What makes probiotics not work

The above analogy is found in a book by Glickman (2017), a nutritionist from UK, a book I read as I was puzzled by the fact that some of my IBS friends, have zero improvements after taking probiotics, regardless of brands and species.

So a few questions keep lingering in my mind:

• Why do probiotics work for only some IBS people but not all?
• Is there something in the guts blocking them from working?
• If yes, what is it?

After reading the book, another analogy came to my mind: buying concert tickets. You can buy a concert ticket online by a few simple clicks. However, here is a simple reason why the clicks do not work:

If you cannot buy any tickets it means the seats are occupied.

Well, can the same happens to our guts? If there is something occupying the space in my friends’ guts, or in yours, then probiotics have no chance of squeezing into the intestines.

No more seats for the concert

In other words, the space in your intestines are like a concert venue. If someone has taken a seat another person cannot get it. In a like manner, if something has taken space in our intestines probiotics cannot get in and be absorbed. Regarding that something, there could be quite a lot of possibilities. However, the most common ‘something’ is a kind of yeasts, of which some of you may have heard: candida.

To extend this line of analogy, if your small intestine is a concert venue and if too many seats are being taken by candida, probiotics can only take up a small portion of the seats. As a result a simple picture for you to understand the situation inside is: a large amount of candida versus a small amount of probiotics.

However, candida (in a small amount) is a perfectly alright situation for our bodies. It, however, become a problem to us when we have too many of them in our intestines (doctors call it candida overgrowth). In this situation, candida becomes something bad, so bad that it transforms (from a yeast to a fungus). And that transformation, according to Glickman, causes our stomach to blow up like a balloon (bloating).

However, bloating is not the biggest problem. Bloating could be a sign of something much more negative, much more harmful to our bodies: leaky gut.

What (on earth) is leaky gut?

Simply put, leaky gut is a (common) situation many IBS people suffer from. It is, indeed, a situation in which holes in your small intestine become too large. Too large? Yes, the lining of your small intestine act as a barrier that only allows good things (e.g. nutrients) to get into your bloodstream. Under normal circumstances our lining acts as a doorman ensuring only good guys come into your bloodstream. However, under ‘unhealthy’ circumstances, your doorman allows bad guys to get in too.

Who are those bad guys? According to a post on Harvard Health Blog, they are food partially digested, toxins, and harmful microorganisms. So picture this (though it is a horrible picture): lots of bad guys running into your bloodstream, which means

lots of gangsters have a ‘party’ all over your body as your bloodstream may take them anywhere.

What causes leaky gut: sugar & food giants

Though many IBS people know that leaky gut is caused by a variety of reasons (e.g. stress and antibiotics), the most common cause in the society we live today is: sugar. Why? It is because we now live in a place where ‘sweetness’ is everywhere, and in a city where some giant cooperations lure us to take sugar as much as possible.

You do not believe it?

Honestly, you do not have to listen to, not to mention, believe in me. However, the idea that we are trapped by too much sugar offered by cooperations echoes the claims by two giants, one from the medical field, a pediatric endocrinologist at University of California (Robert Lustig), and the other being the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting in 2010 (Michael Moss).

Nowadays most people are addicted to sugar, and worst of all, trapped in a constant loop of eating more and more sugar (Lustig, 2017). Wait a moment. Addicted? Is that word a bit exaggerating? No, hundred-percent not. It is a fact in our modern society. How does this ‘exaggeration’ come about? When we take sugar, it triggers a surge of dopamine, a thing that give us immediate pleasure. But when we get used to a certain amount of sugar, we will need (not want) more. Think about it: The more we want it, the more we take it. And the more we take it, the more we want it.  Is there a term more fitting than ‘addicted’ to describe this cycle?

Moreover, cooperations, from the processed food industry, know about this cycle of addiction well, so well that they make use of it as part of their marketing strategies (Michael Moss, 2012). What have they done to lure and trap us? Actually quite a lot and one of them has to do with healthy diets. Riding on the tide of healthy diets, they fill supermarkets and convenience stores with junk diets but using “all-natural” or “made with whole grains” to describe ‘foods’ that are still high in sugar (and calories).

