[Leslieand]

I just came back from a Buddhist retreat and the lama has celiac disease (don't know if he was officially diagnosed but has all the hallmarks). He was sick for over 30 years and even after years of not eating gluten was still very sick. He stopped eating corn and still had trouble with many other foods including other grains.

He has a great doctor in northern California who tested him for food allergies and yet foods he has trouble with came out negative on the tests. Sound familiar? Then she advised Breaking the Vicious Cycle with one additional piece of information that is NOT in the book. She believes (and there are no tests) that there can be an imbalance of bacteria and acidity in the small intestine whereby the bacteria migrate to the small intestine creating a lower acid and higher (in unnatural bacteria for the small intestine) bacteria environment. This upsets the breakdown of complex carbohydrates and therefore you get stomach and other problems, like fatigue, from eating all complex carbs. Also would cause malnutrition because the villi of the small intestine would be damaged by this migration.

His doctor recommended one year eating only simple carbs and plant tannins to help kill the bad bacteria and restore the bacteria balance and heal the villi of the small intestine. The tannins he eats are plant tannins from the company, Verison, and is prescribed by the doctor. After one year he will add in complex carbs one by one. I can't find plant tannins by Verison on the internet so either it is Verizon or I need to contact the lama.

I don't imagine gluten will be added as gluten was the cause of this problem but he might be able to eat potatoes, rice, and corn again in the future. He said after a matter of days on this diet and WITH TAKING THE TANNINS to fix the imbalance his energy came back like he hasn't felt in 30 years and other symptoms immediately subsided as well.

Maybe you know all this but if you haven't heard it should be interesting. I read so many postings about trouble digesting other foods, especially carbohydrates, that I thought this might be the culprit for some of you.
Thinking good thoughts for your good health,
Leslie

[KimS]

I'm often leaning toward a paleo diet because we seem to react negatively to grains in our house.

First I though it was just my son, then I added me to the list, then dh and now dd.

The baby will only eat a bit of grain and then throws it over the side. He'll eat carrots until the cows come home though.

Thanks for the post. I'm going to roll it around and maybe see if I can work something else around with our diet.

We're good about having very little grain... but it's insidious and creeps in, slowly growing to be larger and larger parts of our diet until one of the children seems to have trouble behaving. Then I pull it back again and we all get along just fine. You think I'd learn!

[Leslieand]

I'm very interested in what Cara and Anne think about this (and Al, Judy, Claire and everyone). You seem to have heard just about everything and this was a new one for me but seems to explain, for some people, why trouble digesting this important food group remains a problem. Now, I'll go back to waiting patiently,
Leslie

[diamondheart]

Hi Leslie,

That's cool that you were on a Buddhist retreat !

I tried the Specific Carbohydrate Diet last summer. They say if you don't see improvement in four weeks then the diet probably isn't going to work for you. I was still having digestive problems on the diet, plus I was losing weight, and weak and hungry all the time. I found out later that I was reacting to nuts, which are allowed on the diet, and dairy. SCD without nuts or dairy is a very limited diet. I did not feel well on the diet.

Then, I was diagnosed with bacterial dysbiosis. I don't know what started it, but I'm sure I had leaky gut syndrome. I think a lot of the complex carbs are what start leaking into the blood stream because they do not get digested completely and our diets tend to be high in them. I think the same probably goes for dairy. I don't digest nuts completely either. I'm not sure why I didn't develop problems with vegetables, because I don't seem to completely digest those either.

I'm wondering if the plant tannins are to kill the bad bacteria? I'm taking Chinese herbs to kill my bad bacteria, and it works. The trick is to keep them from coming back. They already came back once, but I was eating a fair amount of sugar over the holidays.

I do think that excess carbs and sugar will feed bad bacteria and yeast. I've cut out sugar and cut down on carbs, but not completely. The brain needs sugars to function, so cutting out the carbs completely is not healthy, IMO. SCD is all about simple, natural sugars as the only allowed carbs. Fruits are allowed on SCD, yet on an anti-yeast diet, fruit is not allowed. I don't get that . Your body needs some carbs. I know I couldn't get enough from vegetables alone. But if I eat too many carbs, my intestines definitely will let me know! For me, it doesn't really matter if it's complex or simple carbs.

I think whatever it takes to heal the intestines is what is important. Everyone's healing plan is going to be different. For me, I think the majority of my problems are in my colon. There can be bacterial overgrowth in either the colon or small intestines.

I'm trying to figure out what the balance is between not eating too many carbs to feed my bad bacteria, but not cutting out so many that I starve myself along with the bacteria ! I'm also looking into ways that I can get more probiotics into my diet than just by taking supplements. My supplements only have two kinds of probiotics, which seems kinda limited to me.

Claire

[myst]

Originally Posted by Leslieand

I can't find plant tannins by Verison on the internet so either it is Verizon or I need to contact the lama.

Is this what you were looking for?

http://www.intensivenutrition.com/Viracin.htm

[KimS]

I think that we just eat too much of it.

If we had to go out and harvest it ourselves, we would eat much less of it.

Our society of ease has really played havock with our guts.

[Leslieand]

Wow, Myst, you really are fantastic! I'm so glad you found it. A migration of bacteria to the small intestine makes sense to me and if driving those numbers down allows some people to eat more complex grains then I think that is a good thing.
Leslie

[jccgf]

Leslie,

I've never heard of any of this.. but I'm reading with interest and am about to check out the link that myst found. Ah... pay attention to the drug interactions listed...quite a few.

