From: tjfeue@bb1t.monsanto.com
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Detoxification
Date: 30 Sep 92 16:03:36 CST
Organization: Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO

>This too comes from Michael Traub, and may have originated from
>Ferrell Wheeler, like some other postings have.

Ok, let's take it one step at a time.

>Every  other  popular  health  book  these  days  seems to contain the word
>"detoxification".  We  are  urged  to  change  our  diet, fast or purge our
>systems to facilitate internal "cleansing".

The body does this "cleansing" automatically as a more or less constant 
process.  

Purging and fasting can be extremely dangerous when done without
the supervision of a physician.  Fasting can cause (since the body
starts to break down fats and even structural proteins for energy)
a buildup of toxic metabolites such as Blood Urea Nitrogen.  If you
have very low body fat content, your system will start to break down
muscle, internal organs, etc.  This can cripple or kill you.  Read
up on Anorexia Nervosa.  

>In  fact,  recent  scientific  research  suggests that many old ideas about
>the  relationship  between nutrition, the digestive system and disease, may
>be at least partly true.

Look at this sentence...  Look at the words... SUGGESTS, MAY and AT LEAST 
PARTLY TRUE... All in one sentence that is being used to establish
a *FACT*?????  

>The  research  centres  on  the  role  of the bowel flora - the "bugs" that
>live  in  the  large  bowel  or  colon  in  all  of us. In a healthy bowel,
>billions  of  bacteria  - averaging a total of around four pounds in weight
>-  act  as  a  kind  of  living  sewage  disposal system, breaking down the
>remnants  of  our  food,  and  producing immune secretions and nutrients as
>by-products  of  the  process.  In  a healthy bowel, most of these bacteria
>are  "good  guys"  -  such  as those of the family known as "lactobacilli",

The *family* is Lactobacillaceae.  Lactobacilli refers to the genus
of bacteria.  But... I think that your refer to family Enterobacteriaceae, 
the family that Escherichia coli (THE normal flora in the intestine) belong.
Lactobacillus is usually present, but *NOT* in large numbers.  If 
lactobacilli were present in large numbers, you would be in real trouble.

>holding  the  "bad  guys"  including pathogenic bacteria, virus and fungi -
>in check.

All bacteria *can* be pathogens, even normal flora.

>The  theory  has it that if the balance of bugs in the bowel is knocked out
>for  some  reason,  the  "bad"  guys can get the upper hand, leading to the
>production  of  harmful  toxins  in the bowel, and possible invasion of the
>body  from  an  infectious  "pool" of viruses and hostile bacteria resident
>in  the  gut  -  all of which adds up to what could reasonably be described
>as immune deficiency.

Immune deficiency has nothing to do with what you describe.

>Conventional  concepts  of  immunity  start  at  the  bowel  wall, and work
>inwards,  not  recognizing  the contents of the bowel as part of the immune
>system.

Conventional concepts of immunity start with bone marrow, the lymphatic 
system, white cells in the blood that produce antibodies and absorb
invading organisms, etc.

>Nevertheless,  Dr  Alan  Ebringer  at the Middlesex Hospital has discovered
>that  ankylosing  spondylitis  -  a  painful arthritic disease resulting in
>progressive   stiffening  of  the  joints  

Just the spine.

>-  is  caused  by  a  particular
>bacterium  which  lives in the bowel and feeds  off carbohydrate  residues.

Which particular bacterium?

>The  bacterium  resembles  a  particular  type  of  body tissue, so when it
>enters  the  bloodstream  an  "auto  immune"  reeaction - in which the body
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^
One word - autoimmune.

>attacks   itself   -  is  triggered,  causing  inflammation  and  symptoms.
>Patients  with  this  condition  improve  dramatically  when  put  on a low
>carbohydrate  diet.  