Put simply, people, including ones with IBS like you and me, have leaky gut because we are trapped to the addiction of sugar, an addiction that is hard to combact due to the marketing strategies that are smart but harmful to us.

Candida & sugar: The love that is romantic but toxic

So now you are convinced that sugar is a main culpuit of leaky gut as we are trapped in an addiction managed by processed food comapnies. But what does this have to do with candida?

There is a special bonding between sugar and candida, so special that they cannot live without each other. And because candida (in our guts) loves sugar so much they will send this signal of love through the gut-brain axis to our brains. (Yes, some of you may have already known about the axis. Micoorganisms, candida included, in our guts ‘talk’ to our brain through the axis). With that calling, you will look for, rush for, and crave for, your favourite desserts and processed food. So, next time you crave for desserts, remember it is acutally not you wanting more sugar, but Candida in your gut. Candida ‘communicates’ with your brain, compelling you to grab sweets. Its love for sugar hijacks both your mind and body.

As a result of the bonding, this couple will swim in our bloodstream and treat every part of our bodies as date spots (another way to describe the leaky gut we just mentioned). In a word, the bonding and love between Candida and sugar is romantic, but toxic to us.

The team work of Candida

However, it is not just the romantic love between Candida and sugar you have to combat. Candida will go hand in hand with others to form a team, and worst of all, such a team can produce a shield (doctors call it biofilms). Such a shield acts as a protective layer, making it hard for medicines to reach teams of Candida, not to mention killing them. Making it hard? What does that mean?

First, the teams of Candida weaken the power of a crucial type of white blood cells (macrophages). Marcrophages? They are defenders of our bodies with three grand tasks: detecting, engulf and destroying harmful things. However, the protective shield of Candida is so thick that our great defenders cannot get through it, making the Candida undetectable. Worst of all, the shield has the ability to prevent macrophages from becoming active and producing necessary signals, chemcial messages telling other cells in the immune system to be on alert.

Second, another line of our immune system is also blocked. Neutrophils ( ) are skillful at attacking Candida when the fungal is in on their own in a free-floating state. However, the shield of Candida

Neutrophils, important immune cells, struggle to fight biofilms. They are good at attacking free-floating Candida cells but less effective against biofilms. The structure and secretions of biofilms block neutrophils from getting in and engulfing the cells. Biofilms can also cause neutrophils to form traps, which Candida can use to strengthen the biofilm. This shows how biofilms can manipulate the immune response to their benefit.

(Macrophage Evasion

Macrophages, a critical component of the host’s defense, are often impaired by biofilms. The dense matrix obstructs macrophage penetration, while biofilm cells can alter their surface antigens to avoid recognition. This evasion extends to the secretion of immunomodulatory molecules by the biofilm, which can inhibit macrophage activation and cytokine production. By skewing the immune response, Candida biofilms create a microenvironment that favors their persistence, complicating infection clearance.

Neutrophil Interactions

Neutrophils, another frontline immune defense, face challenges in combating biofilms. While neutrophils are adept at targeting free-floating Candida cells, their efficacy diminishes against structured biofilms. The biofilm’s architecture and secreted factors hinder neutrophil infiltration and phagocytosis. Additionally, biofilms can induce neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation, which, although intended to ensnare pathogens, can be exploited by Candida to enhance biofilm integrity. This dynamic interaction highlights the biofilm’s ability to manipulate immune responses to its advantage.

source: Candida Biofilms: Formation, Structure, and Antifungal Resistance – BiologyInsights)

The post IBS, Sugar, and Candida: When probiotics don’t work for you first appeared on IBS notepad.

Yet, when you ask them what probiotics are and why IBS people need it, only few of them can give you an answer. (Even if they give you answers, it may not be easy to understand.)

So what are probiotics?

What are probiotics?

Before we talk about probiotics, we will talk about the people around you. Around you, there are good and bad guys, and so the same is also true for bacteria. So what are probiotics? Probitoics are good bacteria (or yeast) helping you to balance the ecosystem in your guts. What does balanced ecosystem mean in terms of your IBS and health? Quite a lot, but the followiing two seems important for you and me:

• A balanced ecosystem in your guts means better digestion
• Which also means you will be much more energetic

Simply put, some IBS people (including me) got IBS because the good guys have the lower hand. As a result, the bad guys, which are already in your guts, expand their territories, which may probably be one of the reasons why you have to rush to the toilet.

