Are There Any Peat-friendly Probiotics?

[charlie]

mdimarco, welcome to the forum!

That is very interesting. Thank you for posting that. I hope some others chime in on this technique. Just wondering if that food grade DE is safe for our insides as it would seem that it would slice it all up?

 

[kiran]

mdimarco, welcome to the forum!

That is very interesting. Thank you for posting that. I hope some others chime in on this technique. Just wondering if that food grade DE is safe for our insides as it would seem that it would slice it all up?

This might be a good one to pick up the Peatphone on. I figure if silica is bad for your gut, the DE might be something similar or worse.

 

[charlie]

I think I have used up all my Peat phone credits this month.

I try to keep it down to a couple emails every now and then.

 

[narouz]

What if I told you I can "sterilize" the intestines without using antibiotics?

Well its easy. Just use a mix of diatomaceous earth and psyllium husk fiber.

The DE mechanically kills bacteria and produces a herxheimer reaction (which can be reduced with 1 tbsp activated charcoal) which also stimulates the immune system and was used to treat cancer in 1890.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1888599/

Am I a G for figuring this out? I like to think so .

ps: since it is purely mechanical, I am led to believe the appendix in the cecum (fermentation chamber in mammals) will still harbor "beneficial bacteria" even after DE treatment so ya, it just kills bacteria where they shouldn't be... the intestines.

That was interesting.
I must've missed the part about the diatomaceous earth and psyllium husk fiber, though...?
Did Coley use that?

 

[Birdie]

After recent experimentation im beginning to think you'd indeed be better off taking your probiotics and shoving them up your a*se!

Indeed :!:

 

[Birdie]

Awck... I was on the last page ^^. Just looked up DE:

This powder has an abrasive feel, similar to pumice powder, and is very light as a result of its high porosity. The typical chemical composition of oven-dried diatomaceous earth is 80 to 90% silica, with 2 to 4% alumina (attributed mostly to clay minerals) and 0.5 to 2% iron oxide.[1]

wikipedia

 

[Rachel]

Awck... I was on the last page ^^. Just looked up DE:

This powder has an abrasive feel, similar to pumice powder, and is very light as a result of its high porosity. The typical chemical composition of oven-dried diatomaceous earth is 80 to 90% silica, with 2 to 4% alumina (attributed mostly to clay minerals) and 0.5 to 2% iron oxide.[1]

wikipedia

You don't wanna chomp down on some aluminum and silica, Birdie?

On another note, diatomaceous earth works really well as a bug killer. If you have an exoskeleton, you're toast.

 

[Birdie]

Rachel!!

 

[narouz]

Awck... I was on the last page ^^. Just looked up DE:

This powder has an abrasive feel, similar to pumice powder, and is very light as a result of its high porosity. The typical chemical composition of oven-dried diatomaceous earth is 80 to 90% silica, with 2 to 4% alumina (attributed mostly to clay minerals) and 0.5 to 2% iron oxide.[1]

wikipedia

You don't wanna chomp down on some aluminum and silica, Birdie?

On another note, diatomaceous earth works really well as a bug killer. If you have an exoskeleton, you're toast.

Yeah, I put on my cats to kill their fleas a couple of decades ago!

 

[mdimarco]

What is wrong with silica in Peat's eyes? Also the form of food grade DE is in the remains of diatom skeletons, which are too big to absorb through the intestines. The DE leaves the intestines just like it entered. Like I said the DE kills the bacteria in the intestines via mechanical action.

It also doesn't hurt the intestines. People and animals have used it in feed for hundreds of years and have nothing but beneficial effects to show from it. Google it for more info. The only slightly negative effect is it seems to increase mucus production a little in the large intestines in some people (I don't notice this effect) and can cause constipation in some people. To counter constipation use psyllium husk fiber to keep it moving.

I have been using it for just under a year and have yet to get sick. I also live with 6 people and attend college, still no sicknesses at all.

The reason for this is because virus' infect bacteria much easier than human cells. Virus's infect bacteria, build up a strong offense, and then can have an order of magnitude better ability to infect human cells.

Heres a reference on that:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... Rh2Tii9Kc0

As you can see in the paper that article
references, some bacteria are better virus hosts than others. This is why beneficial bacteria can improve immunity, you get the low infected bacteria to out populate the highly infected acteria. But if you can keep all the bacteria out, you are even better off.

I take high doses of vitamin E and still my blood has no trouble clotting quick so I don't think
my vit k status is compromised as beneficial bacteria proponents would have you beleive.

