Tag Archives: sibo

Questions & Answers

Should You Eat A Low-Sulfur Diet If You Have SIBO?

Sulfur is a very important mineral. It’s a vital compound when it comes to bones and skin and hair. Many parts of your body require sulfur for them to be in good shape.

Sulfur is found in many protein foods. Cysteine and methionine are two amino acids that are high in sulfur. The dietary supplement, Alpha-Lipoic Acid, also contains sulfur. Many amino acids contain cysteine or methionine, and glutathione is another sulfur-containing compound. The brassicas like cauliflower, broccoli, and collards contain sulfur. So, do onions, brazil nuts, and almonds.

For the majority of people, sulfur’s not going to affect them much. However, people with severe SIBO can have problems with sulfur. The sulfur can be converted to hydrogen sulfide in the gut, leading to extreme malodorous gas. This occurs as a result of the overgrowth of bacteria seen in SIBO.

Further readings:

My father has SIBO and SIFO for years. He was seen by gastroenterologists, but they can’t help much when someone is eating a couple of dozen cookies followed by a gallon of chocolate milk after supper. Some people are like that. They don’t understand why they have a problem, and yet, the problem’s right in front of their face.

If you have very offensive gastrointestinal gas, you need to do something about it. Look at your diet and eliminate the foods that contain the most sulfur, particularly the protein foods. Avoiding those foods can reduce the odor.

Probiotics can certainly help. I also recommend having a comprehensive stool analysis and possibly a breath test. You want to identify the target species and clean them up. Get your diet sorted, eat a low sulfur diet, and you’ll be in a lot better place.

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Questions & Answers

SIBO Diet Mistakes to Avoid

There are specific dietary approaches you want to avoid if you have SIBO. Be careful about following the advice you find on the internet. Some of it is very useful, but there’s no shortage of bad information on the web.

One of the mistakes I see is staying too long on a FODMAPs diet. This type of diet takes out a considerable chunk of carbohydrates from your diet. This is not a good idea as your bowel flora needs fiber for healthy levels of fermentation. I think two to six weeks is the maximum length you should stick with a FODMAP diet.

If you stay on the FODMAP diet for much longer than that, your gut flora can become less balanced. The more restrictive your eating, the less diverse your microbiome.

Further readings:

One of my patients was on the FODMAP diet for over two years. She ended up looking like skin and bones. The menu was just too restrictive for her. There is no prize for following the most restrictive diet, and in fact, it brings with it the risk of developing disordered eating.

Another error I see is relying on a diet or specific foods to solve your gut problem. I think the first step should always be having a comprehensive stool analysis. Identify the dysfunction in your gut and treat it accordingly. Once you’ve addressed the dysbiosis, yeast, or parasites in your gut, it may be that you don’t need to follow any kind of special diet.

Relying on dietary supplements to keep your bowels regular is another mistake I see repeatedly. Eat enough vegetables and fruit to keep your bowels in working order rather than relying on supplements.

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Questions & Answers

SIBO And Low Fermentation Diets: Yes Or No?

I read an interesting paper about using a low-fermentation diet for SIBO. This diet comes out of a laboratory at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

I don’t agree with all of the recommendations out of this diet. For example, it recommends against yogurt, and yet, in my experience, yogurt is one of the best foods to help clean up the gut. Of course, I’m talking about high-quality, sour, Greek yogurt, not the artificially sweetened industrial type that fills the supermarkets. The yogurt I eat contains plenty of beneficial bacteria. Most of the lactose has already been digested by bacteria.

I’ve yet to meet a sick person whose gut can’t tolerate a teaspoon of yogurt. I’ll often start with that dose. If even that amount is hard to tolerate, we’ll work on cleaning up the diet in a different way.

The low-fermentation diet describes rice, potatoes, and sweet potatoes as the best carbohydrates for SIBO. That’s true but they should also clarify that it is best to cook these carbs first and then bake or fry them the next day. This allows the starch to become more digestible. If you have a gut issue, baked rather than boiled or mashed potatoes are much more tolerable.

Further readings:

Peanut butter is compatible with a low-fermentation diet. I beg to differ as I consider peanut butter to be an unhealthy food choice. The mold and aflatoxin found in peanut butter pose a risk to liver health. In my experience, peanuts are particularly allergenic for people with SIBO or leaky gut. If you want a gut-healthy nut, have a serving of almonds or Brazil nuts.

Although chocolate is deemed acceptable on the low-fermentation diet (with a warning to watch out for milk chocolate), I disagree. Dark chocolate is fine for healthy people, but if your gut is giving you any trouble, I’d stay away.

