Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
Defiant Health Radio with Dr. William Davis
How to use inulin to map the location of microbes in your GI tract
Inulin is a common fiber, the fiber found in root vegetables like onions, garlic, shallots, asparagus, jicama and many other foods. Humans lack the digestive enzymes, however, for metabolizing inulin, but microbes living in your gastrointestinal track are able to metabolize it. When beneficial microbes metabolize inulin, they convert it to fatty acids with numerous beneficial effects on gastrointestinal, brain, and metabolic health. But, when undesirable microbes metabolize inulin, bad things can happen and cause you to experience symptoms such as excessive bloating, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, mental effects such as anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, worsening joint pain or skin rashes. The difference is all about location of these microbes, where they are located in the 30-feet of your gastrointestinal tract.
In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, Let’s therefore discuss how to use the common fiber inulin to map where such microbes are living in your GI tract and, should you determine that undesirable species are living where they don’t belong, what you can do about it.
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliamDavisMD
Blog: WilliamDavisMD.com
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Books:
Super Gut: The 4-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight
Inulin is a common fiber, the fiber found in root vegetables like onions, garlic, shallots, asparagus, jicama and many other foods. Humans lack the digestive enzymes, however, for metabolizing inulin, but microbes living in your gastrointestinal tract are able to metabolize it. When beneficial microbes metabolize inulin, they convert it to fatty acids that provide numerous beneficial effects on gastrointestinal, brain and metabolic health. But when undesirable microbes metabolize inulin, bad things can happen and cause you to experience symptoms such as excessive bloating, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, mental effects such as anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, as well as worsening joint pain or skin rashes. The difference is all about location of these microbes where they are located in the 30 feet of your gastrointestinal tract. In this episode of the Defiant Health Podcast, let's therefore discuss how to use the common fiber inulin to map where such microbes are living in your GI tract and, should you determine that undesirable species are living where they don't belong, what you can do about it. Let's talk about how you can use the common fiber inulin as a mapping device to tell you where microbes are living in your gastrointestinal tract. So if you've been following my conversations, you know that SIBO small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is among the world's worst epidemics, affecting now about half the US population, and what that means is because of our overexposure to antibiotics and probably other factors too, like glyphosate, which has antibiotic properties, emulsifying agents in your ice cream and salad dressing, preservatives that are antimicrobial, in food, but also in you, and many other factors. All these factors have conspired to allow the overproliferation, the excessive proliferation of fecal microbes in your colon. That's colonic dysbiosis. But even worse, these colonic species have managed to ascend into the 24 feet of small intestine, into the stomach, duodenum, jejunum and ileum, and the small intestine is just not well equipped to handle trillions of fecal microbes. The small intestine is very sensitive. It's not well protected, like the colon is, from these microbes, and the small intestine is, by design, very permeable. That's because that's where you absorb nutrients like amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, minerals. But when you have trillions of fecal microbes living and dying in the space of a few hours, they don't live very long. There's a huge turnover and when these microbes die they release some of their toxic components, specifically something called endotoxin, from their cell walls, and that endotoxin is able to enter the bloodstream. That's called endotoxemia and that's how microbes in the small intestine can be experienced as dementia, coronary disease, atrial fibrillation, rosacea, psoriasis, migraine, headaches, depression, suicidal thoughts, sleep disruption, on and on and on All the familiar conditions you're aware of afflicting the people around you. A lot of it is either initiated or worsened by this process of SIBO and endotoxemia.
Speaker 1:Well, how do you know if you have microbes, fecal microbes, living in your small intestine? Well, this is where inulin comes in. Inulin is a fiber. There are other fibers. I like inulin especially, though, because it's very widely metabolizable by many bacterial species. There are other fibers. In conventional testing they use, for instance, laculose. I don't like laculose as much, because there's only a limited menu of microbes that are able to metabolize laculose and likewise other fibers. So I like to use inulin for this purpose, because so many microbes, good and bad, can metabolize inulin.
Speaker 1:Now, this is how you can use inulin to map where microbes are living. So let's pretend you have a completely normal gastrointestinal tract, meaning you have almost no microbes in your stomach, duodenum, jejunum or ileum, and virtually all your microbes are concentrated where they're supposed to be in the colon, in the four to five feet of colon. If you ingest something with inulin, which is a common ingredient, common component of root vegetables like onions, garlic, shallots, asparagus, brussels sprouts and other root vegetables. We're going to use it as a powder, though a commercial powder, because it's easier to do that way. If you consume some inulin, let's say two teaspoons or about eight grams or so, in your coffee or other food, when would it reach the colon? Well, it takes about a minimum of 90 minutes for it to traverse the 24 feet of small intestine. It doesn't get there immediately, right. It takes a while as soon as 90 minutes, often longer, four or five or six hours before it reaches the colon. You can use that phenomenon to time to map out where microbes are living. So if you consume that coffee, say with two teaspoons of inulin, and you get a lot of gas 90 minutes later, that tells you the microbes are living in your colon.
