Re: Warning about Dangers of Inulin

[Guest guest]

Greetings one and all!!!

I am happy to say that I now am able to get online at

a regular rate!!

So, I am now back as a regular moderator.

One of the first things that I must say to everyone as

this ongoing conversation about Inulin is getting

ready to move up a step or two...

Please be kind to each other so we can all heal,learn

and grow from shared understanding and wisdom.

I personally have been eating off and on huge amounts

of onions and garlic raw and sauteed and have never

once had a problem like the ones mentioned by Chris.

(I am sorry you went thru that experience and it left

you sour on raw garlic and onions!!!)

I often spoke of this on the bowel list.

I think that many times the things that we find

uncomfortable are really a part of the whole healing

process...we are not always going to feel 100% as we

go down the road to better health.

Well that is my two cents...that will not even come

close to paying the tax on gas!

More to say but I will have to wait a bit!

yours in good health

nieema

PPD Push the Positive Daily!

I hope this message finds you and yours in the

best of Health and Spirit.

Our Health is Our Responsibility

http://a-healing-village.com

Have a look, see some of the new information.

nieema

[Guest guest]

On 9/10/05, nieema <nieema0@...> wrote:

> I personally have been eating off and on huge amounts

> of onions and garlic raw and sauteed and have never

> once had a problem like the ones mentioned by Chris.

> (I am sorry you went thru that experience and it left

> you sour on raw garlic and onions!!!)

Hi Nieema,

I'm new... nice to meet you.

I didn't mean to suggest that everyone would have that type of

experience, but it certainly suggests to me that I was wrong in

thinking the inulin in garlic and onions would help feed good bacteria

and help heal bowel problems.

I think that it's probably that depending on the mix of organisms an

individual has in her or his gut, different things will act

differently. That said, it seems like lots of people have lots of

trouble when they take inulin (if they have severe bowel problems),

whereas so far the only person I've seen claim that it has positive

effects is selling it. I'm willing to give that person's arguments a

fair judgment and that is, essentially, exactly what I did when I

thought I'd experiment with inulin-rich foods.

Asli recently asked about her becoming intolerant suddenly to three

common oils, and perhaps that has something to do with the fact that

she'd recently started taking inulin and psyllium husk. I don't know.

But where are the people who take it themselves, who truly have severe

bowel problems, who are experiencing great recoveries from it?

In any case, I didn't write the post even to claim that people will

definitely have a bad reaction to it-- but just to make folks aware,

who might not have known, that large numbers of people out of those

who've tried it on Healing Crow and elsewhere have had very, very bad

experiences with inulin.

People who hear of it first on this list should know that before they

decide to take it.

Chris

--

Want the other side of the cholesterol story?

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[Guest guest]

> One study

> actually regarded increased volume of farting as a positive!

apparently has an agenda against inulin; Inulin SHOULD

increase farting -- the byproduct of an active lactobacilli

culture is carbon dioxide gas. It IS positive

> And of course there's the small but not isolated anecdotal evidence of

> everyone's disastrous experience with Crow's inulin on the Healing Crow

> list. _Nobody_ reported a positive outcome from trying it.

I think only one person in the SCD dogma group Healing Crow tried long-

chain inulin for three days, and the gas put him off. Inulin has helped

hundreds of people at this point, but one has to take it for more than 3 days.

People who have had chrohn's disease for example do very well with it.

> While I haven't tried supplemental purified inulin and frankly don't

> intend to, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to eat a lot

> of garlic and onions so the natural inulin that these foods are rich in

> would act as a beneficial prebiotic.

That's true but when you work it out, " several servings a day " of such

high-inulin containing foods are required to provide enough inulin,

just as the research recommends. And because it's from natural sources

it is associated with higher levels of natural sugars and FOS, both of

which are known to be problematic because they feed yeast and bad

bowel bacteria. However, it is the time-honoured method and it works.

