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Vegas, do you know if this information that you gave for lowering ammonia pertains to uric acid problems, too?
Foods containing sulfur and foods with appreciable purines cause me problems that I don't seem to be able to get over. I also like the idea that if you correct the problems in your gut, your body will produce b vitamins, folate, and others. That's the way it's supposed be.
Do you culture your own milk? If so, where do you buy your bifidobacterium strains? Do you use raw milk? Do you have an opinion about how much one should eat a day?
Thanks, I apprecated your information.
As you probably know, people with ME/CFS are known to have hyporuricemia. In this regard, I don't consider the low uric acid the problem, rather this is a consequence of the impaired metabolism of nitrogen, which I think is a consequence of dysbiosis. (Obviously limited cofactors like zinc, Mo, and low ATP don't help this).
It has taken me years to understand some of the food "sensitivities" and understand how to correct them. In fact this really came about by accident when I started "rebalancing" my intestinal microbiome and as a result became extremely sensitive to many foods. In other words large amounts of probiotic rich foods resulted in a very uncomfortable reaction to nitrogen-rich foods. The purine alkaloids were probably at the top of the list. I'm guessing this is what you are describing. It became clear that the displacement of normally pathogenic organisms left me without the full-complement of species required to handle nitrogen byproducts. That is, pathogenic organisms were filling a void and species like psuedomonas were reducing the toxic nitrogen metabolites to less harmful byproducts.
At first I was looking for a microbial solution to rebalance the nitrogen "problem," but the solution ended up being much more comprehensive. The solution I came up with was that those organisms that were most beneficial were truly anearobic species, and it was my conclusion that the lack of commensal anaerobes was what was keeping me (and probably others) from healing the gut, lessening the immune response, translocating bacteria, etc.
Bifidobacteria and their unique hexose metabolism and certain species of LAB that rely upon obligative heterofermentation appear to be the winners. The similarities in what would happen if one developed a scarcity of these organisms is really striking when compared to the observations in ME/CFS. In fact I have come to find many more similarities in other seemingly unrelated diseases. Disruptions in the purine/pyrimidine metabolism have just in the last year been identified in a number of GI diseases, and riboflavin perturbations are also common as are SCFA imbalances. These are signatures of bifidobacteria. I've also learned that the importance and numbers of Bifidobacteria have been greatly underestimated, and traditional tests not combined with pcr analysis are not likely useful.
Through careful testing, I learned that single strain bifidobacteria yields much more potent results, especially when compared to LAB mixed with bifido strains. A commercial starter culture will be dominated by LAB, and many of these homofermentative strains are not desirable. They are energetically inefficient.
I would suggest starting out with one of the bifido strains from Natren and culturing in milk for 24 hours. Both B. Infantis and B. Bifidum have histamine-degrading ability. They also don't create unwanted metabolites, like biogenic amines. LAB strains are similarly important and these predominantly colonize the small intestine, but I think altering the pH in the large intestine and the inherent ability to metabolize nitrogen, and bolstering SCFA production is the priority in healing the intestinal tract. This has so many implications including glutamine availability, creating a bacteriocidic effect, lowering pro-inflammatory response, etc. It is a bottom-up approach, and as I have found if you displace too many pathogenic organisms in the proximal colon, you can create collateral problems.
Use raw milk if you have it, but otherwise just sterilize it at 170 degrees before you culture it. I anaerobically ferment this with C02 off-gassing, but I am not convinced that this is necessary. The key is getting the right strains and not combining them. Different strains have different effects, and different culturing methods greatly influence the properties of each strain. For example many strains of bacteria will provide tremendous ability to degrade formaldehyde if they are anaerobically cultured, but culturing in oxygen will completely inhibit the capacity of this trait. It has become clear to me that the formaldehyde concentrations that people with ME/CFS demonstrate are a product of their own intestinal microbiomes. The by-products of the histamine degradation are aldehyde, ammonia and hydrogen.Tetrahydrofolate is critical to the metabolism of aldehydes. It acts as a donor of a group with one carbon atom.
As I see it, the lack of the right bifidus strains has adverse consequences on the conversion to reduced forms of folates, it potentially reduces the availability of biotin and riboflavin, hinders the recycling of ADP, reduces NADP availability, results in the accumulation of gram-negative bacteria, increases the pH of the large intestine, diminishes the metabolism of histamine, aldehydes, and ammonia, reduce the availability of energy available (about 15%) due to SCFA's.
Making cultured bifidus strains is easy, just take it slow because its effects as an immune stimulant will build over time. If you have intestinal permeability, the lower lymphatic vessels will become noticeably engaged (sore, painful, cytokines). (LAB strains that populate the upper GI tract will more prominently effect the messenteric lymph nodes-e paraspinal and brach off to the axillary. These strains are highly adherent, in fact you will struggle to clean this fermented milk from a glass jar. Milk is the preferred substrate, and the substrate does influence the adhesion efficiency. This is not an overnight fix, but it works. It seems to be particularly effective at re-balancing fluid levels, which I think is simply a consequence of lowered ammonia. In other words, you don't need as much fluid to dilute the caustic substances, so once one starts getting bifidus strains on board, they may notice having to urinate a lot for a little while.
I have made yogurt, which is essentially what Vegas is talking about, and it's very simple. I used a packaged yogurt starter by Yogurmet. It doesn't have the same strains in is that Vegas is talking about. But if you can find those strains, and there are online stores that sell custom made yogurt starters, all you would need to do is find a site with yogurt making directions. You don't need to buy a yogurt maker, just prepare the milk with yogurt starter, put it in jars, and then keep the jars warm for 24 hours. I have already done it three different ways: putting warm water in a cooler and placing the jars in there (it's a lot of work in the winter because you have to keep replacing the water), putting the jars in the oven of a gas stove and putting trays of hot water underneath them, and putting the jars in a large crock pot that had a temperature control that could be set very low. A yogurt maker of course is the easiest way.
I haven't started back into the process yet, so I'm taking a probiotic