How does it "enter the blood stream"?  Bacteria normally don't just 
"enter the blood stream".  We'd all be dead if it did.  
While this may be the case, it is a large jump in logic to assume that
the bacteria and the carbohydrates in the diet are related to the
clearing up of the condition.  There may be no cause and effect 
relationship or it could affect the autoimmune condition in a totally
different way.  One cannot assume cause and effect just because 
the bacteria eats carbos.

>Some  doctors  now  believe  that  other "auto-immune"
>diseases,  such  as  motor  neurone  disease, myasthenia gravis, rheumatoid
                             ^^^^^^^neuron
>arthritis and some forms of diabetes, could be triggered in a similar way.

Which doctors?  Some but not most?  With what evidence?  

>The  example  of  ankylosing  spondylitis  lends  powerful  support  of the
>notion  that  what goes on in the bowel can cause symptoms elsewhere in the
>body - one which many doctors still find hard to accept.

Only if you accept that evidence and the reason that they find it hard
to accept is that there is little evidence to support it.

>Doctors  at  Addenbrooke's  Hospital, Cambridge, have taken the first steps
>in  redefining  the  term  "food  allergy" in terms of changes in the bowel
>flora.  True  food  allergy  is  caused  by a usually rapid immune-mediated
>response   to   and  offending  food  and  is  probably  quite  rare.  Food
>intolerance,  on  the  other  hand,  tends  to  be a much slower reaction -
>hours  or  even  days = and may involve a food which is eaten regularly and
>in quite large amounts, like wheat or dairy products.

There are enzymes that you can use to help digest the lactose in milk
if you are lactose intolerant.  Lactose intolerance has nothing to do
with an allergy.  It is cause by a lack of an enzyme needed to digest 
the sugar in milk.

>At   Cambridge,   a   relationship   has   been  established  between  food
>intolerance  and  the bowel flora - particularly in patients with irritable
>bowel syndrome.

This would make sense in a *FEW* cases since all that undigested stuff 
ends up in the bowel.  Irritable bowel syndrome is not an autoimmune disease. 
Note that you say earlier that food allergy is rare and then
in the next sentence say, "on the other hand...".  Are you trying to 
imply that food intolerance is not rare?

>It  is  thought that symptoms may be brought on by shifts in the population
>of  bacteria  in the bowel, as particular foods favour the proliferation of
>particular bacteria.

It is *THOUGHT*???  By whom?  With what evidence?  

>The  implications  of this work are that if the reason for these imbalances
>in  the  bowel  flora  can  be found, and the imbalances corrected, a whole
>range  of  chronic  diseases  previously  thought  to be unconnected may be
>successfully treated.

How does this conclusion come about?  By making a bunch of statements that
"create" the evidence and then drawing conclusions from it?

>Practitioners  of  natural  medicine, including some today who use "fringe"
>methods  such  as  colonic  irrigation  and enemas to wash out the bowel as
>part  of  the  treatment  of  any  chronic illness, believe that imbalances
>occur  because  the bowel quite simply becomes "clogged up" with mucous and
>old  faecal  debris  and  is  unable to elminate efficiently. 

Except in old and bedridden people, any kind of "clogging" of fecal material
in the bowel is a pretty absurd notion unless you are constipated...
That *CAN* have a serious effect (on your attitude anyway). ;-)

>As one famous
>naturopath put it: "death begins in the colon".

Which one?  What is his background, other than being "famous"?
And...  What does this have to do with vegetarian food, this 
*IS* rec.*FOOD*.veg isn't it?  

Of course, my followup will probably be dismissed as more Veg bashing
and be considered as a personal attack on the original poster, but
before you try something like this "cleansing and purging" that
is backed up with so much misinformation, CONSULT A REAL DOCTOR!!!!

Sources:  Any Anatomy and Physiology text and any Microbiology text.


Ted Feuerbach - Scientific Systems Consultant
  (Biologist and Medical Technologist, too)
Disclaimer:  Monsanto didn't say this, I did.  
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg