New study showing great results for VSL#3 in degrading oxalate in vivo

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Listmates,

VSL#3 is a high-potency probiotic that has been shown in the study below to

be effective in reducing the absorption of oxalate from the diet.

Choosing this probiotic over others may be most important to those of us

who lost our oxalate-degrading abilities because of the use of antibiotics

that may have successfully killed a specific oxalate-degrading microbe.

This microbe, Oxalobacter formigenes, is an anaerobic bacteria that must

have oxalate to live as the only food on which it can survive. A company is

working on developing oxalobacter as a drug, but they ran into poblems in

their Phase III human trials that made them go back to the drawing board to

change their formulation. That reformulation now may take YEARS to see.

According to the following study,

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=124017

oxalobacter formigenes is killed back by:

chloramphenicol (chloromycetin)

nalidixic acid (no longer used in US)

erythromycin

clarithromycin (Biaxin)

co-amoxiclav (Augmentin)

metronidazole (flagyl)

and doxycycline (the only tetracycline they studied).

At the concentration used in the study, the two strains of oxalobacter they

tested were not killed back by amoxicillin or ampicillin, which is good news.

Others found this important commensal is also killed back by other

macrolides (including the " Z-pack " ) and by tetracyclines and fluroquinolones.

So, that histoy defines those who are most likely good candidates for VSL#3.

You may need to think of the loss of this " good-for-us " microbe in your

system if you saw some big changes develop months after taking these

antibiotics. The reason the problems might take months to appear is that

what might have changed during those months is oxalobacter's ability to

keep oxalate from building up in your tissues very slowly over

time. Oxalate doesn't show its toxicity quickly. It just slowly turns

things off...like many of the enzymes in the mitochondrion that help

generate energy for the cell.

I sitll wonder if this insidious change is why I developed serious bone

marrow problems five months after taking two rounds of

chloramphenicol,. At the time this happened to me in 1967, I had a high

oxalate diet because I loved to eat spinach every day. The months long

delay until the appearance of bone marrow problems became legendary and

widely recognized and is why the use of chloramphenicol became much more

restricted in the late sixties.

But more on VSL#3:...

Even though it can degrade some oxalate, VSL#3 is not going to make a very

high oxalate food or diet low, but it will certainly help in making it

possible to have a little more diet flexibility if you take it daily, as in

this study. It is right now the only useful substitute for oxalobacter,

but there is a big difference. Oxalobacter HAS to EAT oxalate and cannot

metabolize anything else. The microbes in VSL#3, CAN degrade oxalate, but

it is not their favorite or only food, and too much oxalate in their diet

can make them " sick " and not grow and multiply. So nobody should think

taking VSL#3 is going to make it possible to avoid the oxalate in a spinach

smoothie!

The oxalate load test in this study of VSL#3 was 80 mgs, and it reduced

the absorption from 24 mgs to 9 mgs. That doesn't mean that it would be

capable of making much of a dent in a food like spinach, which has about

700 mgs in a serving! If it were capable of degrading 15 mgs. a day, and

not much more than that, you can see it wouldn't even make a dent in the

very high oxalate foods. Even so, if you were trying to keep your oxalates

below 60 mgs a day, that extra 15 mgs. might be worth something in adding

more diet flexibility for medium oxalate foods.

VSL#3 may encourage enteric (gastrointestinal) secretion of oxalate,

disburdening the urinary system. This rerouting of oxalate's secretion can

be very important for the children or adults with urinary symptoms caused

by oxalate

Adults who formerly had a high oxalate diet and what looked like chronic

UTI's have said that the pain and irritation oxalate causes in tissues

feels pretty identical to the pain in confirmed urinary tract

infections. They found, though, that when the irritation was from oxalate,

the urine culture would come back negative. Many of them have said

reducing oxalate was what brought an end to what they thought were chronic

UTI's that had kept them constantly being prescribed antibiotics that would

make the oxalate issues worse.

Dr Liebman, who is one of the two authors of this study on VSL#3, is the

scientist who tests foods for the Autism Oxalate Project.

Some people may find that this product will also lessen gut inflammation

and do wonders for the consistency of the stool. It was developed for

ulcerative colitis and pouchitis.

