SCD Survey and Free SCD Video Library

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet Association is doing a survey that is open to SCD followers, caregivers and their supporters. It's a 5 minute survey but very important. Everyone will learn from the results, including the medical community. There is no identifying information. No Cookies. https://specificcarbohydratedietassociation.org/scd-survey

There are also free videos from the 2018 & 2019 SCDROCKS Conventions: https://specificcarbohydratedietassociation.org/

When You Swallow A Grenade (Link to Great Article)

Here is a link to a great article titled "When You Swallow a Grenade" by Carl Zimmer and published on the National Geographic web page. It gives a brief history of anitbiotics and their role in changing gut flora.

Food and Bugs - Two Different TED Talks

There are two different TED talks here that I found very interesting. Both talks are fascinating and easy to understand. TED talks have a short format, under 18 minutes I believe.

The first one is from Stephan Guyenet on "The American Diet: a Historical Perspective". He discusses the different composition of diet today versus about a hundred years ago. There has been enough of a change to raise a few eyebrows. Stephan also has a blog Whole Health Source.


The second TED talk is from Bonnie Bassler on "How Bacteria Talk" (just scroll down to the little TED screen). Ms. Bessler is a microbial geneticist at Princeton University.  In the late 1990's she was studying the glowing bacteria in angler fish (if you've seen Finding Nemo, this is the monster fish with the "pretty light"). She tried to figure out how they all knew to glow at the same time. Up till then, for the most part, bacteria were not considered intelligent enough to communicate with each other. She discovered that not only do they communicate, they are multi-lingual. The have an intra-species language and a sort of universal language that most bacteria seem to understand.

2012 and Interesting Article on Gut Flora and Rheumatoid Arthritis

One of my favorite 2011 photos, my son and my mom

I did not mean to take an unintentional blog hiatus. I was accidentally glutened at Thanksgiving. It was only slight, somehow I ingested a crumb. I only hurt for a couple of days but was a little off and brain foggy. I think it would have passed quickly but it was the holidays.... If I had stayed away from sweets I would have been fine. It was not the time for "just a little won't hurt thinking". Our dry windy winter weather had me in and out of a couple of sinus infections that had me dragging. Then I had a nasty bout with food poisoning. When the day of body aches went away I woke up feeling so clear headed, something I had not felt in a couple of months. The next day I got up and felt draggy again, dreading that the sinus infection had returned and feeling a bit defeated. When I stepped outside the sky was an orange grey hazy color. So I was happy to know it wasn't just me, I was responding like everyone else to the lovely dust bowl that blew in... I'm ready for Spring. Usually I do a post at the beginning of each year looking behind and looking ahead. This one is a little late, but better late than never.

I am hoping to do a few interview posts this year. There are more and more grain-free cookbook authors and SCD stories coming out, it's nice to get to know the people behind them. My husband and I own a small business, which is slow and struggling at the moment. I thought I could take advantage of the slow time and I am attempting to put my own research down into a book. It's so daunting, we'll see how far I get. If I don't get a book done, at least I'll have some great stuff to post here, so either way it's a win-win. Since I will be spending more time researching, I hope to come across more articles to pass on to you. On today's hunt, when I googled "THE GUT AND RHEUMATIC DISEASES" a whole mess of interesting stuff came up including this one, The Microbiome and rheumatoid arthritis. I haven't had time to muddle through all of it, but I was glad to see they making more connections with RA and gut flora. There is a connection with maternal RA and autism and now both are starting to show abnormal gut flora. Maybe this will move us more in the right direction than just blaming genes.

To ring in the New Year (a bit late I know) here's a photo of a bulletin board project I did in 2011:

If You Give a Lab Mouse a Cookie

Here's my grown up geeky version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Joffe Numeroff. I have bookmarked a few pieces of interesting research that involve mice. Some of these articles involve inducing a condition to test new drugs. For example, say you need to test a drug for epilepsy or colitis, instead of trying to locate thirty mice with the condition, you induce it. As someone who never paid attention in biology class, this was news to me...and what was used to induce was sometimes more interesting than what they induced for. Please note I'm not trying to make fun of the poor plight of lab mice, who give their lives for our benefit.

