Sometimes you have to listen to your gut.
Reid
Documentary filmmaker and game design consultant. http://crohnsend.com/ http://game.rbkdesign.com/
Homepage: http://crohnsend.com/
Posts by Reid
What’s in the water at Northport?
Feb 6th
It is widely believed that Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are autoimmune diseases causing inflammatory immune responses that damage the digestive system.
One alternative theory is that IBDs are not autoimmune diseases but immune deficiency diseases caused by a bacteria called Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis (MAP). MAP prevents the immune system from properly ridding the body of it.
When reading the below story, which makes absolutely no mention of MAP, I couldn’t help by think it might play a part. I read a paper by John Hermon-Taylor a couple years ago and it says that MAP is commonly found in milk and the Red River up in Winnipeg. I had swam in the river as a teenager and 4 months later my symptoms of Crohn’s disease started.
Could something similar be happening to the people of Northport, WA? I hope to ask around and see what the people there think.
Amplify’d from www.spokesman.com
Study tracks reasons behind high rate of illness near Northport
Gail Leaden was 5 when she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. In high school, Leaden’s best friend in the small town of Northport, Wash., was diagnosed with the same illness.
“It’s not a common disease to begin with,” said Leaden, 25, who now lives in Spokane. “How ironic that my best friend gets it.”
Two doctors from Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital are looking into reports of high rates of bowel disease in Northport, a town of 330 near the Canadian border. In the general population, about 4 people per thousand are diagnosed with Crohn’s or colitis.
“We should be expecting to see one or two cases for a town the size of Northport,” said Dr. Sharyle Fowler, who will be working on the study.
The disease cluster, if it can be confirmed, could shed light on triggers for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, said Dr. Josh Korzenik, director of Massachusetts General’s Crohn’s and Colitis Center. No one knows what causes the diseases, which affect 1.5 million Americans, but both appear to have genetic and environmental contributors.
Jamie Paparich suspects a link to the smelter. Her grandparents raised six children on a farm outside of Northport, about 15 miles downwind and downstream of the smelter owned by Teck Resources Ltd. For decades, the century-old smelter released tons of pollution daily into the air and the Columbia River, including mercury and other heavy metals.
Deane said the smelter has cleaned up its act. In 1995, the smelter stopped dumping slag, a byproduct of the smelting process, into the Columbia River. Slag contains 25 compounds, including heavy metals. The smelter also halted production of phosphate fertilizer, reducing mercury releases into the river.
Northport resident Barb Anderson thinks the community needs answers.
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Pharma Funded Study Says Their Antibiotics Help with IBS[06Jan11]
Jan 6th
The practice of pharmaceuticals funding for studies on their own drugs is stupid. There’s no way in hell I’m going to trust this antibiotic really helps. The doc even admits the results are in the lower spectrum of clinically relevant. Data can be easily manipulated to be more favorable than it really is.
The use of antibiotics is boarding on ludicrous levels. It’s in our soaps, in our food and in our bodies.
Amplify’d from www.ctv.ca
Two weeks of treatment with an already well-known antibiotic appears to offer relief to those suffering from at least one type of irritable bowl syndrome, new research finds.
Two industry-funded studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at patients with diarrhea-predominant IBS — a form that only a minority of IBS patients have.
A total of 1,200 patients took either 550 milligrams of rifaximin or placebo pills, three times a day, for two weeks. Overall, 41 per cent of patients on rifaximin reported “adequate relief” for at least two weeks, compared to 32 per cent on dummy pills.
The treated patients said they had less bloating and abdominal pain, and improved stool consistency. The benefits lasted for the 10 weeks they were followed.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Jan Tack of the University of Leuven in Belgium, noted that the difference between the treated and the untreated groups was “in the lower spectrum of what is considered to be clinically relevant.” But the results were nonetheless notable.
The study was designed and funded by rifaximin’s maker, Salix Pharmaceuticals Inc. — a fact disclosed by the researchers.
Salix, which markets rifaximin as a treatment for traveller’s diarrhea under the name Xifaxan in the U.S., is seeking to expand the drug’s use to IBS. A decision from the Food and Drug Administration is expected in March.
