Malabsorption and Leaky Gut 245active residues will be reduced to harmless smaller molecules.
Eliminating unsafe foods, using this personalized approach, will
also reduce bowel inflammation. So it will tend to improve through time.
Other correctable pathology to look for includes parasites. Giardia,
cryptosporidium, worms, amebas and flukes all inflame the gut wall and will
tend to create permeability. These are far from rare. Indeed, Dr. William
P. Stuppy, a Harvard trained gastroenterologist and pathologist gave a
paper at the 2006 Annual Scientific Meeting of The American College of
Gastroenterology with some worrying figures. For people with abdominal
complaints, even mild, or just fatigue, sleeplessness and vague rashes, he
was finding parasites. Lots of ’em.
In fact he found that among 672 patients, they shared a total of
2210 parasite infections. That means some individuals had two or more
parasites.
The critters he found were as follows:
Cryptosporidium parvum: 243
Amoeba histolytica: 213
Helicobacter pylori: 212
Giardia lamblia: 163
Clostridium difficile: 114 (related to gangrene and botulism)
Blastocystis hominis: 41
Ascaris lumbricoides, a common and vicious roundworm: 64
Taenia soleum, the pork tapeworm: 32
Trichinella spiralis, the pork tissue worm that literally crawls through
your body: 23It is interesting that Cryptosporidium is the commonest and affects 1/3rd
of patients. Five percent had the pork tapeworm, which can be pretty
gruesome. The first sign some patients have of its presence is a wriggling
strap that flops from the anus.
The important point of the study is that it shows that nasty parasites
are a common cause in anyone with gastrointestinal complaints that check
out negative on endoscopy and all the usual tests. I would add fatigue of
all kinds, including Lyme’s and fibromyalgia. I used to find lots of these
animals in my allergy practice back in the UK. An individual can become
allergic to the parasites they are carrying, making the picture sometimes very
complex.
Stuppy used a very simple saliva test for estimating parasites load.
This technique, run by Diagnos-Techs lab, in Washington, gives an accurate