It also is the only probiotic over the counter that has a proven

effectiveness in degrading oxalate in vitro via the work of Dr. Steve .

Another similar probiotic made by the same company yielded negative results

for degrading oxalate in an earlier study (Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2:

745-749, 2007 ). Their advice from this study is important:

>Because lactic acid bacteria use carbohydrate as their main substrate,

>whereas O. formigenes metabolizes only oxalate, the relative contribution

>of any oxalate utilization by the former may be substantially less.

>

>We do not know that the strain of B. infantis present in Oxadrop is

>similar in its oxalate-degrading properties to a strain of the same

>species that degraded 26.7% of a given amount of oxalate, compared with

>60.6% for a B. lactis strain and 100% for O. formigenes

>(<http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/cgi/content/full/2/4/745#R10>10). In that

>same study, another strain of B. infantis degraded only 4% of the oxalate

>in the culture medium, not much more than the negative control, E. coli.

>Another strain of L. acidophilus has the frc and oxc genes. It is

>interesting that their transcription occurred only when first adapted to

>subinhibitory concentrations of oxalate and then exposed to pH 5.5

>(<http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/cgi/content/full/2/4/745#R11>11). These

>requirements for gene transcription may explain the failure to detect

>previously the genes in Oxadrop strains

>(<http://cjasn.asnjournals.org/cgi/content/full/2/4/745#R3>3). These

>specific and necessary conditions may also represent obstacles in the use

>of these bacteria as therapeutic agents.

>

>Another related preparation of lactic acid bacteria, made by the same

>manufacturer as Oxadrop, is VSL #3. VSL #3 is similar but not identical in

>its lactic acid bacteria selection to Oxadrop. VSL #3 was recently shown

>to be effective in degrading oxalate in vitro, although the specific

>strains that are responsible for this metabolism have not been determined

Just in case you missed what they were saying, it is important to realize

that there are strain differences in the ability to degrade oxalate. That

means even though some lactobacillus acidophilus strains may degrade

oxalate, not all do. For this reason, we really don't know if other

probiotics that weren't tested by Steve have oxalate degrading

capability. He is going to be presenting his data at an oxalate conference

in August.

You can buy VSL#3 from their own website http://www.vsl3.com/ or from some

vendors who cater to autism patients, like www.wellnesshealth.com. A one

month supply (30 packets) is $86 and it has to be shipped quickly and kept

cold.

Just so you know, I have no connection to VSL#3 except for being someone

who uses it and has seen it change many lives for the better!

Urol Res. 2010 Jun;38(3):169-78. Epub 2010 Mar 12.

Probiotic-induced reduction of gastrointestinal oxalate absorption in

healthy subjects.

Okombo J, Liebman M.

Department of Family and Consumer Sciences (Human Nutrition), University of

Wyoming, Dep. 3354, 1000 E. University Avenue, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA.

Abstract

Both a high dietary oxalate intake and increased intestinal absorption

appear to be major causes of elevated urine oxalate, a risk factor for

kidney stone formation. By favorably altering the gastrointestinal

bacterial population, probiotics have the potential to lower oxalate

absorption/urinary excretion. This study assessed whether a 4-wk daily

consumption of a commercially available probiotic by 11 healthy volunteers

(8 females, 3 males), aged 21-36 y, would decrease oxalate absorption. The

study involved the ingestion of a probiotic (VSL#3) for a 4 wk period

followed by a 4 wk washout period. Oxalate load tests, providing a total of

80 mg oxalate, were conducted at baseline (pre-probiotic), and after the

probiotic and washout periods. In the total subject population, mean total

22 h oxalate absorption at baseline (30.8 %) was significantly higher than

after the probiotic (11.6 %) and washout (11.5 %) periods. However, four

subjects identified as high oxalate absorbers at baseline had a

particularly marked probiotic-induced reduction in oxalate absorption,

which largely accounted for the reduction observed in the total subject

population. The overall data suggested that in individuals characterized by

high oxalate absorption levels, VSL#3 ingestion has the potential to reduce

gastrointestinal oxalate absorption, which could decrease risk of kidney

stones and other disorders related to hyperoxaluria.

PMID: 20224931 [PubMed - in process]