If You Give a Lab Mouse a Cookie

If you give a lab mouse a cookie and them give him a glass of water with chlorinated by-products to wash it down with, he develops autistic symptoms: Chlorination byproducts induce gender specific autistic-like behaviors in CD-1 mice, post on Questioning Answers,
And cancer: Assessment of the carcinogenic potential of chlorinated water: experimental studies of chlorine, chloramine, and trihalomethanes

If you give a lab mouse a cookie with MSG and partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening he develops fatty liver disease: Effect of dietary monosodium glutamate on trans fat-induced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, and becomes forgetful: Dietary trans-fat combined with monosodium glutamate induces dyslipidemia and impairs spatial memory

If you give a lab mouse a cookie with MSG he develops a smorgasbord of creepy health issues: Atorvastatin improves insulin sensitivity in mice with obesity induced by monosodium glutamate,
Long term effect of monosodium glutamate in liver of albino mice after neo-natal exposure,
Effects of bezafibrate in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis model mice with monosodium glutamate-induced metabolic syndrome, Chronic Administration of Monosodium Glutamate under Chronic Variable Stress Impaired Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis Function in Rats,

If you give a lab mouse a cookie with MSG or Aspartame he becomes forgetful again: Glutamate and aspartate impair memory retention and damage hypothalamic neurons in adult mice

If you give a lab mouse a low-protein cookie and candida yeast, he develops colon permeability and evasive candida: Preventive strategy for Candida gut translocation during ischemia-reperfusion injury supervening on protein-calorie malnutrition.

If you give a Syrian hamster (not a mouse, but everyone is welcome here) a cookie with antibiotics and candida yeast, his protective gut flora is wiped out and candida is found in his organs: Ecology of Candida albicans gut colonization: inhibition of Candida adhesion, colonization, and dissemination from the gastrointestinal tract by bacterial antagonism.

If you give a pregnant lab mouse a cookie with antibiotics her offspring have affected immune systems: See post at Gutness Gracious Me

If you give a lab rabbit a cookie with LPS he develops colitis. (actually he's injected with it, not eating it)  Lipopolysaccharide-induced colitis in rabbits. What is LPS? It is short for lipopolysaccharide, which is a toxin put off by gram-negative bacteria in your gut. Too much is a bad thing, which can also give the rabbit, an yourself, a host of bad issues: depression, anti-social behavior, liver problems, kidney problems, gi problems, etc. There is a wonderful website covering this called Microbial Influence.

If you give a lab mouse a cookie with high fructose corn syrup and trans-fat, the same amount to correlate with an American fast food diet, he develops metabolic syndrome: Severe NAFLD with hepatic necroinflammatory changes in mice fed trans fats and a high-fructose corn syrup equivalent

If you give a lab mouse a cookie with azo dyes (such as red 40), he develops DNA damage in his colon: DNA Damage Induced by Red Food Dyes Orally Administered to Pregnant and Male Mice

What's in your cookie?

This post is linked to Sunday School, Monday Mania, Fightback Friday, and Real Food 101.

Autism, Carbs and Dysbiosis... Is Science Catching Up?

I must apologize. It's been a month with no recipe postings, and I'm still empty handed. I have several things I have been working on but they are just not there yet. However, I do have something very fascinating to post about. I like to follow Dr Paul Whiteley's blog, Questioning Answers. He is an autism researcher from the UK and posts frequently about diet and gi issues in autistics. Since Gordon is a gi ASD kid I like to keep up with the latest research. This weekend he posted on something huge in this area. It is a study by some top researchers in this field and it is finding the genes to metabolize carbs in some gi autistics are not working. They are also finding the wrong bacteria. They are speculating that these unused carbs are feeding this wrong bacteria. The article is very sciencey, a bit hard to follow, but you can still get the gist. It is titled "Impaired Carbohydrate Digestion and Transport and Mucosal Dysbiosis in the Intestines of Children with Autism and Gastrointestinal Disturbances". Link HERE. Dr. Whiteley gives his easier to understand take on it here and here.

