Why Is There So Much Soluble Fibre In Human Breast Milk?

[Amazoniac]

Modest amounts of fermentable carbs might be beneficial, but it's easy to overdo it..

 

[Sea]

Hello Stuart,

Before Peat, I spent close to a year trying to fix digestive problems while eating a high soluble fiber diet along with supplementing numerous probiotics, soil based probiotics, fermented foods and prebiotic fibers. During this period my digestion got worse and my health deteriorated. Looking back, I had constant symptoms of high serotonin along with those of endotoxin poisoning.

While on Peat, I ate virtually 0 soluble fiber diet, and reversed digestive problems. I don't see how my experience is possible if soluble fiber really is the key.

You claim that if the bacteria aren't fed then they will eat the mucus lining and cause problems. Evolutionarily speaking, shouldn't the bacteria most likely to have a symbiotic relationship with humans be the ones who can survive off of our mucins as opposed to bacteria that require us to eat unpalatable fibers to support their growth? From research done on mucins it looks as though they could be considered a prebiotic that we produce ourselves.

I have reviewed this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3406618/ and I can't find evidence that human babies receive 25 grams of soluble fiber/day. This table (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... CWS074TB1/) from the study shows that babies receive within a range of 5-15 grams/litre. So it looks like before weaning babies would receive between 7-20 or so grams of HMO's per day. I don't know that we can make a distinction as to whether or not more or less HMO is healthier. Further, I think it is important to note that human HMO's are not the same as soluble fiber from vegetation. The study explains:

"Today, HMOs are known to be more than just “food for bugs”. An accumulating body of evidence suggests that HMOs are antiadhesive antimicrobials that serve as soluble decoy receptors, prevent pathogen attachment to infant mucosal surfaces and lower the risk for viral, bacterial and protozoan parasite infections. In addition, HMOs may modulate epithelial and immune cell responses, reduce excessive mucosal leukocyte infiltration and activation, lower the risk for necrotizing enterocolitis and provide the infant with sialic acid as a potentially essential nutrient for brain development and cognition." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... #CWS074C44)

Clearly, soluble fiber from fruits, grains, or tubers does not contain these same properties. Therefore, I think a recommendation to consume 120 grams of soluble fiber daily on the basis of HMO's seems misguided at best.

I think that this article does a good job of debunking the idea that fruit has only recently become sweet and devoid of fiber: http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/05/31/wild-a ... ent-fruit/

A study from that article stated that wild Baobob contained only 1 part fiber for every 10 parts carbohydrate.

There is also a compelling theory that the discovery of honey which is a concentrated source of fructose, may have been the catalyst that allowed us to evolve smaller digestive tracts, and bigger brains. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new ... 50/?no-ist) Other animals that subsist on vegetation, like the gorilla, have much larger digestive tracts that are better suited for colonic fermentation than the gi tracts of humans.

If soluble fiber is supposed to be consumed by humans for health then it follows that our taste buds should give us a craving for fibers. Yet, most humans consider fiber to be unpalatable. I recall that as a kid when me or my friends would consume oranges we would put a slice in our mouths, suck out the juice and discard the fiber in a manner similar to what this kid looks to be doing: http://www.vidavibrante.com/2013/01/25/ ... ng-orange/

I think that no one really knows much about gut bacteria and a lot of people are trying to blame every disease on bacteria much like many still try to do with genetics. I think that people in poor health are just going to be more susceptible to the most opportunistic strains of bacteria. So, I think that someone is not obese because they have a lot of ecoli, but that they have a lot of ecoli because they have a low body temperature/metabolism which allowed the ecoli to overgrow. Likewise, I think that people in good health tend to harbor the type of bacteria that are able to survive inside a human with a strong immune system so they may have strains that are thought of as beneficial present, when those bacteria aren't the cause of their good health. I know that some hunter gatherers have been studied, and they have H pylori, and all of these bacteria thought of as pathogens, yet they don't have any symptoms of bacterial overgrowth.