I googled around a little, but didn't find much on it... except this on grazing mammals and tannins~ ?
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entom...alldredge.html

I tried searching the Natural Pharmacy for plant tannins, and Norwegian Maple fruit, Babul bark and Wild rhubarb (canaigre).... came up with nothing.

Found this on PubMed (back to animals?)
Bacterial mechanisms to overcome inhibitory effects of dietary tannins.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=16222487
High concentrations of tannins in fodder plants inhibit gastrointestinal bacteria and reduce ruminant performance. Increasing the proportion of tannin-resistant bacteria in the rumen protects ruminants from anti-nutritional effects. The reason for the protective effect is unclear, but could be elucidated if the mechanism(s) by which tannins inhibit bacteria and the mechanisms of tannin resistance were understood. A review of the literature indicates that the ability of tannins to complex with polymers and minerals is the basis of the inhibitory effect on gastrointestinal bacteria. Mechanisms by which bacteria can overcome inhibition include tannin modification/degradation, dissociation of tannin-substrate complexes, tannin inactivation by high-affinity binders, and membrane modification/repair and metal ion sequestration. Understanding the mechanism of action of tannins and the mechanism(s) bacteria use to overcome the inhibitory effects will allow better management of the rumen ecosystem to reduce the anti-nutritional effects of tannin-rich fodder plants and thereby improve ruminant production.
PMID: 16222487

I wonder if MrsD knows anything about this.

Cara

[Leslieand]

Cute puppy Cara!

The question for me is whether the years of consuming gluten cause a migration of bacteria into the small intestine from the large intestine that then becomes established there, lowering the acid level and causing continued villi damage (which was what lama Zangpo indicated during our conversation) or do all grains cause an overgrowth of bacteria and yeast in susceptable people and therefore is an ongoing condition even after the gluten is removed.

If the former is true than the trouble with eating grains for people with celiac disease is because of ongoing small intestinal damage and not an ongoing problem with all grains. Kinda like neuropathy that is corrected by vitamin B12. If anyone is interested I can contact lama Zangpo and get his doctor's name and e-mail and try to scratch up some research on both the bacterial migration and use of tannins as a "cure".
Leslie

[annelb]

Tannins are polyphenols and looks like they can be good and bad. They do have antimicrobial actions. This article is a almost 9 years old. I bet they know more now.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract

Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 1998 Aug;38(6):421-64. Links
Tannins and human health: a review.Chung KT, Wong TY, Wei CI, Huang YW, Lin Y.
Department of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Sciences, University of Memphis, TN 38152, USA.

Tannins (commonly referred to as tannic acid) are water-soluble polyphenols that are present in many plant foods. They have been reported to be responsible for decreases in feed intake, growth rate, feed efficiency, net metabolizable energy, and protein digestibility in experimental animals. Therefore, foods rich in tannins are considered to be of low nutritional value. However, recent findings indicate that the major effect of tannins was not due to their inhibition on food consumption or digestion but rather the decreased efficiency in converting the absorbed nutrients to new body substances. Incidences of certain cancers, such as esophageal cancer, have been reported to be related to consumption of tannins-rich foods such as betel nuts and herbal teas, suggesting that tannins might be carcinogenic. However, other reports indicated that the carcinogenic activity of tannins might be related to components associated with tannins rather than tannins themselves. Interestingly, many reports indicated negative association between tea consumption and incidences of cancers. Tea polyphenols and many tannin components were suggested to be anticarcinogenic. Many tannin molecules have also been shown to reduce the mutagenic activity of a number of mutagens. Many carcinogens and/or mutagens produce oxygen-free radicals for interaction with cellular macromolecules. The anticarcinogenic and antimutagenic potentials of tannins may be related to their antioxidative property, which is important in protecting cellular oxidative damage, including lipid peroxidation. The generation of superoxide radicals was reported to be inhibited by tannins and related compounds. The antimicrobial activities of tannins are well documented. The growth of many fungi, yeasts, bacteria, and viruses was inhibited by tannins. We have also found that tannic acid and propyl gallate, but not gallic acid, were inhibitory to foodborne bacteria, aquatic bacteria, and off-flavor-producing microorganisms. Their antimicrobial properties seemed to be associated with the hydrolysis of ester linkage between gallic acid and polyols hydrolyzed after ripening of many edible fruits. Tannins in these fruits thus serve as a natural defense mechanism against microbial infections. The antimicrobial property of tannic acid can also be used in food processing to increase the shelf-life of certain foods, such as catfish fillets. Tannins have also been reported to exert other physiological effects, such as to accelerate blood clotting, reduce blood pressure, decrease the serum lipid level, produce liver necrosis, and modulate immunoresponses. The dosage and kind of tannins are critical to these effects. The aim of this review is to summarize and analyze the vast and sometimes conflicting literature on tannins and to provide as accurately as possible the needed information for assessment of the overall effects of tannins on human health.

PMID: 9759559 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

"Polyphenols are a group of chemical substances found in plants, characterized by the presence of more than one phenol group per molecule. Polyphenols are generally further subdivided into tannins, and phenylpropanoids such as lignins and flavonoids."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol

Leslie, what a great trip. Would love to hear more.
Anne