I’ve recently discussed how the majority of food intolerances, whether to FODMAPs, histamine, nightshades, fructose, etc., are really manifestations of dysbiosis and SIBO. Here is another way to view these phenomena: Food intolerances are your body’s signal to you that serious deterioration in your health is coming.
In other words, if all you do is choose to reduce or eliminate the offending food, you are still left with the massive disruption of your intestinal microbiome that caused the food intolerance in the first place, along with increased intestinal permeability and endotoxemia. So say you eliminate fermented foods because they contain histamine, or apples and pears because they contain FODMAPs, or tomatoes because they are nightshades, but still have, for instance, overproliferation of E. coli, Klebsiella, Staphylococcus, and Enterococcus species in your colon, ileum, jejunum, duodenum, and stomach—30-feet of trillions of unhealthy species of microbes that live and die in rapid succession (since they survive for only hours to days), eroding the protective mucus barrier, inflaming the intestinal wall, some bacteria penetrating into the intestinal wall to worsen inflammation, some bacterial debris entering the bloodstream (endotoxemia).
What is likely ahead in your health future when you leave SIBO (and related conditions such as H2S-producing SIBO) uncorrected?
The list of health conditions that emerges when you fail to take action to correct this situation reads like a laundry list of common modern health issues that includes:
- Food intolerances and food allergies
- Depression, anxiety
- Ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease
- Irritable bowel syndrome
- Fibromyalgia
- Metabolic deterioration—increased insulin resistance, fatty liver, increased blood sugar and blood pressure, increased triglycerides; pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes
- Diverticular disease and diverticulitis
- Colon cancer, other gastrointestinal cancers such as biliary and pancreatic
- Autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis or rheumatoid arthritis
- Neurodegenerative disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s dementia
If you therefore have any form of food intolerance or any of the other telltale signs of SIBO, it is time to take action. You will find more discussions on what actions to take here in the Wheat Belly Blog, in my membership website Undoctored Inner Circle, as well as in my new book Super Gut: A Four-Week Plan to Reprogram Your Microbiome, Restore Health, and Lose Weight to be released February 1, 2022 and available now for pre-order. In Super Gut, I show readers how to recognize SIBO in all its forms, whether it is advisable to confirm or whether just proceeding based on your best judgement will do, which herbal antibiotic products have been shown to be efficacious, how to strengthen the intestinal mucus barrier for added relief, even how, in our preliminary experience, we are now using a collection of specific microbial species in what I call “SIBO Yogurt” that, so far, has been eradicating SIBO in the majority.
Bottom line: If you have a food intolerance, take it very seriously, even if you feel better by eliminating the offending food. You have been given a powerful warning of what lies ahead in your future, so take advantage of it.
I recently found your podcasts and followed you here where you said the yogurt recipe could be found. I signed up for a free membership to start, but am very frustrated that even after confirming my membership (through the link in my email) every time I return to the website and blog and search for “yogurt recipe”, an article appears, but only briefly. It quickly closes and returns me to the home page, filled with ways to subscribe to various options for paid memberships. I was likely to do this anyway, given how favorable I felt about the podcasts I’ve watched, but it’s been a real “turn-off” to have the article I’m trying to read get shut down before I can finish it.
I thought this was going to be an improvement to the Dr. Gundry style podcasts, which are filled with too much self-promotion for my taste. Why can’t I just view the article I searched on without it shutting down before I can read it, only to be taken back the membership options, over and over again?
Susan Sansby wrote: «I recently found your podcasts and followed you here where you said the yogurt recipe could be found.»
If that’s the L.reuteri yogurt, here it is on the Undoctored Blog: How to make L. Reuteri yogurt: A step-by-step guide
re: «… signed up for a free membership to start … every time I … search … an article appears, but only briefly. It quickly closes and returns me to the home page, filled with ways to subscribe…»
I’m just a content contributor here, but based on my casual testing, non-subscribers get 5 page visits per month. Paid members get unlimited access, but I don’t actually know how the free membership model is supposed to work.
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