With all that being said, I think that eating some fiber helps to lower estrogen. My experience shows me that insoluble fiber works better than soluble fiber for this purpose as I notice that the later still increases serotonin/endotoxin although to a much lesser extent now than when I was eating a lot of soluble fiber. Whether or not someone with a really fast metabolism will need any fiber, I cannot say. I also don't really know if I would notice a benefit from soluble fiber when my metabolism becomes faster. These are things that I will continue to experiment with, but at this point in time I think Ray Peat makes a more compelling argument to limit fiber. I also have noticed some benefit from taking some prescript assist recently which I think worked to kill off some problematic pathogen that wasn't susceptible to my antibiotics. However, I have noticed much more drastic improvements in digestion and overall health from taking antibiotics which I continue to take occasionally.

 

[XPlus]

Some really good ideas there, Sea.
Thanks for your contribution.

 

[Amazoniac]

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2015/06/di ... the-mucus/

 

[tara]

@ Stuart,
Most populations will expand as far as they can, not only as far as conditions are optimal for them to thrive. I don't see anything in what you said that shows this to be different for intestinal bacteria. I see no reason why they wouldn't eat whatever they can eat, fermentable carbohydrates or mucins or whatever. I see no reason why having more of them would make this less likely. IEven if hungry bacteria do tend to eat more of the gut lining, that would seem more like a good reason not to let their numbers get too high in the first place.

My understanding was that many common gram-negative gut bacteria are considered to be generally benign or beneficial. But being gram-negative, whether or not they also provide some benefits, they definitely can contribute costs, too, in the form of endotoxin. It is not only Peat who recognises endotoxin as a potentially serious metabolic burden. I think it is so well recognised that endotoxins/lipopolysaccharides are sometimes used in research as toxins in studies investigating other substances and phenomena.

I don't subscribe to the view that adults' needs are all the same as babies' needs.

I do recognise the value of having a favourable balance of microbiota. I'm not convinced that feeding them abundantly is key to this.

I do think the whole area is extremely complex, and that there is a great deal still to be learned.

Temperature, humidity, acidity, aerobicity, food are the main factors in colonial expansion. Inside the body, these factors along with immunity are set by the functioning physiology. Just like a loan mower needs a person to control it, gut bacteria needs a functional physiology to control its imbalances and overgrowth.

I wonder if studies have been made yet about whether and how body temperature affects bacterial populations. Seems as though it could.

 

[mt_dreams]

Thanks stuart for providing a means of reference. You were right, there's lots of info on the net to digest regarding this topic.

I haven't fully gone through the entire publication, but it seems that colostrum is produced for a couple of days after birth. It is this yellowy substance that is added to the breast milk which produces a large portion of the hmo in breast milk. From the study, it does seem like there ends up being roughly 20-25g of the stuff per liter. I have never measured how much babies drink the first couple of days, but off the top of my head it would probably be 1/2 a liter. So for the first couple of days babies receive 10-12g per day of the hmo. Once colostrum production stops, it looks as though breast milks hmo's drop down to 5-20g per liter levels. I would imagine that by year 1, the hmo levels would probably have normalized towards the lower end of the spectrum, but I will have to research more before confirming.

As evidence from the drop in hmo's in breast milk over time, doesn't this lead one to believe that the hmo's seem like an important substance right after birth (possibly to organize the colony), but then the body stops needing as much once the colony has matured?


thanks amazoniac for the perfecthealthdiet article. As usual, it's left me more confused, but I'll probably grasp it once i look into it more deeply.

 

[narouz]