What probitoics to buy for IBS

Now, you have had a big picture of what probiotics are. However, there are tons of probiotics available when you walk into a health food store. So the big questions for you are:

• Which one to buy?
• Which one is the best for IBS people?

A brother and a lady: Bifido & Lacto

In the field of probiotics there are two very commom species and they are a brother and a lady. The former is Bifidobacterium (Bifido, brother) and and the latter is Lactobacillus (Lacto, lady). There is a chance that some of you may have them in your bodies. Why? They are supposed to be gifts from your mother to you as during the process of your birth, the brothers and ladies were transferred through the brith canal, helping you to establish your first groups of bug friends (initial gut microbita).

So in other words, if you are not born naturally, but by C-section, the brothers and ladies were not your first groups of bug friends (but no worries as this is exactly one of the reasons why you need probiotics).

Probitoics for IBS-D: B. bifidum & B. longum

For Brother Bifido he has three sons who are very famous and popular: the first two being B. fididum and B. longum.

B. bifidum, the elder son, according to Professors John Cryan and Ted Dinan (principal investigators in the APC Microbiome Institute) are competitors of E. coli (Escherichia coli, some of them able to cause severe stomach cramps, bloody diarrhea, and vomiting) and yeasts (such as Candida, its overgrowth leading to infections). In this process of competition most bad bugs will be kicked out by this elder brother, and this kicking out means preventing diarrhea from happening to you.

What about the younger son, B. longum? Just like his brother, he is good at preventing diarrhea. However, besides this task, this bug brother also has four more:

1. inhibits pathogens (microorganisms causing disease) in large intestines
2. reduces inflammation
3. reduces anxiety and depression
4. improves lactose (sugar present in milk) tolerance

Probitoics for IBS-C: B. lactis BB-12

Besides the two brothers, there is one more son from Brother bifidum, he is the youngest as he is a baby (BB), a baby with a long name: Bifidobacterium lactis BB-12, a probiotic recommeded by a nutritionist (Camilla Gray).

Don’t look down upon this baby. BB-12 is such a tough bug that it can survive the harsh conditions of your gastrointestinal tract (e.g. resistant to stomach acid). After swmming through a sea of acid, it reaches your large intestines to help with your bowel movements, and at the same times, enhance the function of your immune system.

(An extra benefit if you are a parent: he can reduce excessive crying and fussing for your babies and children.)

What about Lady Lacto?

As far as our IBS is concerned, we have to also talk about Lactobacillus plantarum. (Lady) Lactobacillus plantarum, according to Professors Cryan and Dinan, are found in fermented foods such as pickles, kimchi, brined olives, and sauerkraut. This lady is good for you as she helps reduce inflamation (e.g. bloating) and gut pain. (In addition, she also has been proved to enhance memory and reduce memory loss due to aging.)

A particular popular one is Lactobacillus plantarum PS128. Derived from a traditional Taiwanese food, fermentated mustard green vegetables, this lady is not only beautiful but also fightful. She brings down bad bugs (pathogenic bacteria) by lowering the pH of your gut, making the gut environment harsh for them, which is only her first tactics.

Her second tactics is about taking part in a competition, one in which she battles against bad bugs for two things: food (nutrients) and living space. In this competition, the lady eats out food otherwise would be eaten by bad bugs and occupies houses (or flats) lived by them. The results? Because of this lady (Lactobacillus plantarum PS128), bad bugs have no food to eat and no place to live.

The post Probiotics for IBS first appeared on IBS notepad.

You must have heard of processed foods, packaged foods that come usually with oil, salt, and sugar. But what does ultra mean? They are processed foods undergone multiple processes and examples are those foods you are very familiar with:

• soft drinks, ice-cream, packaged soups
• sweetened breakfast cereals, chips, chocolate, candy
• chicken nuggets, hotdogs, fries

What is wrong with ultra-processed foods?

People who eat ultra-processed foods have a 25 percent higher risk of IBS, but you may say that I have already had it. Well, read the next piece of information from George Zaidan, a science communicator:

In a word, ultra-processed foods are super dangerous to your health, an ultra kiss of death!

