need bifidobacteria to help constipation and that isn’t in Symprove. I will look into mapmygut though because it would obviously help a lot to know what’s actually going on in there! Thanks again.

Yes but there is no particular reason for that particular bifido supplement to work better for asthma than any other. It’s probably marketing. Take a look at this

https://www.optibacprobiotics.co.uk/blog/2013/12/probiotic-supplements-for-prevention-of-asthma

Yes, but rather unusually this specific supplement has been linked to respiratory problems and that’s why the person who started the thread and I are trying to obtain it.

Graham,
I’m not on Facebook but thanks for replying. Thought someone on the forum would know.

Take a look at Optibac probiotic supplements – I’m sure their bifido product is just as good as HAWARU

Hi Pia
I am a family doctor/dermatologist in London. Itreat a lot of patients with psoriasis ,eczema and other autoimmune disease.

Would be very interested in sourcing seaweed capsules in the Uk for my long-suffeing patients,so please keep me in the loop.

All the best

Karen

I have been making Kefir for a while now. I find it better to use raw (unpasteurised) milk when making Kefir as pasteurised milk has all the bacteria removed and then a few strains added back in.

The microbiota play a big role in determining how much calorofic value you extract from the food you eat. Might be worth having your biome mapped?

I can only reiterate the importance of keeping a detailed food and symptom diary, with weighed or measured quantities.

Two glasses of red wine a day … every day or twice a week? What volume is the glass? How many alcohol units a week does that represent?

Same sort of questions apply to animal fats and animal proteins.

Three beers a day –
alcoholic or not – is quite a lot of essentially a junk ‘food’ (contains sugars and additives; if carbonated may irritate the stomach).

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Deffo worth following Michael’s diet but bare in mind that without mapping your microbiome you’re steering blind to a large extent

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No its an anti-viral NOT an anti-biotic

Join the fementing friends facebook group and all shall be revealed !

I have to say that the App is extremely disappointing. There’s very little content and I feel a bit misled to be honest

have just been diagnosed with shingles (Very uncomfortable!). Having to take acyclovir (antiviral) for a week does anyone know if this upsets or wipes out gut bacteria?

Have been looking at the description of the app, and whilst I didn’t expect it to be free, thought for £5 that was very little in it that I didn’t already know or was already aware of to make it worth buying. One thing I thought would be useful would be to type in what you have been eating and get some guidance on how well you are doing, though I guess that would need personalising for any medical conditions. Anyone have any experience of it?

I have started taking this as it was developed and tested by Kings College hospital and found to be one probiotic that actually gets where it’s needed alive. I am wondering why Michael doesn’t recommend it – is it because it doesn’t have the right bacteria? I am committed to taking it for 3 months but am wondering if I should change to VSL3 after that time as Michael does recommend that. I am doing all the diet stuff too including fermented vegetables. I would appreciate any thoughts – thanks

It’s just a routine screening, due to family history – there’s nothing “wrong” with me other than my genes! And it went well, nothing found at all. I’m trying to eat as many of the foods in the book as possible, with the exception of sauerkraut at the moment – I’m about to go on holiday (camping), so don’t want to start a batch if I can’t refrigerate it!

Oh dear……… With the past gout attack being painful but short, I was very careful to try and work out what started it. Starting afresh, First – Kefir – in small doses…seemed to be OK. Kombucha (bought in from ‘IloveKombucha’) that seemed to be fine too. Red wine (2 glasses per day ) …OK, then I tried ‘Becks Blue’ – BOOM!!!!!! Not the big toe this time but the HEEL – OMG, 10 days and I just couldn’t shift the pain as it moved into the two inner small toes…… Stopping everything and a 10 day course of Colchicine has only just removed the horrendous pain. So, I’m not keen to PROVE Becks zero is the culprit as it lasts now too long and the pain is bloody horrendous. Bugger, I have both Gingerr Kombucha (own brew) bubbling and Kefir in stock. I’m going back to Kefir for a week..Then I’ll try the Kombucha again and simply leave out the beer.
But you know – there’s other ‘purines’ that could have ADDED to the trigger – Avocado & Prawns. Until I have proved what’s triggering it, I’d rather stay pain-free. Incidentally, I had £350 worth of private blood tests – nothing!!!!!

I have had my Gall Bladder removed and I’m wondering if that’s why I am struggling to lose weight on these diets, I have tried the blood sugar diet and 5:2 but with no real success any suggestions…?

If you are diagnosed with hypercholesterolaemia you likely have been advised to reduce saturates and omega-6 polyunsaturates, and to increase monounsaturates and omega-3 polyunsaturates. It would be very interesting to know which specific plant/ vegetable/ nut/ seed oils you use and how they work in the Clever Guts recipes. 🙂

Macadamia and avocado seems to be popular in the Paleo/ Primal community; here on CG we have discussed the pros and cons of rapeseed (canola) oil. I eat plenty of hazelnuts (filberts) as my North European ancestors did, but have never used the oil.

To address your comment on research in nutrition/ dietetics … depends on the population group, overall diet and fatty acid balance. The Clever Guts Diet has little in common with the standard western diet. It is not specifically targeted to those who need to lose weight, have hypercholesterolaemia or other risk factors for cardiovascular problems.

Over the long term we are encouraged to eat a modified version of the Mediterranean diet. A really wide variety of plants, olive oil, oily fish and other seafood, grass fed dairy if not identified as problematic, and so on.

if anyone has a medical condition that is affected by diet and lifestyle, they absolutely need to run a major change of diet past their medical team, and modify as necessary.

When still practising I would have been delighted if any of my (lifestyle healthcare) clients had brought this diet book to me. I constantly banged on about balance and variety!

The Clever Guts Diet is about identifying and eliminating problem foods in the first phase. Many of the recipes relate to this discrete phase. I suspect common vegetable oils are not used as most have moderate to high percentage of inflammatory and/ or unstable polyunsaturates.

In the second phase CG is about eating a wide variety and balance of wholefoods to improve and maintain beneficial gut flora. Extra virgin olive oil (high in monounsaturates) is a key component, BUT the distinctive flavour does not lend itself to all recipes. In terms of flavour and texture coconut oil is arguably the best substitute for butter.