> Boy was I wrong. I ate a meal with lots of garlic and onions, and had the

> first meal I digested horribly since the last time I ate nuts, and I'm

> still feeling the effects a little about 28 hours later.

>

> I know for a fact this had nothing to do with the sugar in the onions,

> because I can eat comparable amounts of sugar from honey with no problems.

> So it had to be the fiber in the garlic and onions-- that is, the inulin.

> (3 onions and a half a head of garlic, sauteed.)

It didn't have to be the inulin; obviously a guess doesn't have a place

in analyses; much better work has been accomplished and definitive

results recorded in the research. It could have been the

specific sugars or something else that upset his stomach.

> I got lots of rumbling, and had the most acrid farts I've had since

> before I did my two-week fast.

This may be a clue; acrid farts are not a product of inulin. The bacteria

that produce acrid farts don't use inulin, and the bacteria that do use

inulin do not produce acrid farts.

> Since the fast, and especially my

> antifungal treatment, my bowel movements have had almost no smell, and the

> gas, while initially increased, has decreased a lot, and never smells bad.

> But after this onion-rich meal I couldn't even stand the smell of my

> farts myself, and the quality of my stools the next day went from

> previously great to pathetic, and I felt like there was nasty things going

> on in my gut for half of today. I think the effect is waning, but I'm

> certainly going to throw away or find someone else to eat the two bags of

> onions I bought!

>

> I'm also going to start juicing my garlic instead of eating the

> cloves, becuase I'm convinced by the effects of the high amount of

> inulin that even low doses will slow my healing down.

>

> Just my experience-- but it looks like lots of people have had much

> worse problems with supplemental inulin.

>

> Chris

Sorry about your luck but most of the bad stories are speculation,

regrettably a frequent occurrence on the Healing Crow list. I have lots of

glowing testimonials about the inulin restoring bowel order.

In fact, just two people out of 800 reported no positive results after

increasing inulin in their diet for a month. That's hardly " lots " . Dysbiosis is

not something you can fix overnight, and the gas resolves, just like the

research points out.

Duncan Crow

[Guest guest]

Hi Nieema,

> I personally have been eating off and on huge amounts

> of onions and garlic raw and sauteed and have never

> once had a problem like the ones mentioned by Chris.

> (I am sorry you went thru that experience and it left

> you sour on raw garlic and onions!!!)

>

> I often spoke of this on the bowel list.

I think I addressed that before I got to your post. undoubtably

has problems that are unrelated to the inulin. What you're doing

is the same technique that has been practiced for thousands of

years to correct and maintain bowel ecology. I didn't write this to

but if someone has a problem with onions and garlic, try

Jerusalem Artichoke root, dandelion root and greens, chicory root

and greens (Belgian Endive) or some of the other high inulin-

containing foods like burdock.

Onions and garlic have polysaccharides in them that are unrelated

to inulin, that may present a problem, and we have less control

when we use natural products. The purity of a refined inulin makes

the approach much more controlled and thus less is left to the

imagination.

Duncan Crow

[Guest guest]

On 9/11/05, duncancrow@... <duncancrow@...> wrote:

> > One study

> > actually regarded increased volume of farting as a positive!

>

> apparently has an agenda against inulin; Inulin SHOULD

> increase farting -- the byproduct of an active lactobacilli

> culture is carbon dioxide gas. It IS positive

Do you have any references for the positive association of flatulence

with any known parameters of robust health?

Until I see some evidence, this appears on the face of it absurd.

Everyone I've ever met who eats an unconscionable diet farts a lot, or

people with gut problems (unless their gas is being retained), and I

farted much more when I ate a vegetarian diet, when my health was much

worse.

> > And of course there's the small but not isolated anecdotal evidence of

> > everyone's disastrous experience with Crow's inulin on the Healing Crow

> > list. _Nobody_ reported a positive outcome from trying it.

>

> I think only one person in the SCD dogma group Healing Crow tried long-

> chain inulin for three days, and the gas put him off. Inulin has helped

> hundreds of people at this point, but one has to take it for more than 3

> days.

