Gut Flora bacteria – friends or foe? The tale of the Cinderella organ and the return of the Jedi E-Coli…

What belongs to you yet does not carry your DNA? The answer of course is your bowel flora – those little creatures who have decided to take up residence under human protection. Almost as soon as we discovered them flitting around under the microscope lens they have been maligned as lethal enemies.

Even today bacteria are considered to be our worst foe lurking on the kitchen sink, in our toilets, on our chopping boards, in our food. Nowhere is safe from these little devils.

Artisan bakers are closed down because a bacteria free environment makes fermentation impossible.  Raw milk is banned because we are told it carries bacteria and has been blamed for TB in the past. Our evening TV advertising is full of commercials promoting anti-bacterial wipes and cleaning agents to keep our homes germ free. Even today most GPs turn to antibiotics as the first line of treatment in respiratory infections.

I am not making light of the power of bacteria to act as the agents of disease. Humanity has evolved though great plagues and many, many infectious diseases which have killed millions and millions of our ancestors. Still today we are affected by outbreaks of certain strains of bacteria that can prove fatal.

The most recent catastrophe in Europe,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13652817 has been blamed on raw food infected by a mutant strain of E-Coli. It seems that our governments’ attempts at providing a sterile, bacteria-free food chain can’t keep the critters out…

If these organisms are so “bad”, why is it then that we live in a happy and healthy synergy with so many bacteria in our gut (E-Coli strains included)? Why is it that the composition of gut flora has been linked to a wide range of conditions – including but not limited to cardiovascular disease, neurological conditions, all kinds of inflammatory and immunity related problems, obesity, and so on and so on…? Why is it that taking probiotics proves so useful, for such a wide range of conditions that it’s almost impossible to rule out any condition that they might help?

Are they our enemies or our friends? What is the difference between healthy and unhealthy bacteria? Is it the individual strains? Can we assemble a list like the FBA does of the world’s most wanted criminals only this list would identify the most deadly bacteria and then seek them out wherever they hide on a search and destroy mission? We could call it the war against pathogenic bacteria. We already have the war against cancer. Why not start another one to kill the mutant strains? Get them before they get us.

Well, as I’m sure you’ve guessed I have my own opinion about this. I am not convinced that all or even some bacteria are necessarily bad. I don’t think that they have declared war on us and I don’t think we need to declare war on them. In fact we need to recognise the vital role they play in our health and foster good relations with them and make our guts like the Hotel California – a place to check in but never check out.

I don’t believe that the gut flora is a random, amorphous mass of micro-organisms fighting each other in some desperate, free-for-all, Darwinian struggle to find out who is going to survive. I’m sure competitive expansion takes place but it does so in the wider context of an entity which has a whole, which is holistic, which acts like a single organism, which has intelligence and which functions as an organ.

A quick recap of some of the organ functions it performs:

-          Breakdown of food into nutrients and synthesis of vitamins

-          Maintenance of a functional intestinal membrane which blocks improperly digested or unwanted particles yet efficiently absorbs nutrients

-          The eyes and ears of the immune system – informing us as to the friends and foe in immediate environment of micro-organisms

-          Transfer of DNA material to refine and inform our genetic information pool

-          Communication with the endocrine system so that it can better adjust to its immediate environment

Here is the irony: the gut flora acts in so many ways as our eyes and ears to worlds which are invisible to our senses and yet it is the organ nobody sees, nobody cares for, nobody recognizes. It is the Cinderella organ of our body, toiling away in the background while its “ugly sisters” who have the privilege of carrying our DNA get all the attention and care. This is the core of what I want to say today.

Clearly Hippocrates was right when he intuited that “all disease begins in the gut” (I’m always nervous when I quote such well worn truisms – did he really say that?). The gut is for many patients the weakest link. The reason is our neglect of the gut flora, our refusal to feed it and nurture it and the fact that it does not have the protection of our own DNA.

Perhaps the single most dangerous consequence of poor bowel flora is the tendency to chronic inflammation everywhere – in the mouth, in the skin, in the joints, in the brain, in the heart and arteries etc, etc…  Or is it the fact that our bodies become so blind to our microscopic environment that we have lost our ability to rapidly recognize and respond to bacteria which can do us harm?

I’m not saying that strong bowel flora is a guarantee against infectious disease. Isn’t it interesting that I find the need to defend myself in this way? We live in a world that looks for guarantees. We want a guaranteed disease free life: vaccines to ensure no infectious disease ; sterile food to ensure no nasty bacteria and antibiotics to kill them quickly if they raise their ugly heads.

Once gut flora has been lost or damaged or if it’s never been properly established – getting it back or establishing a healthy gut flora after the fact is a not quick fix. It takes the patience, dedication and persistence of a gardener to keep doing the right things even though the harvest has not yet arrived.

We can list the causative circumstances of its degeneration from one generation to the next:

-          toxic and malnourished mothers who already have compromised flora

-          caesarian birth delivery

-          bottle feeding

-          diets lacking even minimum nutrition, full of additives, sugar, and excess simple & starchy carbs

-          antibiotics and vaccinations

-          toxins, toxins, and more toxins

And so one generation after the next suffers a decline in health. A major factor in this decline is the precipitous decline in bowel flora integrity. One quote I am confident of is from Dr. Yurkovsky who observed to me years ago the world is facing a health crisis as each subsequent generation coming forth is getting weaker constitutionally.

So to finish off, my thesis is as follows:

1)      the bowel flora should be considered as an organ and given the recognition and importance it deserves

2)      if it’s poorly established or damaged, the bowel flora (whatever there is of it) will seek to reach a new dynamic equilibrium as any ecosystem does and this suboptimal, weakened homeostasis will become the new “norm” but one which fosters disease and vulnerability to external threats

3)      a weakened bowel flora  system literally “knows no better” and needs “re-education” and coaxing back into a properly functional state through proper diet, detox, reseeding, and lifestyle changes over a sustained period of time

So how best to protect ourselves from the “deadly” E-Coli?

Should we eschew all raw food? Cook the hell out of it just in case? Should we hunt down the criminals who grew the food and put them in jail? The recent epidemic started in Germany and they blamed the Spanish. We could ban all food exports from both countries…

Well, my strategy will be to build a strong bowel flora. I’ll welcome those little devils into my innermost digestive parts. I’m going for lacto-fermented foods and friendly probiotics and good basic whole foods.

I don’t mind whether they carry the “bad” label or the “good” label – they can grow and make families and then go forth and colonize my skin, my mouth and all my mucous membranes. I’ll place my trust in creating a Hotel California for them to protect me.

I rather suspect that the protection offered by our government – antibiotics, radiation, pasteurization, and a bacteria-free food chain – will sooner or later once again lead to the return of the dreaded E-coli. Just like in Star Wars they’ll come from the dark side – only next time the worm will have turned and he’ll be packing more serious, mutant ammunition.