Speaker 1:Alternatively, you could test for hydrogen gas, because microbes produce hydrogen gas but humans cannot. You can do this in a lab or a clinic or you can use the AIR device A-I-R-E. I've got my AIR devices right here. I have no relationship with the company Food Marble. I do know the inventor, dr Angus Short, a PhD engineer. I've talked to him a number of times. Very helpful guy. So this is the original that measured hydrogen gas. This is the more recent one updated to add methane measurement, hydrogen gas and methane. You blow into it and then it registers on your smartphone zero to ten for either of those gases. But if you drink that coffee with the inulin and 90 minutes later you have an excess gas or bloating or you register a rise of more than four units on the 0 to 10 scale on the air device, that means you have microbes in your colon after 90 minutes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so now what about? You consume that coffee with inulin and you get excessive gas, bloating almost immediately, maybe within 15 minutes, 30 minutes, up to 90 minutes. That tells you there are microbes living in the small intestine, stomach, duodenum, jejunum, ileum, because it happened too fast for that inulin to have reached the colon. So here's the issue. So good microbes can consume the inulin and that's why inulin is good for you in general, because species like Lactobacillus, bifidobacteria Acromantia and Fecalobacterium and Lachnospiration many, many beneficial microbes like the inulin. They can metabolize the inulin. That's good for you because the inulin gets converted to fatty acids like butyric acid. That exerts numerous beneficial effects on skin, blood pressure, blood sugar, sleep, brain effects. So these are good things. The problem with this is inulin and other fibers are not selective for beneficial microbial species. Bad species can also metabolize the inulin and other fibers. So, for instance, if you have fecal microbes like Campylobacter or Citrobacter or Pseudomonas in your small intestine where they don't belong, they can metabolize the inulin also.
Speaker 1:And when that happens, when you ingest that coffee with the two teaspoons of inulin, you're going to have gas, bloating, diarrhea, other effects within the first 90 minutes, typically within 30 minutes actually. Or you can use the air device. You do a baseline before the inulin. Let's say it's low, 1.2. You consume the inulin. Maybe 30 minutes later it's 9.8. A rise of more than four units on the air device is a positive reading. So you can use the appearance of symptoms like gas, bloating, diarrhea also emotional effects, panic, anxiety, suicidal thoughts I mean really serious stuff sometimes. Or you can measure it with the air device. But both of these phenomena, both of these are indicators that you have fecal microbes living in the small intestine that can be responsible for adding to or initiating numerous health effects.
Speaker 1:Now, if you have it, it's time to take action. Because if you ignore it, if you've got fecal microbes infesting your small intestine and you say this is too difficult, too scary, I'm not going to be bothered with it. Bad things can happen to you and your health long term people are familiar with that can be waiting for you down the road if you allow SIBO and endotoxemia to continue and ruin your health. So how can you deal with this? Well, if you go to the doctor.
Speaker 1:Most doctors unfortunately remain ignorant about this issue because their training and education occurred probably 10, 20, 30 years ago, when this was not understood. This was not even known. But if you did, if your doctor happens to be among the rare ones who does know something about this, they'll say something like here's a prescription for Xifaxan, an antibiotic. It's a very expensive antibiotic about $1,200, not covered by insurance and its efficacy is somewhere about 55% to 60%. So it's not that effective. And typically the doctor even though that doctor may know something about Zyfaxan and SIBO often doesn't know how you got it, has no advice, typically on how to prevent recurrences, which is very common, how to rebuild a healthy microbiome for other beneficial purposes, and so you get this kind of bland, ignorant response. That's typical. I'm generalizing. Of course there are occasional doctors who do know what they're doing, but the vast majority of mainstream doctors have no idea whatsoever. Maybe they know about Xifax, and that's about as far as it goes.
Speaker 1:You can see if SIBO responds to antibiotics, though what does that tell you? It's a microbial problem, right? But let me tell you how I've been dealing with SIBO, and it's been working spectacularly well. Anecdotally, with our large experience about 100 people, it's about 90% effective, though you need to do this for a prolonged period of minimum four weeks, often longer if you've got SIBO really bad. So, for instance, people who say things like I took antibiotics for five years for my acne or some other reason, those people have SIBO really really bad, and it might take months of this strategy, this strategy I call SIBO yogurt, and all that means is you're going to take three microbial species that colonize the small intestine and the colon, because it's the small intestine where SIBO occurs, right as well as colonic dysbiosis. So we're going to select species that colonize the small intestine and produce what are called bacteriocins. These are natural antibiotics effective in killing fecal microbial species like those ones I mentioned the Campylobacter, ciprobacter, pseudomonas, etc. Now we're going to ferment them, though, and using my method of prolonged fermentation. So microbes don't have sex, right, they don't have sexual reproduction, they just double themselves. So Lactobacillus roteri, for instance, my favorite microbe and one of the microbes in the SIBO yogurt doubles about every three hours or so at human body temperature. So we're going to allow it to double 12 times and that is about 36 hours. If we ferment roteri by itself, we get about 300 billion microbe per half cup, or 120 milliliters serving. So we get these huge increase in bacterial counts. That's what we want in order to eradicate the invading species of SIBO.