The post Ultra-processed foods kill first appeared on IBS notepad.

The method suggested by him is special as it gets straight to the bottom of your mind: it involves thinking about

• someone you do not want to face, or
• someone who has hurt you a lot

Experts in this post

• Hiroshi Tasaka, Honorary Professor at the Graduate School of Tama University, author of Three Techniques for Improving Luck and Purifying the Mind
• You (yourself), with methods suggested on levels I and II you are now an expert of your own emotion

Feeling frustrated and resented?

In the last post, you are asked to talk to yourself or write down your feelings. In this process, have you asked yourself the following questions, questions that go deep down into your negative feelings?

Why are you frustrated?

What makes you resentful?

Or let me ‘visit’ your experience, emotion, and feeling! Have you ever wondered why the following(s) happened to you?

• suffering from IBS
• your parents not loving you
• feeling of being looked down upon
• encountering setbacks in your career
• the one you love hurting or leaving you

How to soothe your Liver (& yourself)

This is the most difficult, if not tough, method. What Professor Tasaka suggests is a special way to treat those who have hurt you, or those who treated you badly, to the point that it leaves a mark, a huge one indeed, in the deeper layers of your mind. The method is:

Thank those who hurt your feelings

Is that supposed to be a joke? Why should you thank the person who hurt you while instead you want to do the opposite? And the bigger issue is: the solution is totally impractical. Facing the one who hurt you and say thank you? How (on earth) is that possible?

Well, it is possible as what Professor Tasaka wants us to do is to

• say ‘thank you’ in your mind
• without meeting the one who hurt you

How to say ‘thank you’

Let me give you an example. Let say Mr Wrong leaves you for the wrong reasons you feel frustrated and resentful, if not depressed.

So with this level III method, you first picture him (e.g. his face, his voice), then take a few deep breathes. And here comes one of the most important step, a step you may have done in the level II solution: Think about what emotions you have with him.

And then to Mr Right, you say it in your mind, calmly:

Mr Wrong, thank you.

Yes, just say the name and then thank you, no more or no less.

Why do you have to thank him?

Indeed, what you want is not to thank him, but to receive an apology from him? Well, if you ask for apologies then you will fall into a trap, the trap of negative emotions, emotions that you are familiar with (anger, frustration, and resentment).

In other words, level III solution frees you from your negative emotions, and most important of all as pointed out by Professor Tasaka, in his book ‘Three Techniques for Improving Luck and Purifying the Mind’:

The reason why we feel pains deep down inside our hearts is because of our emotion of blaming.

Simply stated, if you feel thankful to the one who hurts you the negative feelings are away from you, and so is your IBS!

The post IBS & your Liver (4): Solution III first appeared on IBS notepad.

Experts in this post

• Anthony William, the chronic illness expert, and originator of the global celery juice movement
• Robert Ko, a Professor in the Division of Life Science (the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology), served in the Chinese Medicines Board of the Chinese Medicine Council of Hong Kong
• Yu-ming Lee, a TCM practitioner earning his PhD from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine
• Angela Hicks, joint principal of the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading (UK)

Emotion & sickness: 2 strangers on the same street?

We usually have a thought about sickness: that it is caused by bacteria or virus. Yes, this is ‘correct’. However, if you go deeper, as in TCM, this is not 100% correct.

It is true that sickness is caused by bacteria or viruses. However, there is a question unanswered: during Covid 19 why did a friend fall sick but another did not (even if they stayed in the same flat)?

In the world of traditional Chinese medicine, there is something other than bacteria and viruses that make you sick. It is nothing but your emotion. Emotion and sickness, in the words of Dr Lee, are not two things separated, but in most cases, they are two in one:

In traditional Chinese medicine, physical illnesses originate from emotional issues ……
(Towards Healing, 2018, P. 54, text in Chinese)

Simply put, emotion and sickness are not, absolutely not, two strangers on the same street that emotion can be a root cause of your sickness. And if you still think the idea is unusual, the following number, provided by Angela Hicks, may make it easier to understand one of the root causes of your IBS:

It has been said that approximately 90% of all illness has an emotional component.