Tack urged doctors to proceed with caution until more research is done on rifaximin in IBS.
He notes that with the high prevalence of IBS – as many as one in five Americans and Canadians are thought to suffer from the condition – there are worries about how the large-scale use of poorly absorbed antibiotics would have on antibiotic-resistance.
For that reason, he urges the antibiotic be restricted to those who haven’t responded to other IBS treatments.
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Empowerment Leads to Greater Healing? [26Dec10]
Dec 26th
The mind cannot be discounted as playing a vital role in our ability to heal from illness.
Amplify’d from www.medicinenet.com
Placebos Work — Even if Patients Are in on the Secret
In a study of 80 patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a control group received no treatment while the other group was informed their twice-daily pill regimen were placebos. After three weeks, nearly double the number of those treated with dummy pills reported adequate symptom relief compared to the control group.
Those taking the placebos also doubled their rates of improvement to an almost equivalent level of the effects of the most powerful IBS medications, said lead researcher Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Prior to their random assignment to the placebo or control group, all patients were told that the placebo pills contained no actual medication. Not only were the placebos described truthfully as inactive pills similar to sugar pills, but the bottle they came in was labeled “Placebo.” Health care providers also spent about 15 minutes explaining how placebos can have powerful effects and that a positive attitude, while not essential, could help.
At the end of the study, which was funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the Bernard Osher Foundation, 59 percent of the women in the placebo group reported adequate symptoms relief, vs. 35 percent of the control group.
“Some patients were very disbelieving, some were very enthusiastic, but by the end many really enjoyed themselves,” Kaptchuk said. “They felt empowered.”
He theorized that the very ritual of taking pills to treat illness — even fake ones — initiates a brain response that changes the way patients perceive and experience their symptoms.
“There’s nothing that’s not in our heads,” Kaptchuk said. “Our emotions, sadness, anxiety, all interact with our symptoms.”
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Does MAP Bacteria Cause IBD? [18Dec10]
Dec 18th
This debate of whether MAP causes IBD has been raging in the medical community for 30 years. I think there’s a strong possibility that it is true.
Amplify’d from 7thspace.com
Credits/Source: Gut Pathogens 2010, 2:21
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SAD can lead to IBD [12Dec10]
Dec 12th
I wonder if the patients were eating a lot of processed foods. I believe the processed foods kill off probiotics that help keep our gut in good health.
Amplify’d from www.consultantlive.com
REFERENCE:
1. Hou J, Abraham B, El-Serag H. Diet and risk of development of inflammatory bowel disease: a systematic review. Paper presented at: 2010 Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Conference; December 9-12, 2010; Hollywood, Florida.
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Should You Trust BigPharma with Your Health? [12Nov10]
Nov 12th
My answer?
A resounding “NO!”
Amplify’d from articles.mercola.com
Physician William D. Leak was found to have performed unnecessary nerve tests and excessive invasive procedures, including injecting some patients with agents that destroy nerve tissue. But that didn’t stop Eli Lilly from using him as a promotional speaker and adviser.
Leak is part of the drug industry’s sales force of doctors who are paid to promote brand-name drugs to their peers. Drug companies claim they hire the most-respected doctors in their fields for this purpose.
But an investigation has uncovered hundreds of doctors on company payrolls who have been accused of professional misconduct or lacked credentials as researchers or specialists.
But as an analysis by ProPublica found, drug companies are not always hiring “experts” to act as spokespeople. Instead, they’re often hiring the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, including physicians who have some concerning pasts.
ProPublica has put together a comprehensive database that reveals just how much drug companies are paying doctors, and you can even search for your own doctor to find out if he or she is being paid by the industry.
They compiled data from seven drug companies, including nearly $258 million in physician payouts since 2009, and found some revealing data about the paid speakers and consultants.
- Sanctions against more than 250 speakers
- Some of the doctors had lost their licenses
- More than 40 have received FDA warnings for research misconduct, lost hospital privileges or been convicted of crimes
The idea that drug companies are recruiting only top experts and consummate professionals to do their promotions is a myth. In some cases, there are reputable physicians on their payroll, but many of the most prestigious universities, including Harvard, are now banning their staff from receiving money from drug companies for speaking.