What really surprised me was reading that Rice Krispies are considered an ideal breakfast on the low-fermentation diet. I would never recommend refined, starchy rice. Oats or eggs are definitely better breakfast options to my mind.

There’s a warning to watch out for butter, but I personally have never seen clients run into problems from using a high-quality butter.

If you have SIBO, my recommendation is to follow a common-sense diet. If a particular food causes you distress, eliminate it from your diet. Once your gut has improved, you can always rechallenge yourself.

I’ve been working in the field for over thirty years, and I’ve seen hundreds of diets. In my experience, they aren’t individualized enough to help people. The best diet for Mary Jo is Mary Jo’s diet. Our guts are unique, which is why I recommend avoiding cookie-cutter, one size fits all diets. I’ve yet to meet two people with SIBO who have identical microbiomes.

Please don’t fall for the line that we all have to be gluten-free, lactose-free, and dairy-free. Modify your diet to meet the needs of your gut, particularly if you have SIBO or inflammatory bowel disease.

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Questions & Answers

Can I Catch SIBO From Someone Else?

Is SIBO a contagious disease?

No, not at all. It’s a digestive condition in which there is an overgrowth of bacteria in the small bowel. SIBO can’t be passed from one person to another.

Many people worry about contagion when it comes to digestive disorders. Helicobacter pylori can indeed be passed by sharing utensils, but it very rarely happens unless someone is immunosuppressed. However, SIBO is not contagious under any circumstances.

Further readings:

Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, believed that people attracted disease to them a little bit like iron. A magnet and iron are attracted to each other. For you to attract illness, you have to have a certain susceptibility. His idea is that if your energy is vibrating at a certain level, your body will reject rather than attract a disease. It follows from this theory that if you keep yourself in pretty good shape, you’re less likely to get sick. Healthy people have a much lower chance of getting sick than someone who is already unhealthy.

SIBO, inflammatory bowel disease, and constipation are all examples of GI conditions that are not contagious. You don’t “catch” these illnesses. However, when your body is susceptible, you’re much more likely to develop a health condition.

Stress often contributes to reduced resistance to illness. It’s stress and a lowered resistance rather than catching SIBO from someone else that should worry you.

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Questions & Answers

Treating SIBO With Colloidal Silver: What You Need To Know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=942y7DyPnlE

Have you heard of colloidal silver?

Hopefully, you haven’t been scared off by Google. There is a guy called Blue Man who developed argyria, blue skin, by drinking homemade colloidal silver in very high concentrations.That is not what I’m recommending! You’re not going to be drinking a gallon of homemade high concentration colloidal silver every day to treat SIBO.

There are many different brands of colloidal silver available. You can get anywhere from five to twenty parts per millions. Usually, ten to fifteen parts per million is more than adequate. Firstly, no matter what gut condition you’re treating, do not take colloidal silver on a long-term basis. Period.

Colloidal silver should only be used in short bursts, not for months at a time.

Secondly, I highly recommend that you don’t take colloidal silver until you have a sensitivity report that confirms it will be effective against the pathogens in your gut. A stool test is better than a breath test for that purpose.

Further readings:

Some will argue that a stool test doesn’t give you a measure of small intestinal bacteria. There’s merit to that statement as the stool test focuses on the contents of the colon. Still, in my experience, I’ve had far better outcomes using a comprehensive stool analysis to guide my SIBO treatment than when I used breath tests.

Colloidal silver often comes up high on susceptibility panels from my SIBO clients. I usually use the silver for between three to six weeks, and then I’ll give the patient a break for fourteen days. Then, we might do another three to six weeks of colloidal silver treatment. However, colloidal silver is not the primary agent I use for SIBO. I think antimicrobials like standardize garlic, standardized oregano, and grapefruit seed extract work even better than colloidal silver for SIBO.

In my experience, 10 to 15 ppm of colloidal silver is more than enough. I particularly love the colloidal silver from Silver Biotics, a company out of Utah.

Colloidal silver can be used orally. I know some people who brush their gums with a toothbrush dipped in a dilute colloidal silver. Colloidal silver is good for the oral cavity and the entire GI tract. It also has some value when treating Helicobacter pylori. For H. pylori, you can take 30 mills twice a day on an empty stomach. I’d also combine it with aloe vera when treating H. pylori.

Again, let me reiterate, don’t take colloidal silver for any longer than three to six weeks at a time. Stop for at least fourteen days between courses. You don’t want to get any complications from using too much colloidal silver.

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