@ tara
Your colon is basically a bag of bacteria. About 100 trillion of them. They all have to eat something, and what's left for them after the upper digestive tract has extracted all the macronutrient calories is soluble fiber. Insoluble fibre (cellulose, for example) cannot supply them with nourishment, and just produces more bulk in your stool. The wall of your colon also produces mucus/mucins, and gut bacteria will also eat this if they have to. but if they do, they don't thrive, and what is even worse over time this mucus lining becomes progressively thinner and will lead to intestinal permeability. This is inevitable I'm afraid. We all have a colon, and even if you don't consume enough soluble fiber, the trillions of bacteria will eat you.
One of the things I didn't mention is that one of the major reasons keeping your gut bacteria well fed is that they will reward you with copious amounts of SFCA's (short chain fatty acids) the most important being butyrate. SFCA's are all considerably more saturated than even coconut all, Red Palm fruit oil, or butterfat. In short they are the healthiest fats in existence. There is no dietary source of SFCA's. The only way to get them is for your gut bacteria to make them. They provide a host of health benefits, control bacterial overgrowths in the small intestine, and are used as an energy substrate by your body just like any dietary fat - except you don't eat them, you eat soluble fiber, and your gut bacteria do it for you, then the wall of your colon will absorb them, helped by other beneficial gut bacteria.
I think one commenter said ; '..but they're still bacteria'. I got the impression that being a bacteria was somehow 'bad'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bacteria aren't intrinsically bad. Some are beneficial, and some are pathogenic, and ofter the 'good' guys eat the 'bad'. This goes on in your gut constantly. If it isn't well supplied with soluble fiber, pathogenic bacteria will always be more likely to survive. In which case people often reach for the antibiotics. Which might indeed help solve the short term problem of pathogenic bacterial overgrowth. But long term, it inevitably makes the much more serious problem of gut dysbiosis even worse. Man made antibiotics are indiscriminate bacterial destroyers unfortunately.
Your body is exquisitely perfected by billions of years of evolution to WORK. We are increasingly understanding that modern attempts to interfere with that intricate balance , for instance by limiting your intake of soluble fiber in a mistaken attempt to somehow take your gut bacteria out of the equation, always ends badly.
Don't forget when you try to shore up your dietary preconceptions, from whatever dietary guru you are currently subscribing to, that you have a very large bag of bacteria from birth who all need to be constantly fed. It has been very well understood for decades that the preferred food of gut bacteria is soluble fiber. And until very recently fruit was far less sweet so you had to eat a lot more of it to get the same amount of fructose. So we automatically consumed a lot more soluble fiber , particularly pectin. Remember the baobab fruit I mentioned in one of my earlier posts. It's 50% pectin. Humans have always eaten a similar proportion of soluble fiber as babies get in breastmilk. Until modern times. Far less infectious disease, no doubt. Unfortunately the long term health consequences of changing our diet from the way our bodies (and in this discussion, specifically our colons) are designed to work, and quaffing antibiotics to 'get well' has made us all sicker. And when you think about it, it's probably no surprise that diverging from the dietary intake of soluble fiber we consumed throughout our evolution produces the health consequences it does.

@whichever commenter wanted to know about the amount of HMO's in breast milk, this is one study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3406618/
scroll down to the ''concentration composition and variation' paragraph if you don't find the other stuff interesting. I actually learnt heaps just from the abstract. Soluble fiber and the importance of gut health is amazing.
But there are hundreds. Just google ' HMO's in breast milk' if you are still curious. It's a very well understood field.
Stuart

Stuart-
I've pretty comfortably settled on the Peat Wagon,
but over the last year or so I have been open to/investigating other ways of thinking about
the gut, the microbiome, etc.
So thanks for your thoughts.
I'm a little busy during the week and don't have a whole lot of time,
so I haven't been able to fully digest :) all your ideas and links here.

But may I ask you,
and not with any hostility implied,
do your thoughts here derive strongly
from a certain school of thought or a certain book or WOE?
For instance, The Perfect Health Diet?

 

[Stuart]