Instead, industry whistleblowers have alleged that drug companies choose their speakers, as ProPublica reported, “on their prescription potential rather than their true credentials.”
Sociologist Susan Chimonas, who researches doctor-pharma relationships, told ProPublica:
“It’s sort of like American Idol … Nobody will have necessarily heard of you before — but after you’ve been around the country speaking 100 times a year, people will begin to know your name and think, ‘This guy is important.’ It creates an opinion leader who wasn’t necessarily an expert before.”
So the physicians being paid to counsel your physician — who in turn may influence the drugs you end up taking — are not only biased in favor of the drug company that is paying them a substantial fee, they may be vastly underqualified as well.
They attack the market on multiple levels. For instance, many of the articles that appear in medical journals purportedly written by well-known academics are actually written by unacknowledged ghostwriters on Big Pharma payroll.
Drug companies also employ an army of reps who often give gifts to convince doctors to prescribe the medications that they represent. These drug reps usually have no medical or science education. What they do have, however, is training in tactics that are on par with some of the most potent brainwashing techniques used throughout the world.
Worse yet, drug companies have compiled hit lists of doctors to be “neutralized” or discredited because they were speaking out against certain drugs.
Pharmaceutical companies actually spend almost twice as much on marketing than research, and this is how they are able to keep their medications front and center in your physician’s, and possibly your, mind.
So please remember first and foremost that drug companies are nearly always trying to sell you something that there are better natural solutions for. And your physician, too, if he or she is intertwined in the conventional medical field, may be inappropriately advising you to take drugs when better options exist.
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Antibiotic Induces Remission of Crohn’s Disease[04Nov10]
Nov 3rd
It’s great that an antibiotic may help, though I’m weary of using them. I think antibiotics are over used and negatively affect the good bacteria that are essential to life.
What caught my eye in this article was that some European nations do not allow the use of biologics, which I assume include Humira & Remicade. Question is, why not? My guess is because they put patients in great risk of getting fatal infections.
Amplify’d from www.medscape.com
November 3, 2010 — An antibiotic currently indicated for hepatic encephalopathy and traveler’s diarrhea has shown promise in the treatment of Crohn’s disease (CD).
RETIC-03, a large phase 2 trial presented at the 18th Annual United European Gastroenterology Week in Barcelona, Spain, showed that rifaximin-EIR (extended intestinal release) was able to achieve clinical remission of Crohn’s sequelae in up to 62% of patients out to 12 weeks, according to study investigator, Herbert Lochs, MD, from the Medical University in Innsbruck, Austria.
Results showed that at 12 weeks, all active treatment groups achieved remission more often than placebo (P < .04), with the highest rate (62.2%) observed for the 800 mg regimen.
Commenting on his motivation for conducting RETIC-03, Dr. Lochs said that he was trying to move away from CD treatment methods that rely on suppression of the patient’s immune system. “It’s not something you ideally want to do — not in the long term.”
In the current hypothesis for the pathogenesis of CD, he explained, there is a change in the intestinal microbiota, whereby pathogenic bacteria disrupt the gut’s mucosa, which activates the immune system. Rather than inhibit the immune response, Dr. Lochs wants to attenuate the reasons for its activation.
The choice of rifaximin was based on case reports of its potential utility in CD, and the fact that it is specific to the gut. “The formulation stays in the lumen; there’s no systemic effect that might lead to overall antibiotic resistance,” said Dr. Lochs. In theory, this should lead to fewer adverse events than other antibiotics, he added.
“The data for antibiotics [in CD] are out there, and the science makes sense,” said Sunanda Kane, MD, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and chair of the Patient Education Committee of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation. “The problem up to now has been that no company has wanted to fund a large enough trial with the appropriate antibiotic.”
Dr. Kane said that there is perhaps a different sort of motivation for such a study in the European Union, pointing out that the biologics commonly used in CD are very expensive and often not covered; in some countries, they are not even approved.
“What they are trying to do is to find an alternative to biologics that may be safer and work just as well,” she observed.
