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Part 2

BIO/TECH NEWS

Inside Information on Important Innovations in BioScience and Technology

What Mom Never Told You
A Brief Primer On Intestinal Flora

"The friendly bacteria in your bowels have far-reaching effects you've probably never dreamed of. These hard working organisms produce a variety of substances that can: prevent cancerous tumors; inactivate viruses; produce natural antibodies and vitamins; reduce cholesterol --- and new research has linked these bacteria to even more wonders." Dr. David Williams

Mom probably never told you this, but from the moment you began passing through her birth canal during labor, your body began coming into contact with, and picking up, a host of beneficial bacterial microorganisms. These beneficial bacteria, which are absolutely essential to proper human function, entered your body through your mouth as you passed through the birth canal. From there, they rapidly made their way into your intestinal tract, where they established themselves in large colonies. As you might guess, mother's milk contains just the right ingredients to nourish these friendly bacteria once they become established in your intestines.

The above-described event is the foundation of what you might call your "intestinal flora." In short, these beneficial microorganisms, which begin invading your body during the birth process, soon become an integral part of your gastrointestinal ecology. Once established, they go to work performing or stimulating a number of important functions, including:

  • Enhancing the function of your entire gastrointestinal tract;
  • Protecting your body against pathogenic or otherwise harmful foreign invaders;
  • Maintaining the vital chemical balance of your entire gastrointestinal system:
  • Producing needed vitamins and hormones, and regulating their levels; and,
  • Performing a mind-boggling array of other essential tasks necessary to achieving and maintaining proper human growth, function and immune response.

As Dr. David Williams states in his report, LIFE EXTENSION --- 10 SIMPLE STEPS TO ACHIEVING YOUR MAXIMUM LIFESPAN: "If you have a healthy intestinal tract, you have over 400 different species of microorganisms living there. They make up approximately two pounds of your body weight!" [Emphasis ours --- Ed.]

Williams goes on to explain, "In the stomach itself, very few of these organisms are able to survive because of the acidity. In fact there may be as few as 10 to 100 organisms in every milliliter of stomach content. In the small intestine there might be anywhere from 100 to 1,000 organisms per milliliter. As you reach the junction between the small and large intestines, the numbers begin to grow dramatically. In the large intestine (colon) as many as one trillion organisms per milliliter are common."

 

Additional Benefits From Intestinal Microorganisms

The health-promoting activities of lacto-bacilli working in conjunction with other species of beneficial intestinal microorganisms "native" to the human body include:

  • Stimulating the immunologic activity of the spleen and thymus.
  • Creating a protective barrier against the invasion of harmful microorganisms by colonizing and coating the intestinal mucosa.
  • Competing with undesirable organisms for nutrients, thereby helping keep their spread in check.
  • Aiding in the production of beneficial natural anti-biotic substances such as acidophillin, bifidin, hydrogen peroxide, and more.
  • Breaking down carbohydrates, fats and proteins, while rendering their toxic by-products inert.
  • Aiding in the fermentation of soluble fiber, which yields shortchain fatty acids, supplying a full five to ten percent of human energy needs.
  • Increasing the bioavailability of calcium, and thereby helping prevent osteoporosis, shingles and other debilitating ailments.
  • And much more!

 

Microbial Imbalances and Disease

Clearly, the lacto-bacilli and hundreds of other species of beneficial microorganisms inhabiting your intestines play a vital role in keeping your body healthy and strong. Nonetheless, they live a precarious existence. Their balance in your body can be completely disrupted by such common things as a diet that's too high in sugar, or one that's too low in natural soured milk products like yogurt, cottage cheese, whey, buttermilk, etc.

Excessive alcohol intake can also disrupt your body's balance of these much-needed microbes. So can drinking fluoridated and chlorinated water!

Also deleterious to this important microbial balance are radiation therapy and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) like Motrin, Advil, Nuprin, Rufin, Medipren, Midol, etc.

