Re: Bifidus -- Good or Bad?

[Guest guest]

Chris-

I believe I actually posted a study here awhile ago. Bifidus

persisting into adulthood is associated with increased rates of colon

cancer. If you Onibasu the archives, you should find it. Out here

in L.A. with this godawful laptop as my only computer, I'm cut off

from those of my research archives which survived the death of my PC

and the switch to a Mac.

>> Could someone -- Emma, , or someone else -- who opposes bifidus

>> please present the case against it, however briefly, with a few

>> supportive references?

>>

>> Preferably that do not involve the phrase " Elaine says... "

[Guest guest]

--- Idol <Idol@...> wrote:

> I believe I actually posted a study here awhile ago. Bifidus

> persisting into adulthood is associated with increased rates of

> colon cancer. If you Onibasu the archives, you should find it.

, is this the reference? <the new search is fast>

/message/75238

Colby-

>, have you done any microbiology analysis?

I don't have the budget for it at the moment, but at some point I'd

like to.

I'm really skeptical of the value of bifida, though. There's some

research which associates bifidus persisting into adulthood with bowel

disease and bowel cancer, and bifidus tends to overgrow pretty

readily. From another list:

>Intestinal Floras of Populations That Have a High Risk of Colon >Cancer

>

>APPLIED AND ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY, Sept. 1995, p. 3202-3207 Vol.

>61, No. 9

>

>The study finds that populations with the highest colon cancer risk

>have a higher number of bifido bacteria than populations with the

>lowest risk. The authors were very surprised at this result since

>bifido bacteria is a " good " bacteria. Of course this is an

>epidemiology study (which always have flaws) but combined with

>Elaine's knowledge on the subject sends a powerful warning in my

>mind.

I don't have the abstract itself at hand, but I've been avoiding

yoghurt starter with bifidus, and I found that probiotics with bifidus

(which generally include a preponderance of bifidus, I believe because

it's cheap and easy to grow) tend to bother me.

-

[Guest guest]

,

> I believe I actually posted a study here awhile ago. Bifidus

> persisting into adulthood is associated with increased rates of colon

> cancer. If you Onibasu the archives, you should find it. Out here

> in L.A. with this godawful laptop as my only computer, I'm cut off

> from those of my research archives which survived the death of my PC

> and the switch to a Mac.

This is the study you posted:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed & pubmedid=7574628

As you can see in table 6, what they found was that of the

bifidobacteria they reported, they were able to culture it, using the

culture methods they used, in 7.11% of fecal samples in polyp

patients, who have a high risk of colon cancer, 7.22% of samples taken

from Japanese-Hawaiians, to whom they also attributed a high risk of

colon cancer, 4.89% of samples taken from caucasians, to whom they

attribute an intermediate risk of colon cancer, 6.68% of samples taken

from rural native Japanese, to whom they attribute a low risk of colon

cancer, and 2.98% of native rural Africans, to whom they attribute an

equally low risk of colon cancer.

I have trouble understanding why the total counts of bifidus are so

low. In any case, the *incidence* of total bifidus is essentially the

same in the polyp patients, Japanese-Hawaiians and rural native

Japanese even though the former two are considered high-risk and the

latter is considered low-risk, and the caucasions have lower incidence

of bifidus than the Japanese, even though they are considered higher

risk.

So I don't see any clear relationship at all.

The two species of bifidus that were responsible for the high bifidus

incidence among high-risk populations were B. longum and B. angulatum.

The latter was found in 2.12% of samples taken from high-risk polyp

patients and 0.69% of samples taken from rural Japanese and none of

samples taken from rural Africans. The former was found in 1.57% of

samples taken from polyp patients versus 0.38% of samples taken from

rural Japanese and none of rural Africans (though was found in the

higher incidence of 2.64% of samples taken from caucasians to whom the

authors attribute an intermediate risk, not a higher risk).

By contrast, other bifidus species were more common in low-risk groups

or had no relationship. B. adolescentis was found in 5.53% of samples

taken from rural Japanese versus 3.05% of samples taken from polyp

patients. B. bifidum has no apparent relationship.

Given that the study was a retrospective population study that looked

not at the concentration of bifidus species in relation to the risk of

the person, but the incidence within the group in relation to the risk

within the group, and found that most samples from polyp patients did

not have any of the species they were looking at, I don't really see

anything remotely conclusive about this study.

There are some animal experiments where feeding inulin decreases colon

cancer and increases lactobacillus and bifidus species, but I don't

think there are human trials published yet (though I found an

experimental protocol of one that is under way published).

I'm having trouble understanding why most people did not appear to

have bifidus or lactobacillus species at all according to this study.

The highest incidence for total lactobacillus species is just over 4%

of fecal samples taken from rural Japenese and rural Africans. My

understanding is that everyone has bifidus and lactobacillus species,

so I'm not sure how to interpet this.

Chris

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