> People who have had chrohn's disease for example do very well with it.

I can't make a claim one way or another. It seems that numerous

people have reported having, or others having, bad experiences with

long-chain inulin and I haven't yet heard from someone with severe

dysbiosis who has claimed that long-chain inulin. I've seen you claim

this, and that's it-- but I haven't done a comprehensive investigation

of the issue, so, rather than making a claim one way or the other I'm

just alerting people's attention to the fact that there are quite a

few people claiming to have bad experiences with inulin.

> > While I haven't tried supplemental purified inulin and frankly don't

> > intend to, for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to eat a lot

> > of garlic and onions so the natural inulin that these foods are rich in

> > would act as a beneficial prebiotic.

>

> That's true but when you work it out, " several servings a day " of such

> high-inulin containing foods are required to provide enough inulin,

> just as the research recommends. And because it's from natural sources

> it is associated with higher levels of natural sugars and FOS, both of

> which are known to be problematic because they feed yeast and bad

> bowel bacteria. However, it is the time-honoured method and it works.

Right, so I can't make a claim about purified inulin based on these

foods. However, your assertion that inulin can't feed these same

yeasts and pathogenic bacteria that shorter-chain FOS can does not

seem plausible, since the inulin will be broken down and then become

metabolically available to the yeasts and pathogenic bacteria.

> > Boy was I wrong. I ate a meal with lots of garlic and onions, and had

> the

> > first meal I digested horribly since the last time I ate nuts, and I'm

> > still feeling the effects a little about 28 hours later.

> >

> > I know for a fact this had nothing to do with the sugar in the onions,

> > because I can eat comparable amounts of sugar from honey with no

> problems.

> > So it had to be the fiber in the garlic and onions-- that is, the

> inulin.

> > (3 onions and a half a head of garlic, sauteed.)

>

> It didn't have to be the inulin; obviously a guess doesn't have a place

> in analyses; much better work has been accomplished and definitive

> results recorded in the research. It could have been the

> specific sugars or something else that upset his stomach.

I agree.

> > I got lots of rumbling, and had the most acrid farts I've had since

> > before I did my two-week fast.

>

> This may be a clue; acrid farts are not a product of inulin. The bacteria

> that produce acrid farts don't use inulin, and the bacteria that do use

> inulin do not produce acrid farts.

That means nothing-- some bacteria might break the inulin down into

byproducts that are available to the bacteria that produce acrid

farts.

> Sorry about your luck but most of the bad stories are speculation,

> regrettably a frequent occurrence on the Healing Crow list. I have lots of

> glowing testimonials about the inulin restoring bowel order.

>

> In fact, just two people out of 800 reported no positive results after

> increasing inulin in their diet for a month. That's hardly " lots " . Dysbiosis

> is

> not something you can fix overnight, and the gas resolves, just like the

> research points out.

I hope that's true.

Chris

--

Want the other side of the cholesterol story?

Find out what your doctor isn't telling you:

http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com

[Guest guest]

Duncan,

I'm reading over your website, and haven't gotten to tracing back the

references yet. My first observation is that the third figure on your

inulin review shows that inulin feeds several species of gram-negative

pathogenic organisms, especially one of the Klebsiella species.

Since the third figure does not give relative magnitude of growth, nor

compare the pathogens to lactobacilli, but only percentage of cultures

that had positive growth, it doesn't tell us much about how it would

affect the bowel as a whole.

The second figure compares the growth rates of various good and bad

organisms, but neither klebsiella nor the other pathogens that

exhibited growth on inulin in figure 3 are listed in figure 2! Since

figure 2 is so selective as to exclude from consideration the growth

rates of any pathogens that actually *grow on inulin* it's of nil

value.

I still have not made up my mind on the issue, but so far, it appears

to me that inulin might be good for some and bad for others depending

on the baseline condition of their bowel, since inulin does feed

certain pathogens.

Chris

--

Want the other side of the cholesterol story?

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