Researchers Discover That Prebiotics Will Not Help Crohn's

[tex]

Hi All,

I'm guessing that no one here was surprised to read that subject line, since we've known that for a long time. I suppose this makes it official, though, which is probably worth something.

Prebiotics, of course, are special forms of fiber, (known as oligosaccharides), which are thought to provide food for intestinal bacteria. The conventional thinking is that they should enhance the "good" bacteria populations, by providing a ready source of nutrition for them, so that they can easily gain, (or maintain), the upper hand over the "bad" bacteria. Unfortunately, it almost never works out that way. The reason seems rather intuitive, to me, but maybe I'm just not as smart as the "experts" who recommend prebiotics as a way to improve one's health. As I see it, for anyone who is healthy, prebiotics are completely unnecessary, since the intestinal bacteria are already in good balance. For someone who is sick, though, it's a different situation. Most people with digestive system system issues will automatically have an undesirable gut bacteria balance, simply because their digestive system is unable to properly digest much of the food that passes through it, and therefore their system will not be able to provide the proper nutrition that the bacteria have been accustomed to, resulting in a shift to an altered bacteria population balance, and the shift is always, (by definition), toward an undesirable balance, with fewer "good" bacteria, and more "bad" bacteria, (the bad bacteria are always there, in limited numbers, just waiting for an opportunity to take over).

As anyone who has ever farmed, (or raised a garden), knows, you can't just throw fertilizer on your crop/garden, and expect it to prosper, because weeds are always more aggressive than the crops/vegetables, or whatever, you are trying to grow. Unless you take out the weeds first, they will always hog the fertilizer, and outperform the crop/vegetables. So it should certainly be no surprise that providing special "food" for bacteria in the gut, will be counterproductive, if the population balance is already tilted the wrong way, (which it will always be, for someone who has enteritis).

Some "experts" always seem to have a problem seeing the obvious, though, so it's a good thing that they have researchers available to prove the obvious.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/DDW/19984

This, of course, would apply for MC, as well as it would for Crohn's disease.

Tex

[Matthew]

Wayne

Interesting that research has finally caught up with what I discovered years ago and posted about here.

At the time my post that probiotics that contained prebiotics like FOS and Inulin caused me horrible problems garnered a whole lot of skepticism. I had stated then that prebiotics were not selective and promoted both good and bad bacteria and could make symptoms far worse when one had digestive problems or bacterial imbalace .

Well, I will never take them again. Seeing the obvious sometimes is a simpe as taking the blindfold off.

Just nice to see that research has caught up with reality.

Matthew

[Gabes-Apg]

matthew
how many years is research lagging behind reality?

[Matthew]

Gabes

Compared to WHAT!!!! :-) :-)

[Joefnh]

I find that hard to believe

--Joe