Dr. Kane finds the choice of rifaximin in this study to be both prudent and just a bit ironic. “There are case studies that show efficacy, and the fact that it’s so [gastrointestinal]-specific, so targeted, is great, but rifaximin is not a cheap antibiotic.” Still, she admitted, the price is nowhere near that of a biologic, nor does it carry the same potential for serious adverse effects.
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Surgery Puff Piece[30Oct10]
Nov 1st
A blood boiling piece that advocates Crohn’s patients undergo surgery.
Amplify’d from www.dailymail.co.uk
250,000 suffer from incurable gut disease
Thousands develop cancer and infection, many die
Now one expert argues that keyhole surgery, not just drugs, is the answer
Imagine the pain of a mouth ulcer – a burning, needle-like sensation that is impossible to ignore.
And now imagine hundreds of these sores lining your gut, triggering agonising spasms every time a piece of food is eaten or the digestive system moves.
This is what it feels like to have inflammatory bowel disease
Couple this with embarrassing digestive discomfort and a raised risk of cancer, internal bleeding, infection and, in many cases, death and you can see why we so desperately need to find a solution to this problem.
Crohn’s can develop anywhere along the digestive tract, causing inflammation, deep ulcers and scarring and, eventually, permanent damage.
And because of the digestive problems, patients stop wanting to eat. I have seen relatively healthy-looking patients reduced to walking skeletons within months.
For decades, doctors have pinned their hopes on discovering a cure, or at least a drug that can treat IBD without causing major side effects.
But as it is, the immune-suppressing or anti-inflammatory medicines we use are so powerful they cause acne, facial swelling, insomnia and mood swings.
Today we must focus on how best to help patients to live pain and risk free lives. I would argue that today the linchpin of treatment must be good old-fashioned surgery.
Yes, it is a big operation but I want to get the message out: don’t be scared. Today we are so adept that in 50 per cent of cases, an operation provides a virtual cure.
Fortunately, physicians are becoming more aware of the need for early, aggressive treatment, going straight to the new disease-modifying drugs rather than dilly-dallying with less effective medicines.
The moment they notice complications, they call in a surgeon to remove the damaged section of the gut.
Nearly 85 per cent of sufferers will need surgery in their lifetime. It is just a question of when to operate to remove the damaged sections of the gut – not if.
Up to ten per cent develop complications after the operation – the bowel won’t join up, they get peritonitis and end up in hospital with blood poisoning.
The crucial thing is to operate sooner rather than later. Then there is a good success rate.
We always try to make decisions with the patient about the timing of an operation. But they should be made aware of the risks of delaying surgery – including cancer.
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Colostrum – Wikipedia.org [30Oct10]
Oct 30th
More info on Colostrum from Wikipedia.org. It appears to stimulate growth of the gut, helps probiotics establish a home in the gut. Fascinating that the first polio vaccine used bovine colostrum instead of antibiotics.
“PRP” = Proline-rich Polypeptides.
PRP rich preparations of bovine colostrum appear to act as an immune regulator, helping the immune system to respond appropriately to pathogens.
Amplify’d from en.wikipedia.org
Colostrum (also known colloquially as beestings,[1] bisnings[2] or first milk) is a form of milk produced by the mammary glands of mammals in late pregnancy. Most species will generate colostrum just prior to giving birth. Colostrum contains antibodies to protect the newborn against disease, as well as being higher in fat and protein than ordinary milk.
A number of cytokines (small messenger peptides that control the functioning of the immune system) are found in colostrum as well,[8] including interleukins,[8] tumor necrosis factor,[9] chemokines,[10] and others. Colostrum also contains a number of growth factors, such as insulin-like growth factors I,[11] and II,[12] transforming growth factors alpha,[13] beta 1 and beta 2,[14][15] fibroblast growth factors,[16] epidermal growth factor,[17] granulocyte-macrophage-stimulating growth factor,[18] platelet-derived growth factor,[18] vascular endothelial growth factor,[19] and colony-stimulating factor-1.[20]
The most pertinent bioactive components in colostrum are growth factors and antimicrobial factors. The antibodies in colostrum provide passive immunity, while growth factors stimulate the development of the gut.
