Cabbage is NOT a source of oxalobacter formigenes...and why....

[Guest guest]

Listmates,

When I sent this out to various listserves a few weeks ago, I misspelled

mb12 valtrex by leaving off the .com and just discovered it! I wanted to be

sure you saw this information....

=====

Several people have brought to my attention that the following suggestion

is being broadcast on the internet. and perhaps you've seen it.

>/ have given permission for this to be passed on.

>

>> recently emerged from studying to send me the details of way to

>>degrade oxalates even better than VSL#3. I was excited because I know

>>several kids can't handle the VSL#3 and, of course, it's so awfully

>>expensive! I will just quote from her two messages below:

>>>

>>>make...carrot-apple-cabbage juice about twice a week. Oxalobacter

>>>formigenes, the bacteria that breaks down oxalate the best, lives on

>>>cabbage and by juicing cabbage leaves you can implant it into [the]

>>>colon. It's much better at degrading oxalate than VSL#3 is. The oral

>>>Epsom salts flushes oxalate out of the cells; the body deposits it into

>>>the intestines for disposal; and the cabbage bacteria break it down.

>>>It's a neat, clean solution to the oxalate issue - there's absolutely no

>>>need whatsoever to go on a low-oxalate diet. "

After I received this, I sent this same quote to Milt , the

microbiologist who discovered this microbe 25 years ago and devoted his

entire career to studying it. I spent a lot of time talking to Dr.

before we started the Autism Oxalate Project at ARI.

This is what he said people need to know: (more comments below)

..

>The only known natural habitats for the oxalate-degrading bacterium,

>Oxalobacter formigenes, are anaerobic portions of the gastrointestinal

>tract (rumen, or cecum and colon) of humans and various herbivores and

>also anaerobic sediments of aquatic systems. O. formigenes is a strict

>anaerobe. This means that it will not survive for long and will not grow

>on plant or soil surfaces exposed to air. Habitats for O. formigenes are

>also limited because it has an absolute requirement for oxalate as a

>growth substrate. If viable O. formigenes cells are found on vegetation,

>I believe that the most probable explanation would be that the vegetation

>was contaminated with fecal material.

>

>

>Milton J.

>Affiliate Prof. Dept. of Animal Science

>Iowa State University

>Ames, IA 50011

>

> MJ, Dawson KA, Mayberry WR, Foss JG (1985) Oxalobacter

> formigenes gen. nov., sp. nov.: oxalate-degrading anaerobes that inhabit

> the gastrointestinal tract. Arch Microbiol 141:1-7

>

When I first had someone send me 's new theory this week, someone

told me she had found a Russian study that made think juicing

cabbage would work but I was told she couldn't relocate that study. I

tried to find something like that, but the only thing I could find was a

study about packaged lettuce contaminated with pseudomonas that also

contained an unidentified oxalobacter species. These packages are sealed

to keep out oxygen which is why they can be a breeding ground for some

anaerobes and it is probably why packaged spinach was recalled a few years

ago that was contaminated by e.coli, that probably also came from feces.

This is a problem with this sort of packaging! Animals in the field can

certainly relieve themselves in such a way that it contaminates

vegetables! This is one good reason I'm opting to buy and wash my lettuce

myself.

The reason this bacteria is found in the gut of herbivores or omnivores, is

that all plants contain some oxalate, so eating plants is how you get high

enough levels of oxalate in the gut to feed this microbe, but carnivores

would not be getting enough from meat.

The more that the basic scientists work in this area the more obvious it is

that our intestines are designed to handle the amounts of oxalate found in

most plant foods when the gut is well, and the flora is healthy, but when

the gut is not well (leaky or inflamed), then oxalate becomes a problem as

it crosses into the blood, disrupting the functions of secretory organs

where you find the oxalate transporters...like the gut, kidney, pancreas,

lungs, thyroid, and most probably the adrenal glands where the highest

density of oxalate has been found in studies monitoring where labeled

oxalate collects.

Scientists recently learned that Oxalobacter may have trouble surviving in

those who have high blood oxalate levels. Dr. Marguerite Hatch found that

in rats with genetic hyperoxaluria, where the levels of oxalate in blood

plasma get high, that innoculating those rats with oxalobacter formigenes

yielded a temporary reduction in urine oxalate, but to their surprise, the

microbe could not survive in their intestines. It had no trouble surviving

longterm in the intestines of normal rats. This may mean that once your

plasma oxalate is high, that the way the transporters in the gut are

modified by this imbalance may change the intestinal handling of oxalate in

such a way that the microbe cannot grow and protect you from new dietary

oxalate. There will, of course, be more research in this area which I hope

will determine if it matters if the oxalate in blood got there for other

reasons.

Just know that the higher the oxalate level is in the diet the higher

percentage of that oxalate is absorbed. That means that reducing oxalate

has some geometric advantages!

Because so many came to LOD after SCD or a high oxalate version of gf/cf,

they were the ones who had the terrible symptoms because they had in the

past absorbed high levels of oxalate in their previous diet. People who

do LOD first don't have such a severe onset of symptoms and this is why a

gluten free low oxalate diet may be the best first diet for those with

autism and it may make it possible to keep milk and dairy in the diet as

well as complex carbs. For more information

see: www.lowoxalate.info/papers/mechanisms.html .

Just to remind people, the low oxalate diet is NOT an elimination diet and

that makes it different from g/f c/f and SCD. If oxalobacter formigenes is

in the gut, we don't want to totally remove its only food. This is why LOD

is a diet that reduces the amount of oxalate in the diet to only half of

what is in a normal diet by preferring to eat plants that are lower in

oxalate. This strategy appears to be enough to induce a release of stored

oxalate from the rest of the body IF it is there. If excess oxalate is NOT

stored in the body, reducing oxalate should be a non-event.

Hopefully, in the next year, we will have a test offered commercially to

tell you if you have oxalobacter formigenes living in the gut, and this

will tell you whether you should avoid diets that increase dietary oxalate,

like SCD and some interpretations of g/f c/f. If you would like to learn

which foods that may be introduced on the gluten free and casein free diets

are high oxalate, please join Trying_Low_Oxalate .

I hope it is clear from reading Dr. 's comment that you will NOT

find oxalobacter formigenes in the cabbage that you buy at the grocery

store or the farmer's market unless those veggies are dangerously

contaminated with feces and have been stored where anaerobes can

grow...that is, without oxygen..

I'd be glad to answer any questions, and I'm also hoping to hear feedback

from the scientist who has been working about ten years on developing an

encapsulation of oxalobacter that protects it from oxygen so that it can be

taken orally to degrade oxalate.

Best wishes,

Owens

Head of the Autism Oxalate Project at ARI

[Guest Karen]

Hi

Thanks for your informative answer. What you're saying basically is that atm the only real way to get Oxalobacter formigenes is to remove it from a healthy gut, and transfer it to the depleted one. (Unfortunately this is a very expensive exercise - whether you pay the medical profession to do it, or do it yourself with have some donations from healthy friends etc. - still need to have your friends samples tested as well. Even then there's no guarantee the bacteria will take and a repeat procedure/s may be necessary. )

It is now 2018 and I still cannot buy any supplements with Oxalobacter formigenes other than from India and this even requires a prescription. (I presume this is because it cannot live outside the gut, so I'm guessing they have found a way to stablize it and keep it alive in some way.)

I'd like to know how far this research is advancing. Surely after this long, (nearly 8 years) there'd be some clear answers emerging.