(88 Chinese Medical Secrets: How to Cultivate Lifelong Health, Wisdom and Happiness, 2011, P.79)

How IBS is triggered by your 90%

So what are the 90% you have been ‘carrying’ making you suffering from IBS? If Liver affecting your digestive system (as mentioned in the previous post) is the reason why you have IBS, then the 90% is the emotion of ‘anger’. However, before we get to the process of how anger triggers your IBS, the term ‘anger’ needs some explanation. In the world of TCM, anger is not just about anger that it also includes four other related emotions:

frustration, resentment, repression, and depression

So let’s take the example of anger, a common emotion in daily life, to talk about why you have IBS. When you experience, anger, and if you do not release it (I mean, properly), the emotion will block or sometimes stop Liver Qi from moving. Then this blocked Liver Qi will turn into a from of energy that is too strong, a kind of excessive energy.

This excessive energy will do one thing that makes you suffer from bloating, loose stools, and diarrhea. This Liver Qi will go out of Liver and overact on your digestive system. Yes, you are right. There are linkages between Liver and your digestive system, and through the linkages Liver Qi affects your digestive system, in a negative way.

The above process of triggering can be wrapped up into 5 steps:

anger ——> Liver Qi blocked ——> Liver Qi too strong ——> Liver Qi flowing to digestive system

——> IBS

Solutions: The next 2 posts

Explaining with a three-level solutions, the next two posts are about three things:

• how to stop Liver Qi from overacting
• how to manage or self-heal your IBS
• how to tackle a root cause of your IBS

The post IBS & your Liver (2): Root Cause first appeared on IBS notepad.

For some of you it works to talk to a friend. However, in this post and the next one you will read three-level solutions (ranging from simple to complicated), ones that combine and mix methods of two experts from USA, and another from Japan, solutions that are built on an idea by Sigmund Freud.

Experts in this post

• Chade-Meng Tan, author of ‘Search Inside Yourself’ and Founding Patron of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE)
• Ryan Holiday, one of the world’s bestselling living philosophers, author of the number 1 New York Times bestseller ‘Stillness Is the Key’
• Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis
• Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap, with over a million copies sold worldwide

The starting point: negative is normal

But before talking about how to soothe your Liver and manage your negative emotions, there is a starting point. All negative feelings tell you one thing, important and essential. Negative or painful feelings are not signs of weakness, but signs symbolise that you are a normal person living a normal life (Harris, 2021).

In other words, people, with IBS or not, do not live in a happily-ever-after world in which everything ends perfectly and everyone lives in perpetual joy. Real life, instead, is a world in which ups and downs is like sunrise and sunset and not everything goes according to plan.

Level I: ‘Split’ yourself into two

You are sad, and with no friends to talk to? Have you tried this before? Tried what? Talk to your negative emotion, a method I learnt when doing my bachelor of education in a UK university (but I did not practise it until recently).

Simply put, treat negative feeling as another person, for example, a friend. Talk to her by asking a few questions:

• What is your name? (Yes, you may give the negative feeling a name.)
• How are you doing?
• Can you tell me what happened?

What is the point of doing this? When you talk to your negative feeling, you are doing one thing that is really important: listening to and observing yourself. In other words, you split yourself into two different persons, one observing and the other observed. In this process of splitting, you distance yourself from the emotion, a distance that helps you stay cool, a process that enables you to see yourself (as an outsider).

(A word of caution: When you talk to negative feeling, do not judge. As suggested by Tan, you simply experience it without judging it to be good or bad. Simply put, you are listening to a friend’s voice, a close friend of ‘yours’. So, don’t ever judge.)

Level II: Placing your emotions in the right place

Although level I method soothes your Liver, it has a weakness, a ‘fatal’ one: it does not solve the problem. And according to Freud, a founding father of modern Psychology, a problem not solved is still a problem and it will probably get down to the lowest layer of your mind.

Sooner or later, the problem not solved, the emotion, will get back to the surface layer of your mind!

So, what should you do? Instead of letting negative emotion stay in your mind, in whatever layer, you need to place it somewhere else. You need to understand it better, so that you understand yourself better. And if you understand yourself better, life will probably be better.

So, the question becomes: Where to put those feelings.

On paper or on electronic device, write a journal about your experience. In other words, when you are confused, jot down a few sentences (or more). When you are upset, write down something. Put simply, unload your thoughts onto a better place.