Worse yet, taking prescription antibiotics can wipe out virtually every beneficial microorganism in your body. That's because the antibiotics can't distinguish between harmful bacteria and beneficial bacteria. They kill virtually ALL bacteria, producing a condition commonly referred to as "sterile gut."

Unfortunately, once the beneficial microorganisms are wiped out, and you've stopped using the antibiotics, it is then much easier for harmful microorganisms to step in and establish large colonies in your intestines, and contribute to a huge number of potentially devastating ill-health conditions in your body. Therefore, if you've ever had to take long-term or even standard sessions of antibiotic therapy, it is quite possible that your body's balance of beneficial intestinal microorganisms has become seriously compromised.

Medical experts now assert that inadequate levels of beneficial intestinal microorganisms are directly associated with the following ill-health conditions:

  • chronic fatigue
  • rashes and other skin conditions
  • allergies
  • poor immune response to common illnesses
  • poor immune response to chronic degenerative disease
  • rapid onset of osteoporosis
  • frequent diarrhea
  • frequent intestinal gas
  • frequent constipation
  • chronic bladder infections
  • chronic vaginal infections
  • severe bruising problems
  • high cholesterol levels
  • vitamin B deficiencies
  • dairy product sensitivities
  • chronic anemia
  • candida infections
  • low sex hormones
  • breast enlargement in men
  • prostate trouble
  • increased menstrual complaints
  • intensified PMS symptoms
  • hormonal imbalances
  • chronic bad breath
  • and many other conditions

Fortunately, these conditions can often be prevented from occurring simply by supplementing your diet with food products that are rich in beneficial intestinal microorganisms. As we've mentioned earlier, ingesting such dairy foods as cultured yogurt, buttermilk, cottage cheese, whey and other soured-milk food products will help maintain your body's proper balance of vital gastrointestinal flora. Virtually all nutritionists today acknowledge that these particular food products should be ingested regularly for this very reason.

 

Using Other Beneficial Microorganisms
to Dramatically Improve Health

Today, millions of people nationwide know about the proven health benefits that can be gained by supplementing and maintaining the human body's native population of beneficial intestinal microorganisms. Whether through the use of cultured soured-milk food products like yogurt, or through the use of specially developed bacilli supplements, it is now abundantly clear that maintaining your body's natural balance of intestinal microorganisms is one of the primary keys to maximizing your long-term health and well-being.

What most people don't realize, however, is that there are numerous other beneficial microorganisms in existence which have been proven to dramatically benefit the human body even though they are not native to the human body's normal intestinal flora.

As Dr. Peter Rothschild, one of the world's foremost experts on human immune response and its relation to beneficial microorganisms, recently emphasized to us: "It's a crying shame that most health-minded Americans today have been brainwashed into thinking that their beloved holy St. Acidophilus is the only microorganism that can benefit their health. In truth, there are many bacterial microorganisms in existence which can stimulate phenomenal health and immune system benefits when ingested as dietary supplements --- even though they are in no way indigenous to the human system."

 

The Bacillus Subtilis Story

Dr. Rothschild backed up his point by telling us the story of the discovery of the Bacillus subtilis, a bacterial microorganism that is commonly found in the environment rather than in humans, yet is well known by modern science to be very friendly to the human system. It can promote dramatic healing benefits in humans, even though it isn't one of the native microbes that normally inhabit the human body. According to Dr. Rothschild, the story of Bacillus subtilis goes like this:

The bacillus subtilis was discovered by the Nazi German medical corps in 1941, toward the end of their African campaign. At the time, the German military victory was at its height. But the German high command became genuinely alarmed when hundreds upon hundreds of soldiers in North Africa suddenly began dying every week. Oddly, the Nazi soldiers weren't dying because of British General Montgomery's retaliatory bombs and shrapnel, but instead, they were dying of uncontrollable dysentery.

Of course, the Germans were aware that dysentery was caused by pathogenic (i.e. disease-causing) bacteria from local food and water sources. But in those days, there were no antibiotics. Sulfur was already on the market, but only in a topical non-ingestible form. So with no medication available with which to stop the plague of dysentery, the Nazis quickly began looking for other means to help their dying soldiers.