By the way I have a bachelor's degree in Nutritional science and have 4 years experience in biology research. I also have a minor in chemistry and am currently going back to school for Mechanical engineering.

Also I have spent literally thousands of hours and all my free time for the last several years researching exactly how the body works. I stumbled upon DE in my quest to rid myself of parasites I found in my stool a year ago.

 

[cliff]

Psyllium husk is the type of fiber you want to avoid and DM probably has intestine irritating properties. Raw carrot, small amounts of antibiotics, bamboo shoots and even charcoal are probably all much safer.

 

[mdimarco]

Hmm isn't the only reason the psyllium husk is bad because it can be used as bacteria food? The bactericidal action of the DE would seemingly cancel out that effect.

I think you are right, the things you mention are good for daily maintenance. It is very hard to know if activated charcoal kills bacteria because it, in itself, will prevent all symptoms of their die off by binding endotoxin. So I know for a fact that DE kills bacteria very well from the endotoxin symptoms it produces during the first few days of use. After that no symptoms are produced since the bacteria levels are very low subsequently. So if one wanted to start DE treatment and not get endotoxin load, take an equal part activated charcoal with it (usually 1 tbsp each).

I tend to use the food grade DE psyllium husk mixture about once a week or every few days to really make sure virtually no bacteria are present. And if someone wanted to try that, make sure they give the psyllium plenty of time to hydrate (15 mins?) before drinking (and use plenty of water).

After my use of this over the past year, I am totally with peat. The only good bacteria in the body, is no bacteria. :)

But if you don't have an effective way to kill bacteria, beneficial bacteria is better than the potential harmful stuff so I can see where a lot of healthies are coming from.

 

[mdimarco]

Plus the antibiotic route can be dangerous in my eyes, since everyone knows bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics easily especially if the dose is chronic and low.

 

[Yves]

Plus the antibiotic route can be dangerous in my eyes, since everyone knows bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics easily especially if the dose is chronic and low.

Not to mention candidiasis.

--


About the DE, can you go into more detail on the mechanical effect? I remember using green clay years ago and it had a dramatic short term beneficial effect, while after a while I felt like it was doing more harm than good and stopped it. I just dug around and found the jar of clay, so I might try it again. Is the antibiotic effect from the silica alone? I find charcoal helps me and take it regularly.

Here is the chemical analysis. The high amount of aluminium concerns me, although I don't know in what form it is or if it absorbed by the body:

calcium caO 9,04 %
magnesium MgO 2,5 %
Manganese Mn2O 0,07%
Fer Fe2O3 5,1%
Potassium K2O 4,6%
Aluminium Al2O3 14,4%
Silice SiO2 47,3%
Phosphore P2O5 0,12%
Sodium Na2O 0,18%

 

[mdimarco]

That is a good question. I have also used sodium betonite clay which I have read also has bacteria killing ability.

I don't know exactly how the DE kills the bacteria, the way I see it is most of the bacteria is in a kind of slime (which I've seen in colonoscopy videos), and the DE powder kinda sweeps the slime up and mixes it into the chyme, and killing it in the process and mix. Some people say the DE adsorbs the bacteria to itself, but if that were the case it would be like activated charcoal and you wouldn't experience a herx. Some people say it draws water out of the bacteria and parasites and kills it that way as a kind of dessicant, but I have a hard time believing that a dessicant would work in a liquid environment. It could be a property of the silica, it could be just because it sweeps up the slime and it gets mechanically killed somehow by the shells. So not sure exactly.

In everything except activated charcoal, I have found the best way to see if if kills bacteria is if it produces a die-off reaction, ie: herxheimer reaction. So I would google what you are considering and see if people report "die-off" "herx" reactions, ect. If people are reporting herxheimer or dieoff reactions using it, it is killing bacteria.

I can look up what people are saying but I figured I would let you know what my method would be to see if it is killing bacteria so people can apply it to other products as well.

 

[mdimarco]

And all the elements of DE are in the shell structure so I have little concern any of the composition would be absorbed, but I'm not really sure how the elements are arranged in clay's. Definatly worth looking in to.

edit: Heres something I found: http://www.claybrite.com/index.php?id=science

 

[Yves]

That is a good question. I have also used sodium betonite clay which I have read also has bacteria killing ability.