Journaling is a level-two method as it is a means, according to Holiday, you ask yourself tough questions. So regarding negative feelings, you may ask questions such as:

• Why am I so sad?
• Why do I care so much about _____________?

And a tougher but deeper question suggested by Holiday is:

‘How will today’s difficulties reveal my character?’

Stillness Is the Key

By unloading emotion and examining it in a deeper way, you observe yourself from a longer distance than level-one methods. In doing so you not only reflect on the emotion, but also on who you are.

The post IBS & your Liver (3): Solutions I & II first appeared on IBS notepad.

Do you know if you have IBS, then there may also be problems with your liver? And the problems may be bigger than what you think. According to TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), your liver, which is sad, angry (or even depressed), can be a factor that triggers your IBS.

Experts in this post

• Anthony William, the chronic illness expert, and originator of the global celery juice movement
• Robert Ko, a Professor in the Division of Life Science (the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology), served in the Chinese Medicines Board of the Chinese Medicine Council of Hong Kong
• Yu-ming Lee, a TCM practitioner earning his PhD from the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine

Liver: the MD of your blood

How TCM views the liver is different from Western medicine, and that difference may be a key to understanding and healing your IBS.

In TCM, Liver is very different from the liver in Western medicine. It is not just an organ responsible for detoxing, but the Managing Director (MD) of the most important liquid in your body: blood. In other words, Liver, the MD, is the one who regulates the volume of blood in your body, and she does it in two ways:

• When you are active, Liver ‘orders’ blood to go to different parts of your body.
• When you are inactive, Liver ‘commands’ blood to go back.
  

So think about it. What will happen if Liver cannot perform her first task? You will get cold hands (as blood cannot reach there). And for females, you will experience irregular menstruation as the volume of blood is out of control by your MD.

However, why does Liver not do her jobs in the first place? What makes the MD on strike? And what does this have to do with your IBS?

Before answering the above questions, you must have an idea of the most important concept in TCM: Qi, and Liver Qi in particular.

Enter Qi (and Liver Qi)

Qi, in traditional Chinese medicine, is the vital but invisible energy flowing within your body. Vital and invisible?

• Vital as it performs the three functions of nourishing and maintaining organs and tissues, and facilitating metabolic processes.
• Invisible as it is like different transparent trains running in your whole body that it is present in every organ.

And Qi that found in your Liver is Liver Qi, the energy that makes Liver works and do the job of regulating your blood.

Qi blocked: sickness

Your Liver is such a good Managing Director that she works 24/7, even when she does not feel well. Right, she still goes back to office to perform the job of blood regulating even if she is sick. In TCM, this sickness of MD means Liver Qi, which should be flowing freely, is blocked, obstructed, and stagnated.

Well, as an IBS person, you may ask a question: What does Liver Qi blocked have to do with your IBS?

Trigger of IBS

Liver Qi blocked is a trigger of IBS. In TCM your Liver and the digestive system are ‘connected’, which means the Qi blocked in Liver will go to your intestines. With excessive energy (Qi), your large intestine will over react and that overreaction causes you to rush to the washroom.

This is what TCM practitioners called Liver invading Spleen (the digestive system). Simply stated, your IBS may be caused by Liver Qi affecting the digestive system.

Why is Liver Qi blocked?

In a word, what you have learnt so far is:

• Liver Qi regulates your blood
• Your IBS can be caused by Liver Qi blocked

Stated differently, if your Liver Qi was not blocked, then no Liver Qi would be invading your digestive system and you would not be suffering from IBS.

So, what on earth causes Liver Qi blocked? Or, is there any root cause of your IBS? If there is, what is it? According to Dr. Lee (a TCM practitioner), the root cause of your IBS is emotion, the theme of next post.

The post IBS & your Liver (1): Problems first appeared on IBS notepad.

Experts in this post

• Hong Hai, PhD London School of Economics
• Alexander Heyne, California and NCCAOM board-certified doctor of Oriental medicine
• Li Bo, head of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine, Beijing Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Enter traditional Chinese medicine (TCM): Qi

So what is traditional Chinese medicine? It is really not easy, if not hard, to define it. But if I could use one word to talk about it, it would be Qi. In other words, TCM is all about a two-letter word: Qi.