Livestock breeders commonly bank colostrum from their animals. Colostrum produced on a breeder’s own premises is considered to be superior to colostrum from other sources, because it is produced by animals already exposed to (and, thus, making antibodies to) pathogens occurring on the premises.
Assertions that colostrum consumption is of human benefit are questionable because most ingredients undergo digestion in the adult stomach, including antibodies and all other proteins.[citation needed]
Bovine colostrum and its components are safe for human consumption, except in the context of intolerance or allergy to lactose or other components. It shows promise in the treatment or prevention of a variety of disease states.[23][24][25]
Before the development of antibiotics, colostrum was the main source of immunoglobulins used to fight infections. In fact, when Albert Sabin made his first oral vaccine against polio, the immunoglobulin he used came from bovine colostrum.[27] When antibiotics began to appear, interest in colostrum waned, but, now that antibiotic-resistant strains of pathogens have developed, interest is once again returning to natural alternatives to antibiotics, namely, colostrum.[28]
A single study showed protective effects against influenza, 3 times greater than that of vaccination.[29]
Some athletes have used colostrum in an attempt to improve their performance,[30] decrease recovery time,[31] and prevent sickness during peak performance levels.[32] Using colostrum supplementation, the Australian Olympic swim team won more gold medals than China in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games.[33] Research fails to show a conclusive effect of colostrum on lean body mass.[30][34]
PRP-rich preparations from bovine colostrum have shown some activity against various diseases including viral infections[47] of herpes viruses[48] and HIV,[49] as well as difficult to treat bacterial and fungal infections like Mycobacterium fortuitum[50] and Mycobacterium tuberculosis[51] (cause of tuberculosis), cryptosporidosis in AIDS patients,[52] and candida.[53] Also for various forms of cancer, such as Hodgkin’s disease,[54] osteogenic sarcoma,[55] prostate cancer,[56] and others.
As an immune modulator, PRP is also effective in disease states characterized by an overactive immune system, such as allergies,[57][58] asthma,[59] and autoimmune diseases.[60]
PRP has some effect in neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s disease,[61] but has not yet shown longterm disease retarding effect.[62]
There is one report of use in patients with intractable epilepsy.[64]
Proline-rich Polypeptides (PRP)
These small immune signaling peptides were independently discovered in colostrum and other sources, such as blood plasma, in the United States,[42] and Poland[43].Read more at en.wikipedia.org
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Is Colostrum the Missing Link in GI Health? [16Oct10]
Oct 30th
A friend of mine sent me this Dr.s website. He claims he can cure IBS, UC, Crohn’s, GERD, anything related to the GI tract. I’ve been devouring his blog to find his strategy and thought this post was interesting. I haven’t heard much about Colostrum, only vague references. I will research this further. It may explain why if I stop taking probiotics they diminish over time.
Amplify’d from holisticgastroenterology.com
Colostrum is a critical part of my protocol for every GI problem that I treat. In fact it is part of Mother Nature’s protocol for preventing GI problems among other things.
It is an incredible example of nature’s wisdom and only when we mimic it are we able to re-establish the “conditions” of a healthy GI tract- made up of your esophagus -stomach- colon/intestines.
Colostrum comes from the mother’s breast when she is nursing her baby. What is also present in the milk is probiotics- the good bacteria that many of you have taken to try to fix your GI problem -that did not work. The probiotics & Colostrum stick / adhere to the GI wall protecting it. Then one day you got sick - took an antibiotic that killed the bad bacteria as well as the good that you got from mom. This does not grow back – on it’s own.
We take a good probiotic AND COLOSTRUM. If we do not take the Colostrum with the probiotic it will not work. It will not stick to the GI tract wall and it will pass right through you and end up in the toilet leaving you saying- “I took probiotics & they didn’t work & my GI still “hurts”.
Here is the most important tip I can give you to “fix” this problem & is your ticket out of the misery of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. ALWAYS TAKE COLOSTRUM WITH PROBIOTICS OTHERWISE IT WILL NOT WORK AND YOU WILL CONTINUE TO SUFFER WITH IBD. Colostrum is available in capsule or powder form at good health food stores and online.Read more at holisticgastroenterology.com
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