The German high command immediately sent out a contingent of scientists, physicians, chemists, biochemists, bacteriologists and other experts to help solve the problem. With typical German circumspection, these top experts reasoned that there must be a natural way to counteract the deadly bacteria causing the dysentery because, if there wasn't, the millions of Arabs living in the region would have been dead long ago.

Therefore, the Germans' first step was to closely scrutinize the native Arabs, and see whether or not they were affected by dysentery. What they discovered was that the Arabs also caught dysentery, but at the first sign of diarrhea [the #1 symptom of dysentery --- Ed.] the Arabs would do something quite incredible: They would immediately begin following around a horse or camel until it would drop its dung. Then, the affected Arab would pick up the warm dung droppings, and quickly gulp them down! This strange procedure effectively eliminated the dysentery almost overnight.

Once the good hygienic Germans finally recovered from the shock of seeing the Arab natives gulping down warm camel dung, they quickly realized that there must be something in the dung that somehow counteracted the harmful bacteria that caused the dysentery. They questioned the Arabs, who told them that they had no idea why it worked, but that their fathers had always done so, as had their forefathers, and it had always worked. The only caveat was that the camel or horse dung had to be ingested while still warm and fresh, because it had no effect on the dysentery if ingested cold.

So the Nazis began carefully examining fresh camel and horse dung. What they discovered was that it was teeming with a powerful bacterial microorganism which later came to be called Bacillus subtilis. This bacteria, it turned out, is so strong that it practically cannibalizes all harmful microorganisms in the human body --- particularly pathogenic bacteria like the virulent strain which was causing dysentery in the German troops.

Within a very short time, the Nazis began producing hundreds and thousands of gallons of active Bacillus subtilis cultures for their troops to ingest. And bingo, no more dysentery! Soon afterwards, the Germans even discovered the process by which the Bacillus subtilis cultures could be dried and placed into easily ingestible capsules. From that time forward, the resourceful Germans had no more problems with losing troops from dysentery.

 

Still Benefiting Health-Savvy Individuals

For many years afterwards, cultures of Bacillus subtilis were sold worldwide as a medicinal product (sold in the U.S. and Mexico, for example, under the brand name Bacti-Subtil) rapidly becoming the world's leading treatment for dysentery and other intestinal problems. Unfortunately for Americans, this popular bacterial supplement that cures intestinal infections began losing favor in the late 1950's and 1960's, upon the advent of synthetic antibiotics which were heavily touted by the giant pharmaceutical companies as "wonder drugs," even though they cost five times as much as Bacti-Subtil, and took three times longer to accomplish the same results.

Nonetheless, Bacillus subtilis remains one of the most potent and beneficial of all health-promoting and immune-stimulating bacteria. According to clinical studies documented in the medical research report, IMMUNOSTIMULATION BY BACILLUS SUBTILIS PREPARATIONS, by micro-biologist J. Harmann, the cell wall components of ingested Bacillus Subtilis are able to activate nearly all systems of the human immune defense, including the activation of at least three specific antibodies (IgM, IgG and IgA secretion) which are highly effective against many of the harmful viruses, fungi and bacterial pathogens which regularly attempt to invade and infect the human system.

Bacillus subtilis is still used widely today in Germany, France and Israel, where safe, effective all-natural therapeutic products are more highly esteemed by the health-savvy public than the more expensive synthetic drugs espoused by the orthodox medical establishment with all of their dangerous side effects.

In short, the incredible Bacillus subtilis, which is commonly found in the outside environment rather than in the human intestinal system, continues to benefit mankind ever since its unusual discovery by the Germans in 1941. What's more, it is only one small example of the multitude of "friendly" microorganisms which can create tremendous benefits for humans when ingested, even though they are not necessarily "native" microorganisms to the human body.

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Page last updated 8/16/99