What is Qi? In a way, it is the energy flowing within our bodies. This energy has three functions that are of utmost importance to us: nourishing and maintaining organs and tissues, and facilitating metabolic processes in our bodies.

However Qi is Qi as it is something you cannot see, but can only feel.

Qi: the invisible trains

If you think Qi is too abstract, then think of it as invisible trains running through your whole body. In other words, in the world of TCM Qi (something essential, vital, and all-important to our life), is present in every organ. (Well, think about it. If this non-stop train stopped, what would happen?)

And if there are invisible trains in your body, what about the tracks? I guess you have heard of the name of those tracks. It is called Meridian (or Channels or Collaterals): the pathways for delivering Qi to every part of your body.

With the trains and tracks, you may ask, how exactly does Qi relate to IBS? In TCM, IBS is caused by blocking of Qi in your ‘spleen’, the train being unable to get through and getting jammed there.

When ‘Spleen’ is not a spleen

However, before we move on to talk about ‘spleen’ Qi and IBS, there is one thing you must know. What is it? Spleen in TCM is not the spleen in Western medicine. Put simply, ‘spleen’ in TCM has nothing to do with the lymphatic system, the organ that you picture in your mind. So what is Spleen in TCM?

In traditional Chinese medicine, ‘Spleen’ actually refers to the digestive system. How did I know? It is forcefully mentioned by professor Hung, a scholar graduated from London School of Economics. In his words, the ‘spleen’ in TCM is:

the functional system involved in digestion

Principles of Chinese Medicine: A Modern Interpretation

The Blocking of Spleen Qi

So let me repeat once again. Our IBS is caused by blocking of Qi in the digestive system, something jamming the movement of Spleen Qi.

However, what exactly does this blockage of Spleen Qi mean? Well, Spleen (the digestive system) works like a factory with delivery service: it processes food and water into nutrients and then delivers them to other organs and the rest of our bodies.

Under normal circumstances (when you are healthy), the invisible train (Spleen Qi) will go through smoothly. However, for IBS people like you and me, the train has been blocked, obstructed, or even stopped if the following two situations happen:

• A. Spleen Qi is inadequate
• B. the flow of Spleen Qi being not smooth

Situation A is simply like there is not enough fuel in your invisible train and scenario B is your train does not run fast enough. When either or both of the situations happen in your bodies, Spleen Qi, the invisible train, has no choice but to slow down or even in some situations, stop.

To make it more specific, when Spleen Qi gets stuck in your intestines, it cannot move and will expand itself, resulting in what you have been suffering: bloating.

Dampness

In TCM, the bloating, the blockage of Spleen Qi, can also be explained in one word: Dampness (濕). And Dampness is a word that has special meanings, which is the topic of the next post.

The post If you have IBS, do you want a second opinion (1)? first appeared on IBS notepad.

Dampness (濕), a term in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), is 100% related to your IBS. In post (1), we talked about bloating. However, if you also have cold limbs, if your levels of energy is low, and if you have irregular menstruation, your body is calling for help as it is suffering from excessive amounts of moisture, or in the word of TCM: Dampness.

What (on earth) is Dampness?

What exactly is Dampness? There is too much moisture in your digestive system (Spleen, in TCM) and the moisture blocks your Qi (the energy flowing within your body).

Basically, your Spleen (the digestive system) works as a factory to process food and water into nutrients and then deliver them to different parts of your body. However, think about what happens if the facotry of Spleen cannot process food and water properly. The result is: wastage is produced and that wastage is what TCM calls Dampness.

Well, you still think that the idea of Dampness is too abstract, too Asian?

What is Dampness in Western medicine?

In term of Western medicine, Dr. Heyne thinks of Dampness as accumulation of mast cells, which is something less than normal. What are mast cells? In a word, mast cells are a type of white blood cells you can find in your intestines and they send messages to inform your immune system to do something. And that something makes you rush to the washroom.

Besides rushing to the washroom, there are three other effects of Dampness on your body, explained by Dr. Tong, a TCM practitioner with knowledge of Western medicine. Dampness:

• lowers the level of oxygen in your blood, making it hard for cells to breathe
• slows down blood circulation, making your cells get less nutrients
• (worst of all) forces your cells to have no choice but live with garbage as wastage produced by metabolism stays and accumulates

The final result: cells slow down and and your doctor tell you that you are sick (i.e. IBS).