The bottom line of the study is "These results indicate a relationship between human intestinal gene expression and bacterial community structure and may provide insights into the pathophysiology of gastrointestinal disturbances in children with autism."

For anyone who has read Elaine Gottschall's "Breaking the Vicious Cycle" the article will be deja vu, just harder to read. What amazes me is that Dr. Sydney Haas was onto this over 80 years ago. In his book Management of Celiac Disease, in 1951, he speculates that Celiac Disease is caused by a bacterial source that eats certain carbohydrates, remove those types of carbohydrates and you starve out the bacteria. This work was before the discovery of gluten and the current biopsy used to diagnose Celiac Disease. So it is really hard to know how many people back then were true Celiac's and who may have had Crohn's and other bowel issues. (Although it would be interesting to see a modern study on the SCD and Celiac's). What's more, Dr. Haas seems to discuss autistic behavior in this book. He isn't the only one to notice this odd behavior in gi patients either. He cites several other doctors who comment on it as well. "Czerny and Keller (1923-1928) were struck by the lack of attention to the psychological aspect of celiac disease on the part of many authors". Elaine puts excerpts from the book here.

I almost forgot to mention. Dr. Timothy Buie is one of the authors of this study. He is known for heading up the 2010 study in American Academy of Pediatrics "Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders in Individuals With ASDs: A Consensus Report". He also has an interesting interview with the Autism Advocate called "Gastrointestinal Illness in Autism" . You can view a very interesting speech he gave at the Maine CDC Here.

It will be interesting to see how the media portrays the study, if they pick up on it at all.

This post is linked to Fightback Friday.

Pecanbread...It's Not Just for Kids Anymore

Many of you know that Pecanbread is the SCD website for parents with children on the SCD. We started the SCD for my son in 2008, who has had GI issues since one week of age and regressive autism. Pecanbread has been a godsend for me, especially for kid friendly recipes and trouble shooting ideas. The website is designed for kid issues, however, there is so much valuable information that it is just as useful for grown ups too. If you are following the SCD and have never thought to poke around on it, you may be surprised. They also add new info from time to time. Here's a just a few of their interesting pages:

SCD and Detoxification
Stages (may be helpful for some)
Recipes in stages
Sample Menus
Food Preparation
Common Mistakes
Overcoming Difficulties
Improving Results
Yeast and SCD yeast protocol
Constipation
How to enhance the SCD (although I don't believe between GAPS and SCD one is better in general than the other, it all depends on the individual chemistry, for us starting SCD was the better option)
Probiotics

Dr. Ayers on Jimmy Moore's Low Carb Show

Jimmy Moore did an interview with one of my favorite non-foodie bloggers, Dr. Art Ayers' of Cooling Inflammation. His Anti-Inflammatory Diet recommendations are very similar to the SCD. When we first started the SCD diet I thought of it as temporary, until we were healed. After more research I now think it has it's advantages even in the absence of GI issues. Dr. Ayers blog has been full of information on the role of dietary inflammation on gut flora. In his interview with Jimmy Moore here, he discusses the role of starches and antibiotics on gut flora in allergies, autoimmunity, and constipation, and much more. The interview is 39 minutes into the podcast.