@narouz
Actually I think human's generally seem to behave like sheep in their ideas, including their dietary principles. I'm sure most dietary approaches have worthwhile concepts. Including Dr. Peat of course. Some of his ideas are wonderful. But I do detect a tendency for acolytes of any philosophy, dietary or otherwise. to follow it as a religion, rather than picking and choosing the wothwhile stuff out of each. Human's are a very creative species after all. Isn't one of the best Buddhist teachings : If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him.'
Not saying you specifically are identifying as a 'Peatarian' or not. I don't know you personally. But if you suspect you might be so inclined, nip it in the bud if you can. Being a 'follower' surely underlies all human suffering and conflict.
So many commenters on this thread have clearly expressed a view that they don't see why feeding their gut microbiota is so important. And that's the point. It's not more important than any other part. The human body, like all nature's creations, are an exquisite interaction of an overwhelming multitude of mechanisms and parts. Neglecting one, particularly as big a part of the body as the colon, because it doesn't fit with your dietary philosophy is unwise surely?
Again, we know what food gut microbiota thrive on. And soluble fibre is found ubiquitously in whole fruit , vegetables and animals, All of which humans evolved to thrive on. For milions of years. Why on earth would you possibly want to question that utterly compelling logic because a particular dietary approach has difficulty with it?
The amount of soluble fibre in breast milk is just a particularly good illustration of how muddleheaded humans can become. Even if you take the very lower end of the 5-20 g/ liter of soluble fiber in breast milk and take a liter/ d as the intake (which is a pretty small/young baby after all), but for the purposes of clarity lets take the baby's weight as 8kg. That gives a reasonable adult consumption of soluble fiber of about 70g/d. That's a lot more than most modern human adults get. Before modern selective breeding to increase sweetness , consumption of grains, extraction of seed oils etc.- in other words the whole gamut of dietary disasters this species has inflicted on itself- that intake was routine. But you'll get a lot of soluble fiber as long as you eat onions, garlic, and whole fruits anyway, so your gut bacteria won't be too neglected, And collagen is an excellent food for gut bacteria. Not gelatin, but that of course has other benefits. So spoil your gut bacteria, eat plenty of bone broth.
Wouldn't you agree that we flout those evolutionary imperatives at our peril?
But to stress again. I don't follow any one particular dietary philosophy. To do so is a profound mistake, in my experience. Yours may differ of course. I will say though, that every time I hear someone say things like 'Before I came to .....'s ideas..., I start seeing little woolly animals. Not just 'Peatarianism' either.
But I stress, I do think some of Dr. Peat's ideas are excellent.
Thankfully the moderators of this forum are sophisticated enough to welcome people who don't agree with everything 'Peatarian'. New ideas can only breath fresh air into rigid philosophies don't you think?
Stuart

 

[Stuart]

@Narouz
You asked specifically about what i thought of the Perfect Health Diet. I think potatoes are a much better starch source than rice. White rice is just empty carbohydrate calories after all. And all whole grains are unhealthy for a host of reasons.
Also Paul Jaminets ideas seem to neglect the colon. A bit like strict Peatarianism I'm afraid.
I do understand that we don't yet fully understand all the intricate interactions between the various parts of the body. What we do know, and I'm sure your aware of this, is that all parts are exquisitely interrelated. So it would seem unwise to neglect our colons. It's the biggest part of our digestive system, so it's clearly pretty
significant.
And again, don't think about your 100 trillion strong team of gut bacteria as somehow 'separate' to 'you'. They are an integral part of you. It's not me and my gut bacteria. You aren't just your brain after all. It's all one incalculably intricate interrelated system And don't forget, the direct interraction between our gut bacteria and our brains is becoming better understood to be awe inspiringly powerful every day.
So look after them. Feed them the soluble fiber they evolved to expect.
Stuart.

 

[XPlus]

Many of us here didn’t wake up to life following Peat. Most have come to Peat after many experiments with the ideas of conventional and alternative medicine, including those ideas promoted by advocates of the gut microbiome theory.

Some may not be dealing with digestive issues and can handle the extra fiber but the ones who do, know why Peat works. A large part of it is limiting the fibre.

You'll find people on this forum to be some of the most educated, knowledgeable and open-minded people on the planet. Having gone through many failed experiments, they are also highly skeptical. Peat here is rather respected not idolized and his ideas are constantly debated on the forum.

Having gone through your comments, I know what it takes to accumulate that sort of knowledge and kudos to you for that. This doesn't mean you know better than everyone else here. You can make better use of your own advice and open your mind to "different" ideas.

