NEW Science About Treating Ulcerative Colitis

Below is an email from Bill who doesn’t have UC, but has provided some EXCEEDINGLY VALUABLE information for all of us living with ulcerative colitis.

Please read first what Bill wants to make clear to everyone:

“Feel free to share any information I have provided with the proviso
that you mention that I am not a Doctor and this information is
provided only so that people may share it with their own Doctor.
(Does that cover my butt enough?) Lord knows there is too much
information out there for Doctors to be aware of it all, and a good
Doctor will not be upset when their patient provides them with
breaking research.”-Bill

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Japanese researchers have finally identified a particular bacteria
(Fusobacterium varium) as a cause of UC. This bacteria produces a
substance (butyric acid) that attacks and inflames the bowels.

See here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1773498/

Now that they know which bacteria is causing the problem they have
begun targeting it with antibiotics and are seeing results.

See here:
http://www.thedoctorschannel.com/video/3068.html

Other information on effective antibiotics for this bacteria, drugs
that will block the specific organic acid created by this bacteria,
and drugs to keep it from implanting into the bowel’s mucosa is
available here:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7700106.html

This information does not seem to be widely known, but it should be, darn
it.
-Bill  (Bill’s first email)
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Bill,

That’s some very interesting stuff you emailed me.  Do you also have
ulcerative colitis?  And how did you come across this information in the
first place.  This info is great news!
Regards,
Adam  (my first reply to Bill)

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Hello Adam,

I don’t have UC, but a young man on a message board I frequent was
diagnosed with it and I started digging around for information for
him. I’ve got a Biology/Chemistry background and I’m pretty good with
a google search.

I found your web site early on when I was looking into
probiotics/yogurt so I thought you would appreciate the information.

Let me share some other promising research I found that is being done
in Australia. One of the Doctors (Gastoenterologist Thomas Borody)
who figured out that peptic (stomach) ulcers are caused by bacteria
and not by stress (as was earlier believed to be the case), came up
with the idea to use antibiotics and chemicals to wipe out as many
bacteria in the GI tract as possible and then immediately replace that
with bacteria taken from a healthy donor. I have dubbed this the
“poo” transplant, although Doctor Borody is calling it Human Probiotic
Infusion, which nicely sidesteps the whole poo part.

This is starting to be a standard treatment for another form of
colitus that is caused by an entirely different antibiotic resistant
strain of bacteria. You can read about it from Canada’s CBC here:
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/11/13/fecal-transplant.html

More general information that also applies to UC is found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_bacteriotherapy

Of course, the concept of a poo transplant isn’t one you would bring
up over Thanksgiving dinner with the family, but early trials on UC
patients had results I would call incredible. Read about them here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12811208

This same Doctor also recommends a particular probiotic capsule by
name as something you can try first before jumping to the poo
transplant option. This product is called VSL#3 and appears to be a
high dose of many different probiotic bacteria strains all in one
capsule. The theory is that you crowd out the bad bacteria with high
numbers of good bacteria. The downside is that after you stop taking
the capsules, the levels of these bacteria in your system will slowly
return to normal since they are cultured bacteria and not capable of
reproducing within your gut long term.

Since I went through the trouble of tracking down this information, I
figured that more than one person could benefit from it.

I imagine that your Doctor would be most willing to try the antibiotic
regimen if you provide him a copy of the Japanese research just
published in the August 2010 edition of the American Journal of
Gastoenterology, since Doctors really like prescribing antibiotics.

Here’s a link to the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20216533?dopt=Abstract

I personally think I would have those probiotic capsules Dr. Borody
recommends standing by, and start taking them immediately after you
finish the two weeks of antibiotics.

If all else fails, you can bring up replacing the bacteria in your gut
with a transplant from a healthy family member.

Here’s hoping people with UC don’t have to continue to suffer,

Bill (Bill’s second reply)
—————————————————————–
Hi Bill,
…Anyways, I wanted to ask you if you would give me permission to post your
> email as a posting so everyone on the site can read it.  I think it will
> blow people’s minds.  Please let me know as I’d like to get it up quickly as
> everyday people, mom, and dads are writing asking what to do about this
> nasty disease, and I really don’t have answers for anyone, but this might
> just point them in the right direction…
Best regards,
Adam  (Adam’s second reply)
—————————————————————–
Hello again,

Feel free to share any information I have provided with the proviso
that you mention that I am not a Doctor and this information is
provided only so that people may share it with their own Doctor.
(Does that cover my butt enough?) Lord knows there is too much
information out there for Doctors to be aware of it all, and a good
Doctor will not be upset when their patient provides them with
breaking research.

I’m an big gardening buff and I have learned in my garden the
importance of having a healthy bacterial/fungal ecosystem established
in the garden’s soil for vigorous healthy plants, so I was also
predisposed to think that something had gone wrong with UC sufferer’s
intestinal ecosystem.

I’m afraid my computer has developed a habit of crashing when I play
flash videos. I can’t convince myself that I want to format and
reinstall everything from scratch to see if that fixes the problem, so
I haven’t watched the videos on your site.

However, on the same subject, you might find this article interesting:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080603085914.htm

Especially this section: “Daniel Frank of the University of Colorado,
Boulder, is part of a team that is exploring the role bacterial
communities in the human digestive tract may play in inflammatory
bowel diseases. They are collecting and comparing microbial
communities in samples from people with Crohn’s disease, people with
ulcerative colitis and healthy volunteers.

“Some researchers are looking at the role a specific organism, like E.
coli, might play in the development of inflammatory bowel disease. Our
task was to look more broadly. What are the microbes we see as a whole
in the gut and how might those populations change in relation to
disease”” says Frank.

Instead of any one particular organism associated with inflammatory
bowel diseases, they observed significant shifts in microbial
populations between healthy subjects and those with disease, including
a loss of normally protective bacterial populations.”

I wish you and all the others suffering the best,

Bill  (Bill’s third email)
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Thanks So Much Bill for sharing this information!  This is the first time any of this information has been published on this website, and I hope everyone enjoys reading about the advances that are taking place regarding research and our disease.

If anyone has any feedback or experience with regards to any of this, PLEASE SHARE IT HERE in the comments!!!!

Adam

I started site  shortly after being diagnosed in October of 2008 with severe pancolitis (when my whole colon was inflamed).

For me, it was a very rough start with severe symptoms.  Getting bounced from medication to medication was not easy or too helpful.  But, I did meet another UC’er, changes several parts of my diet, and of course the rest is history.

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