Speaker 1:If you're going to engage in war and you're going up against 100,000 soldiers, you're not going to show up with 100 soldiers, you're going to show up with many, right, the more soldiers you have, the more likely you are to have a successful outcome. Same thing here. If you're going to show up with many right. The more soldiers you have, the more likely you are to have a successful outcome. Same thing here. If you're going to go to battle with fecal microbes in your small intestine, you want to start the battle with a big army right, hundreds of billions of microbes. So we're going to ferment lactobacillus roteri, lactobacillus gasseri. These are species that colonize the small intestine and produce bacteriocins.
Speaker 1:And my most recent recipe I've replaced the original bacillus coagulans with bacillus subtilis. For two reasons. One. Coagulans prove to be kind of unreliable in fermenting in dairy as a yogurt-like food. The bacillus subtilis much more reliable and a better producer of bacteriocins with a broader spectrum of action in killing fecal microbes. In other words, one of the shortcomings of the original formulation was it was very good at killing what are called gram negative microbes. These are microbes that stay in a specific way and these are species like Pseudomonas and E coli and Salmonella. But the original formulation was kind of weak in killing so-called gram-positive microbes that stay a little different, have different cell wall construction and those microbes like Staphylococcus, streptococcus and Enterococcus were not well taken care of by the original formulation.
Speaker 1:So I replaced the coagulants with Bacillus subtilis, which has a broader range of action from its bactericids, including activity against the gram positives. So we co-ferment them. But if you really want good results you can individually ferment them. But you can co-ferment them. We've had a lot of success with fermenting all three 36 hours at human body temperature, so roughly 100 degrees Fahrenheit, 98 to 102 works. You'll need a device of course, like a yogurt maker that has adjustable timing and temperature. A stick or basin sous vide or some of the instant pots that have a yogurt setting Ferment for 36 hours. Now the full recipe is in my blog, williamdavesmdcom. It's in my Super Gut book, though.
Speaker 1:The updated recipe substituted right the coagulants with bacillus subtilis and we use the HU58 strain of bacillus subtilis that you can get from Microbiome Labs. I have no relationship with them, but I've talked to the founder of Microbiome Labs, dr Kiran Krishnan, and he's done research with this microbe and he tells me that this strain of subtilis produces a minimum of three bacteriocins. So it's a very good microbial species for this purpose. So we consume the SIBO yogurt what I call SIBO yogurt for four weeks minimum or longer. Now, the great thing about this is I kind of regret calling it SIBO yogurt because it makes it sound as if it's only useful for SIBO. It's not.
Speaker 1:What I should have called it was Restoration of Keystone Microbial Species yogurt. That's not very catchy, right? But what we're doing is not just providing species that colonize the small intestine and produce bactericides. We're also providing microbial species that are keystone or foundational, that start the process of rebuilding a healthy microbiome, gastrointestinal microbiome, because if all you do is take an antibiotic and kill things, it doesn't begin the process of rebuild, doesn't bring back healthy species. So the SIBO yogurt does start that process. Now there's more you should do like fermented foods, perhaps a commercial probiotic, some other things you can do, like fermented foods, perhaps commercial probiotics, some other things you can do. But the SIBO yogurt with those three microbial species get the process started. So see my recipes If this interests you.
Speaker 1:We're having spectacular success. We will do a formal clinical trial. I'm debating with myself exactly how to best do this, because we probably don't want to use yogurt in a clinical trial. We'll probably have to encapsulate it. But nonetheless, know that we've seen no adverse effects, except for the initial die-off. That is when you kill those fecal species in your small intestine and they release their toxic compounds like endotoxin. You can experience, at least at first, the first few days. At most you can experience such things as panic, emotional effects, nightmares, disruption of sleep, gastrointestinal effects, bloating. Know that that's a sign that you're killing off fecal microbes.
Speaker 1:Some people have it so bad they have to cut back and maybe consume more than a tablespoon of the SIBO yogurt and build up over time. Some people with really bad SIBO will have a histamine reaction because the rhodori produces histamine. Now people think histamine is being bad. No, histamine is normal. It's a normal, necessary signaling molecule. The reason why people have histamine reactions, that's worsened by the rhodori, is because they lack species. They've lost species that were meant to metabolize the histamine for you.
Speaker 1:So that's a situation where we don't use the SIBO yogurt and what we've been doing is using the herbal antibiotic regimens that have some evidence for efficacy proven the candabactin AR, candabactin BR regimen or the FC-CYDL with this biocide. If you want to see sources for that and how to use it, see my Super Gut book. But the vast majority of people will respond very well to the SIBO yogurt and get all the wonderful benefits of lactobacillus rhodori, especially skin benefits, muscular benefits, immune system benefits, emotional benefits and the gastro also metabolic benefits. So these, even though we're using it for eradication of SIBO, I like to have people consume the yogurt periodically, maybe two, three times a week, forever, at least until we figure out how to make them take up permanent residence, which we don't have figured out yet. If this kind of conversation interests you, see, of course, my YouTube videos, see my Defiant Health podcast, see my Super Gut book, see my WilliamDavisNBcom blog with thousands of posts, and if you need some hand-holding or guidance, I invite you to join my membership website, which is innercircledrdavisinfinitehealthcom.