 

[pboy]

this is hilarious man. Stuart is clearly simply regurgitating things he read. Actual experience tells anyone that eating that much soluble fiber is not a pleasant thing. I didn't hear that from Ray Peat, I observed my reality. You're ideas are clearly from others, and you claim to not be a 'follower'...ok dude, im sure you figured out bacteria eat mucus lining yourself by observing it...lol. Why are you so adamant about proving it too, things you are certain about you really don't care about proving to others. Its only when youre hoping and desperate that you become adamant to 'prove' to others. Whats your end goal of health? markers on a doctors machines? or the way you feel. If you go by mood and physical capability, eating that much soluble fiber is just stupid. But go for it dude, if you are so inclined, do it, no ones gonna stop you. But no ones gonna bow to you either or think you're right when what you tell them to do causes distress and has no tangible basis

 

[Stuart]

@ xplus
With respect, there is no 'microbiome theory' That's been my point all along. You have a colon. we all do. It's full of bacteria and we have known for decades that their preferred food is soluble fiber. And the reason for that is very well understood too. For the billions of years that colons have been evolving (and not just in humans either -even insects have colons full of gut bacteria) life has been consuming vast quantities of soluble fiber. The coprolite evidence of early human diets shows clearly that humans have always consumed soluble fiber (probably about 130g/d -from fruit , animal kill based soluble fiber eg collagen and various vegetables, particularly tubers. On some other planet where life has evolved it will certainly be different - the 'life' there may not even be carbon based. But life on earth has evolved in ways that we are stuck with. Having a big sceptic tank at the lower end of our digestive system full of bacteria whose health is inexorably tied to the health of the rest of our body is our lot I'm afraid.
The amount of soluble fiber in breast milk is just a particularly good indication of its importance to a fully functioning colon. And deciding 'hey I'm just not going to look after my microbiome, is surely unwise. Now people with gut dysbiosis from some earlier history of underfeeding their gut bugs may well just give up on it completely, because the process of resurrecting it to health can indeed be difficult. Having an underfunctioning colon is a recipe for colon cancer unfortunately. Which may be decades in the making of course. But the inflammation caused to the walls of the colon by years of underfed gut bugs is a far bigger concern, wouldn't you agree ? Dr. Peat knows well about the perils of systemic and prolonged inflammation. Why on earth would you think that deliberately underfeeding your gut bacteria the substance that billions of years of evolution has shaped them to expect wouldn't be inflammatory?
Far better to put up with a couple of years of very gradually increasing your consumption of soluble fiber than to attempt to take your microbiota out of the equation don't you think.
I almost get the impression that you think Dr. Peat is wiser than the billions of year long evolution that has made us the species we are. That is surely just hubris. So let's start looking at the ways the various parts of our body are designed to function, not subscribing to dietary theories that discount particular parts of the body because it doesn't suit their dietary philosophy.
You don't need a 'dietary philosophy' Xplus, you really don't. Just eat the fresh whole fruit, whole vegetables and whole animals (eg include plenty of bone, collagen and gelatin along with the muscle that humans evolved to eat. You'll automatically get plenty of soluble fiber. And the gut bacteria whose health you are responsible for (and whose health is inexorably tied to your own long term health -by design) will repay you incalculably. as nature intends. And don't eat any food that would have been difficult to obtain in any quantity before extractive technologies or agriculture were developed. There's small amounts of PUFA'S in all foods, notably even pasture fed eggs and shellfish. Those very small amounts won't do you any harm. In fact the way evolution works those small amounts will probably turn out to do a lot of good. Dose is the poison after all. Google 'hormesis' sometime. Potatoes are very high starch foods, humans and prehumans have been digging up and thriving on both raw and cooked tubers since we developed the opposable thumb.
Look to evolution Xplus, not dietary theories.
The amount of soluble fiber in breast milk just illustrates those evolutionary imperatives.

Stuart.

 

[Stuart]

