excellent gut microbiota article

[kim]

Great summary of everything gut flora related. Stress, antibiotics, gut/brain etc.

Just pulled one interesting excerpt below

 

 

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2009/117-5/focus.html

 

Gut Reaction: Environmental Effects on the Human Microbiota

 

Many studies have provided evidence for probiotic efficacy in conditions such as allergy development, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn disease. In mice, Lactobacilli have shown antidiabetic and antitumor effects. In their Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases review, Sanz and colleagues described preliminary evidence that probiotics and prebiotics with antiinflammatory properties could be effective against obesity, diabetes, and associated disorders. For example, the administration of a probiotic exerted a preventive effect against type 1 diabetes in a nonobese diabetic mice model via immune-modulating mechanisms, as reported in the August 2005 issue of Diabetologia.

[kim]

From same article (near the bottom), I wonder if there is a new vax in the fall for H1N1, if it will contain thimerosal. Unless they package all as single injections (as opposed to multidose vials) I would think it would be in there. It's been reported that about 80% of the reg seasonal flu vaccine was still drawn from multidose vials containing thimerosal last season. Tuna, other fish and coal fired power plants might be good to avoid too

 

 

In another potential gut–ASD connection, antibiotic use in rats has been shown to alter the animals’ gut microbiota to the point of almost completely inhibiting mercury excretion. Because mercury toxicity is a leading suspect behind ASDs, some researchers hypothesize that high use of antibiotics likewise may inhibit children’s ability to excrete the metal, increasing the risk of these disorders. “Specifically,” wrote James B. Adams and colleagues in volume 70, issue 12 (2007) of the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, “oral antibiotics will reduce the amount of normal gut flora (which demethylate methylmercury) and may increase the amount of yeast and E. coli (which methylate inorganic mercury), resulting in both higher absorption and decreased excretion of mercury.”