I don't know exactly how the DE kills the bacteria, the way I see it is most of the bacteria is in a kind of slime (which I've seen in colonoscopy videos), and the DE powder kinda sweeps the slime up and mixes it into the chyme, and killing it in the process and mix. Some people say the DE adsorbs the bacteria to itself, but if that were the case it would be like activated charcoal and you wouldn't experience a herx. Some people say it draws water out of the bacteria and parasites and kills it that way as a kind of dessicant, but I have a hard time believing that a dessicant would work in a liquid environment. It could be a property of the silica, it could be just because it sweeps up the slime and it gets mechanically killed somehow by the shells. So not sure exactly.

In everything except activated charcoal, I have found the best way to see if if kills bacteria is if it produces a die-off reaction, ie: herxheimer reaction. So I would google what you are considering and see if people report "die-off" "herx" reactions, ect. If people are reporting herxheimer or dieoff reactions using it, it is killing bacteria.

I can look up what people are saying but I figured I would let you know what my method would be to see if it is killing bacteria so people can apply it to other products as well.

Ok, thanks for the response. My only caveat about die off being a good measure is that anything that sufficiently irritates the intestines to allow for bacteria to pass the intestinal barrier could cause the same reaction, without actually improving your situation. If the die off produces lasting benefits it's probably a real die-off.

 

[cliff]

Making yourself totally sterile of bacteria is impossible and not a good thing in a real life setting.

Psyillum husk is a mucilage

 

[mdimarco]

Yes Yves, I've considered that too. My experience and countless others I've read online is that the initial die-off using DE or clay lasts at most a few days (depending on the initial bacterial load) and then completley goes away even with continued use. This would prove to me at least that the DE isn't just irritating the intestines to allow more bacterial endotoxins to enter, or if it is, it is also killing the bacteria. But still I have never heard any complaints online about people getting an irritated bowel, and many people have taken it for basically their whole life.

Sometimes my concoction with the psyllium husk does give me a stomachache in my intestines, but that is only when I don't allow the psyllium enough time to hydrate.

When I used DE wothout psyllium I never had a stomach ache.

I now take it about once a week and have not experienced another herx/die off. The one time I did experience another die-off I was eating a lot of probiotics and yogurt, the next time I used it after that I felt a strong herx coming on so took a tbsp activated charcoal and it stopped the herx from getting worse and lasted another few hours at that level. I've taken it several times since then and no die-off.

And cliff, thats why mechanical bacteriocides are great, because bacteria can't become resistant to it and it doesn't completely make you sterile like a chemical may. My browsing through the research suggests to me the appendix is the seat of the biologically well regulated fermentation bacteria (the cecum, were the appendix is located, is the fermentation chamer of mammals) and it wouldn't seem that DE or other mechanical means will sterilize this. The reason I think this is because intestinal contents don't go into the appendix, and also I have a little bout of gas sometimes a few hours after I eat which seems to be the time the food enters the cecum. Then the gas goes away which suggests to me things arent fermenting further down the large intestine. So the DE does seem to remove the bacteria slime layer I currently beleive exists in the digestive tract, which slime layer I don't beleive is a good thing.

Also cliff if you have another idea for something to prevent constipation I'm all ears. I just chose psyllium because other people use it, its cheap and easily available, and comes in orange flavor which seems to make everything I mix in taste good.

 

[mdimarco]

Interesting. Reading peatarian's minocycline comments and did a little research on it and I think it is a good idea.

Bacterial resistance isn't a long term thing. Especially if you are cleaning out the majority of the bacteria in the body (which is in the intestines) mechanically, I think taking a safe antibiotic once every few months could be a great thing to get things in the skin, naso-pharengeal area, and other areas. Bacteria will take up genetic plasmids from other bacteria to allow them to make protiens that make them resistant to something. However, carrying these plasmids with them takes extra energy. Bacteria aren't dumb, once the threat passes, they will drop the plasmids, thereby loosing resistance. I know this first hand working with e-coli in my lab.

So I think an antibiotic course would be good, but no more than once a month so you aren't perpetuating any resistance developed. Obviously that timing isn't fine tuned, I think specific studies with minocycline or whatever we are taking needs to be done to see how long bacteria isolated from different parts of our body keep antibiotic resistance after the antibiotic leaves the system. It is an easy experiment, we would just need to transform different types of bacteria with minocycline resistance plasmid (likely easily available), get minocycline and make plates with it, grow the bacteria on the antibiotic plates, then grow for a certain number of times on normal plates, then receck to see if they can survive on the mino plates. We could find how long they carry the resistance gene once the threat is removed. This could be done in any biology lab.