@ xplus
With respect, there is no 'microbiome theory' That's been my point all along. You have a colon. we all do. It's full of bacteria and we have known for decades that their preferred food is soluble fiber. And the reason for that is very well understood too. For the billions of years that colons have been evolving (and not just in humans either -even insects have colons full of gut bacteria) life has been consuming vast quantities of soluble fiber. The coprolite evidence of early human diets shows clearly that humans have always consumed soluble fiber (probably about 130g/d -from fruit , animal kill based soluble fiber eg collagen and various vegetables, particularly tubers. On some other planet where life has evolved it will certainly be different - the 'life' there may not even be carbon based. But life on earth has evolved in ways that we are stuck with. Having a big sceptic tank at the lower end of our digestive system full of bacteria whose health is inexorably tied to the health of the rest of our body is our lot I'm afraid.
The amount of soluble fiber in breast milk is just a particularly good indication of its importance to a fully functioning colon. And deciding 'hey I'm just not going to look after my microbiome, is surely unwise. Now people with gut dysbiosis from some earlier history of underfeeding their gut bugs may well just give up on it completely, because the process of resurrecting it to health can indeed be difficult. Having an underfunctioning colon is a recipe for colon cancer unfortunately. Which may be decades in the making of course. But the inflammation caused to the walls of the colon by years of underfed gut bugs is a far bigger concern, wouldn't you agree ? Dr. Peat knows well about the perils of systemic and prolonged inflammation. Why on earth would you think that deliberately underfeeding your gut bacteria the substance that billions of years of evolution has shaped them to expect wouldn't be inflammatory?
Far better to put up with a couple of years of very gradually increasing your consumption of soluble fiber than to attempt to take your microbiota out of the equation don't you think.
I almost get the impression that you think Dr. Peat is wiser than the billions of year long evolution that has made us the species we are. That is surely just hubris. So let's start looking at the ways the various parts of our body are designed to function, not subscribing to dietary theories that discount particular parts of the body because it doesn't suit their dietary philosophy.
You don't need a 'dietary philosophy' Xplus, you really don't. Just eat the fresh whole fruit, whole vegetables and whole animals (eg include plenty of bone, collagen and gelatin along with the muscle that humans evolved to eat. You'll automatically get plenty of soluble fiber. And the gut bacteria whose health you are responsible for (and whose health is inexorably tied to your own long term health -by design) will repay you incalculably. as nature intends. And don't eat any food that would have been difficult to obtain in any quantity before extractive technologies or agriculture were developed. There's small amounts of PUFA'S in all foods, notably even pasture fed eggs and shellfish. Those very small amounts won't do you any harm. In fact the way evolution works those small amounts will probably turn out to do a lot of good. Dose is the poison after all. Google 'hormesis' sometime. Potatoes are very high starch foods, humans and prehumans have been digging up and thriving on both raw and cooked tubers since we developed the opposable thumb.
Look to evolution Xplus, not dietary theories.
The amount of soluble fiber in breast milk just illustrates those evolutionary imperatives.

Stuart.

 

[jyb]

Dr. Peat knows well about the perils of systemic and prolonged inflammation. Why on earth would you think that deliberately underfeeding your gut bacteria the substance that billions of years of evolution has shaped them to expect wouldn't be inflammatory

I would be more interested to know how and how much to feed to have an anti-inflammatory gut (non-endotoxin bacteria, no overgrowth in small intestine), keeping in mind not all bacteria are inflammatory nor produce endotoxin (in fact, the milk bacteria are anti-inflammatory which is why they are studied as alternative treatments to repair gut lining). Is dairy/meat sufficient or do you really need any fruit/vegetable fibre? Every diet has an influence on gut bacteria profile and eating less does not mean smaller bacteria count. In the extreme case of 100% dairy or fermented dairy, do you have a healthy gut? Kids first develop their gut bacteria by breast-feeding - no need for vegetable/fruit for that initial step. Some population like Masai and some kazakhs consumed huge amounts of dairy, but I'm not sure if they ate so much vege/fruit fibre. However, dairy and meat do provide material for some bacteria and like any diet have their own distinct effects on the gut flora.

 

[XPlus]

Your ideas are wonderful - in theory.

Let me put this into practice using my experience as reference.

Before developing severe digestive issues my diet was highly based on fresh raw fruits and veggies, eggs, meats, brown bread, rice, salad, spirulina. Very rich in fibre, indeed.
I didn't drink or smoke. I refused to eat sugar and have fizzy drinks. No KFC, McDonalds, Burger King. Low in fat. Exercised every day. Have done this for years and I'm only in my 20s.

Doctors at the hospital told me I'm fine and couldn't not find anything wrong.

I've been to point where eting any fruit, milk, coffee, nuts or vegetables gives me severe cramps and loose stools.