Well, any method to solve the problem of Dampness, to dry our digestive system (Spleen), and to make us healthier?

Spleen as a tumble dryer

To solve the problem of Dampness, you have to picture Spleen (the digestive system) as an appliance in your home, a tumble dryer. What does that mean? Our body, our digestive systems (intestines in particular) do not like too much moisture, and we have to think of Spleen as a tumble dryer, a machine that evaporates the water in wet clothes and if it works well, the clothes are dried.

However, what if the tumble dryer does not work well? This is exactly why we have IBS: Dampness is found in our bodies because the clothes (by analogy, food and water taken and ‘processed’ in intestines) are not dried enough. In other words, our built-in tumble dryer (Spleen) cannot get rid of excessive amounts of moisture, making us suffering from dampness (or IBS).

A formula to fight Dampness

In fact, in the world of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) there is a herbal formula to dry moisture in our body and to make Spleen healthy. It is:

Shen Ling Bai Zhu San (參苓白術散)

Source: https://www.americandragon.com/Herb%20Formulas%20copy/ShenLingBaiZhuSan.html

Its main components have the following functions:

• Bai Zhu (Poria, 白朮) & Fu Ling (Poria, 茯苓): Strengthens Spleen and dries Dampness.
• Ren Shen (Ginseng, 人參): Tonifies Spleen and Lung Qi.
  • Combining with Bai Zhu, it enhances the functions of the digestive system.
• Shan Yao (Chinese Yam, 山藥): Tonifies Spleen and Lungs, and stops diarrhea.
  • Combining with Fu Ling and Bai Zhu to deal with problems of loose, watery stools.
• Lian Zi (Nelumbinis, 蓮子): Stops diarrhea.
  • Combining with Ren Shen, Bai Zhu and Shan Yao, for chronic diarrhea.
• Bai Bian Dou (Dolichorus, 白扁豆): Dries Dampness.
  • Combing with Bai Zhu and Shan Yao for diarrhea or vaginal discharge

The post If you have IBS, do you want a second opinion (2)? first appeared on IBS notepad.

Well, if you know what gluten is and what they do in your bodies, intestines in particular, you will think twice about eating them.

What is the problem with gluten?

The biggest problem with gluten is that you cannot digest them totally. Gluten (a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, and a common element in breads, cereals) is something that most people cannot ‘handle’, not to mention you and me, IBS people. The funny thing is insects, a kind of organisms less advanced than us, are able to digest gluten totally. On the contrary, humans, to be exact our gut, do not have the ability (or enzyme) to digest gluten (source: G. Enders, Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ). And the consequences are:

• gluten, partially digested, staying in our gut
• a state causing us a big problem: leaky gut

What (on earth) is leaky gut?

In a way, anything leaky is usually something bad. Do you want to live in a house (or flat) that is leaky? The same applies to leaky gut. In your healthy body, there should be an extensive intestinal lining forming a tight gate controlling what gets absorbed into your bloodstream. Leaky gut is a situation in which the tight gate becomes loose and tiny holes are to be found (source: Harvard Health Publishing). When this happens, three groups of gangsters (undigested food particles, toxins, and bacteria) find their ways to your bloodstream to steal (or rob) your health.

And gluten is an active, corrupted member of the first group of gangsters (undigested food particles). Corrupted? Yes, this is the way how they get through your gut!

Leaky gut: a game of corruption and betrayal

In a way, gluten does not go straight through the gate of your intestines and then march into your bloodstream. As the gate is so tight that gluten has to do one thing. It has to bribe your gut cells and some of them betray you. What does that mean? Gluten prompts (bribes) your gut cells to release a protein (called zonulin). Zonulin (discovered by Dr. Alessio Fasano in 2000) is the one who betrays you by opening the gate of your cell wall. Put simply, when you consume foods with gluten, a game of corruption and betrayal is played within your body.

Further problems with leaky gut

This game of corruption and betrayal is never a small one. When gluten runs into your bloodstream you have to fight against the following:

• autoimmune conditions
• diabetes, and worst of all
• celiac disease, and Crohn’s disease

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