SCD, malabsorption, over / under weight (2)

[Guest guest]

And here is another item in that discussion.....

Okay Marilyn, as always you've

given me something more to chew on..

<snip> I am fascinated with your example of the bread yielding more

calories by malabsorption than it had before it was eaten. I had

breakfast with a nurse friend of mine who is up on nutrition, and I

discussed this with her. She said that Manatech has done extensive

research on malabsorption and thought they'd support your (Elaine's)

position.

For the life of me though, I can't figure out how the whole - bread -

could yield more than the sum of the parts - in the bad bugs' digestion

of the fiber. Would you mind addressing that one more time?

Again, this could be extremely helpful and encouraging to my family as

they typically try the 1,000 cal/day diet. Obesity runs rampant in

my family and our symptoms match yours - we don't eat much but continue

to gain weight. My weight is down now and scd controls it, but the

MINUTE I eat scd legal starches, i.e., butternut squash, I'm sick and I

gain weight.

LOVE THIS LIST!

Cathy,

My husband and I call it " the termite syndrome. " Termites eat

wood. But they don't digest it. Bacteria in their guts breaks down the

wood -- especially the fiber and cellulose.

Protein and carbohydrate has 4 calories per gram; fat has 9 calories per

gram. (BTW, error on my part -- a slice of whole wheat bread is around 70

calories.)

But " calorie " is a measure of the amount of energy a healthy

digestive system can get out of a piece of food.

Fecal matter is, in part, composed of all the stuff we can't

digest.

If the digestive system is NOT healthy, and if, for instance, most of the

12 or so grams of carbohydrate in that slice of bread go to feed the bad

bacteria, and those bacteria turn around and break down all the stuff

that would normally be excreted into easily absorbed fatty acids and

such, not only are they making it possible for themselves, and other

bacteria to wildly reproduce, those fatty acids are readily absorbed by

the gut, putting much more calories into your system.

But -- no matter what the bacteria do, they can't increase the amounts of

certain nutrients in the food. (An exception is the bacteria which

produce B12 in our guts.)

So, here you are, absorbing all these fatty acids and which can be

doubled or tripled from what's in the bread. Remember, carbs, and

proteins are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. (Hence, CARB O HYDRATE) If the

bacteria grab bits of stuff from elsewhere in the gut, and recombine it

with what they get from the undigested bread, they create those extra

calories.

Moreover, when you are sick and weak, you aren't going to get up and move

around, and that contributes to your failure to use up the calories.

But you aren't getting the vitamins you need, and your system says,

" eat more, eat more! " because despite all the calories you're

absorbing, the nutrients aren't there. If the nutrients aren't there,

your system says, " OMG! It's a famine! " and promptly starts

packing away everything it can, as well as lowering your metabolism. So,

you gain. And you're hungry all the time.

And you eat more, and perpetuate the vicious cycle, because you provide

more fodder for the bad bacteria.

I'm attaching a scan from my passport, taken in 2001, just before I began

SCD, and another scan, in 2005, at my parents' 60th anniversary. The

passport scan is real fuzzy -- but it should be clear enough to show the

health differences. Hurricane Katrina rather screwed up my weight-loss

program, so I'm only about 30 pounds lighter now than I was in the 2005

picture, but she didn't screw up my health!

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

2 of 2 Photo(s)

MLA2001.jpg