Gut Flora, Nutrition, and Immunity

He's a fascinating article on the importance of gut flora: Human nutrition, the gut microbiome and the immune system. I saw a link to this gem on Paul Whiteley's blog Feed Me Research. It's been said they you can't fully discuss nutrition without the role of the gut flora. This article discusses some of the nuts and bolts of this, and for the most part it is easy to follow for us laypersons. The article makes several points worth mentioning:

"During the past 30 or so years, the North American diet has also shifted in terms of the relative contributions of different foods to total energy intake. Since 1970, two dietary 'epochs' can be distinguished based on the contribution of grains to overall calories (the mean increase in daily carbohydrate intake for men and women during this period was 62.4 g and 67.7 g, respectively). The consumption of other food items has also changed: Spearman's rank correlations between food availability and time, followed by adjustments of P values to reflect false discovery rates, show that the representation of 177 out of 214 items tracked by the USDA has increased or decreased significantly in US diets since 1970. For example, Americans now eat less beef and more chicken, and corn-derived sweeteners have increased at the expense of cane and beet sugars. Furthermore, methods of food modification and preparation have changed."

I find this interesting because chronic autoimmune and digestive diseases are on the rise. As a SCD'er I can't help but wonder if the drastic uptake of grains and sugar are a factor. A fun look at this change can be seen by Tom Naughton here and here.

"The intestinal microbiota can synthesize several vitamins involved in myriad aspects of microbial and host metabolism, including cobalamin (vitamin B12), pyridoxal phosphate (the active form of vitamin B6), which is involved in several enzymatic interconversions in amino-acid metabolism, pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), niacin (vitamin B3), biotin, tetrahydrofolate and vitamin K. In addition to vitamin B12, gut microbes produce a range of related molecules (corrinoids) with altered 'lower ligands', including analogues such as methyladenine and p-cresol. More than 80% of non-absorbed dietary vitamin B12 is converted to these alternative corrinoids. There is preliminary evidence to suggest that syntrophic relationships among members of the human microbiota, and the fitness of some taxa, may be based on the ability to generate, use or further transform various corrinoids."

I found this one interesting because those of us with gi issues also tend to be lacking in these vitamins. Vitamin B6 has also been found to help in autism, again pointing to a possible gut issue. As well as anemia in both populations:

"Likewise, iron is an essential micronutrient for bacteria. Given the low solubility of Fe3+, microbes have evolved the capacity to produce several high-affinity iron-binding siderophores. Microbes take up soluble Fe3+–siderophore complexes by several active transporters. Early studies in gnotobiotic animals showed a link between the gut microbiota and the development of iron deficiency. Germ-free but not conventionally raised rats become anaemic when fed a low-iron diet. The germ-free rats also show increased loss of iron in their faeces compared with their conventionally raised counterparts54. The iron balance that exists between host and microbiota is disturbed in a mouse model of Crohn's disease in which tumour-necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) expression is dysregulated: oral (but not parenteral) iron supplementation in these animals causes a shift in the gut microbial community composition, as defined by 16S ribosomal-RNA-based surveys, and exacerbates their ileitis."

This article also discusses the role of gut flora in obesity and diabetes. I was curious about which type of fat they used in this study reference: "Mice fed a high-fat diet have increased serum levels of lipopolysaccharide".
It turns out the researchers used corn and lard for the 72 percent fat diet for the mice. (I suspect a lot of corn and corn oil in the modern diet may not be a good thing).

Honey and Intestinal Flora

Honey is legal on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet for digestive reasons. It is a monosaccaride which requires almost no work for a damaged digestive tract to process. It may also offer another benefit for the gi tract. Here's is an interesting research article finding that it may help with intestinal flora. Effect of dietary honey on intestinal microflora and toxicity of mycotoxins in mice is a fairly easy to read piece. It's conclusion "Substituting sugars with honey in processed food can inhibit the harmful and genotoxic effects of mycotoxins, and improve the gut microflora."

A Good Excuse to Play in the Dirt

My son's health seems much more vibrant when he's had plenty of time to play outdoors. While the first thing that comes to mind is Vitamin D, I have suspected there's much more to it. I have tried supplementing his wintertime diet with Cod Liver Oil, but he's still not the same. It turns out playing in dirt offers health and brain benefits. There is an interesting article called "Breathing soil bacteria makes you smarter" on Mother Nature Network. After reading this, you may want to roll up your sleeves and join your kids (or someone else's) in the sandbox.