Is there really "No Such Thing As 'Just A Little Sugar'"

This is a response to the Dr. Oz Article: The Consequence of Sweetness

I would like to offer Dr. OZ the suggestion that bacteria play an important role in sugar metabolism, insulin regulation, and protection of the intestinal walls from the pathogens and yeasts that thrive when sugar is present.

1. Bacteria metabolize many of our proteins down to individual amino acids, of which glutamine... plays a vital role in intestinal integrity and in helping our body rid itself of pathogenic bacteria and yeasts. Scientific data suggests that glutamine reduces sugar cravings and can help treat the chemical cycles of alcoholism (an article on sugar and alcoholism was on Huffington Post just this week).

2. Bacteria ferment sugars and fibers and create a range of short chain fatty acids (the very very good for you fats that tend to be in gas form). Propionic acid, latic acid, butyric acid, etc. These types of fatty acids regulate insulin receptors throughout the body.

I would go on, but I wold like to suggest that the problem has less to do with actual sugar levels and more to do with a diet that has left our bodies devoid of the beneficial bacteria that help keep or system in balance. We have too many foods that are "dead" due to pasteurization and too many foods with preservatives in them which are meant to eliminate bacteria from our food supply but also take a toll on the 1000's of species of bacteria in our bodies in a similar manner to an antibiotic.

Prebiotics + Probiotics = Synbiotics

Prebiotics + Probiotics = Synbiotics
A simple equation for acheiving a happy, healthy gut.

Prebiotics = Food for probiotics
So what do probiotics – “good bacteria” – eat? Prebiotics is the simple answer that’s being used on product packaging and in the news. But what are prebiotics?

Prebiotics are chains of sugars (or carbohydrates) that we humans are incapable of digesting. These carbohydrate chains, often referred to as “fibers”, come from plant sources, including certain types of fruits and vegetables. Prebiotics include: carbohydrates, such as mucins, that are excreted in the guts of humans and other animals; chondroitins, which makes up animal connective tissues; and, chitin, which provides a shell for bugs, crabs or lobsters. Basically, anything that is a long string of sugars (or polysaccharides if you’re playing Scrabble) is a prebiotic.

So why do we need prebiotics? We need them because probiotics need them to do their job. Prebiotics perform a necessary preliminary function that helps probiotic gut bugs break the linkages between the sugars in prebiotics and turns the long indigestible chains into simple sugars that our bodies can use;

Probiotics and prebiotics work together to keep our guts health.  It’s sort of a symbiotic relationship: each one benefits from the other and neither is as effective alone. It makes sense, then, why scientists call products that contain both pro- and pre- biotics “synbiotics” – a happy marriage between good gut bugs and polysaccharides.

Not all fibers are created equal: the more complex the better
While many people have heard of prebiotics, few really understand how they work. It’s important to be aware of the differences between prebiotic fibers and to look for ones that are complex. Some fibers are derived from common sugars (like glucose, sucrose or fructose) and contain simple linkages between sugars. These are often referred to as cellulose (or starch), inulin, and fructooligosaccharides or FOS, and are all common ingredients in today’s health products. Other fibers, made up of unconventional sugars (like glucosamine, arabinose, mannose, or fucose) and joined by uncommon links to form long polysaccharide chains, are more complex.

This second group of fibers is more complex than the first, and from a gut health standpoint – the more complex the better! Complex fibers make your gut bugs happy because they require more varieties of bugs to do the work in breaking down the fiber. In other words, a greater number of gut bug species are able to feed off of complex fibers, which thus allows a greater number of beneficial bacteria to live and colonize in the gut.

-Dave

My Passion for Probiotics

A lot of people ask why I'm so impassioned about probiotics. Two reasons.

First: I wanted to help many of my friends understand their illnesses better. The interesting thing was that I learned while reading the biomedical research was that many of those illnesses had the same underlying digestive mechanism: an imbalance in the gut microflora (bacteria).

Second: I've been obsessed with the fact that ulcers are not caused by spicy food, but are in fact caused by a species of bad bacteria called helicobacter pylori (the 2005 Nobel Prize was awarded for that fact). My obsession stems more from the understanding of what solutions people use to deal with the problem, in that the antacid industry does a great job of alleviating acid related pain but does not cure the underlying “bad bacteria” problem

So how do I help my friends? I try to fix the underlying problem.

And the easiest path to improving health is to supplement with “good” bacteria.

I hope to find the time to blog on a regular basis about gut health, the mechanisms of beneficial bacteria in the digestive system, and how our product and future products will be designed to help these issues.