I've been on Paleo
I've been on Mercola-style dieting
I've been on Candida crusher
I've tried a bunch of other candida protocols
I've tried FODMAP
I've tried a ton of digestive aids, including SBO probitics, non-SBO probitics, prebiotics, anti-microbial supplements, animal and plant based digestive enzymes.
I've made kefir, buttermilk, yogurt, kembucha and ate a ton of kimchi.
I've visited a Russian alternative therapist.
I tired feeding and killing the bacteria a hundred times


My problems just kept getting worse until I found Peat.
For the first time in two years I was able to drink milk, eat fresh fruits, ice cream and pizza.
I go bed and have no irritating cramps.
My sports injuries finally started to heal.
Barely any loose stools.
No more painfully inflamed bowl.

Can you explain to me, why Peat works better for me than all I've been through.

 

[Amazoniac]

All I have to add is that gut dysbiosis is rarely due to underfed microbes. It's much more likely that it happened due to
- poor metabolic health: which is crucial for proper GI function and coordination.
- poor immune system: this ties to metabolism. Nutrient deficiencies are a major cause.
- excess and chronic exposure to toxins: from food or even the environment.

If you have problems in the gut, consuming that amount of fiber is going to make the situation much worse.
You can find many people that avoid fiber at all costs and seem extremely healthy. And yes, the exterior reflects the interior; looks don't always deceive.
You mentioned the mucus lining our intestines, they can nourish the bacteria enough for them to survive and not allow pathogens to take over. Maybe they cannot thrive and you won't have that much diversity, but I think that it's something attainable even with a SAD, considering that the person wasn't born in a C-sec procedure and was breastfed.

From what I understood from all of your posts, Stuart, is that the overall message is that consuming fiber to a certain amount is beneficial and that fermentable carbs can improve the health of those who are already healthy. Which I agree.
But when you are ill, the situation is more delicate and nuanced..

 

[Stuart]

@amazoniac
I agree that gut dysbiosis can be very difficult to address. Just looking over what Xplus used to eat reveals so many things that would have caused problems - which I'll refer to later. And as I've already said, Dr. Peat has some excellent ideas. Restricting soluble fiber, particularly in the long term, is not one of them. And unfortunately the people (like pboy, judging from comments he's made) who experience problems with soluble fiber are the ones who need more soluble fiber the most. But what we know already is that long term, restricting soluble fibre to much below the proportion that breast milk provides babies will not serve your health well in the long term. It may help you to avoid the issue in the short term though. You may well have to start with a low soluble fiber intake and increase it very slowly over many years. But things like straining the fiber out of oranges is complete nonsense I'm afraid, particularly because if you eat fruit, or onions/garlic or potatoes or collagen you're already supplying your gut bacteria with some of the soluble fiber they need. It would be well nigh impossible to reduce it significantly anyway. You would be very ill indeed.
One thing that I didn't mention is that if you don't somehow eventually resurrect your colon microbiota to full health you will never be able to have a truly healthy upper digestive tract. Because they are intricately interrelated. All parts of our body are intricately connected, not surprisingly when you think about it. Gut bacteria produce many of the substances (or even just the substrates required in other parts of the body) that exquisitely control pathogenesis in the upper digestive tract.
The notion of neglecting your microbiome in an attempt to mollycoddle some other part of your body, for instance the upper digestive tract, is pretty silly when you think about it. Soluble fiber is clearly very important to colon health because breast milk contains so much of it. Don't forget, the bacterial species in your gut don't change when you are weaned, they don't suddenly prefer different food, and your colon size,or the number of bacteria in it continues to grow proportionally with the rest of you. So increase the soluble fiber you consume as slowly as you like. And SBO's are essential, preferably from full spectrum dirt that you get from some soil source you know to be relatively chemical free. Like you're own garden for instance. Or find a local organic farm, Ask them if you can take a bucket of their dirt, keep it moist and eat a tiny pinch every day of the rest of your life. A bucket full with last many human lifetimes - if more than one person is using it proportionally less of course. But real full spectrum dirt in infinitesimally small quantities is incalculably better than bought SBO pills, particularly because they only contain a limited number of species (and strains of species -don't forget epigenetic horizontal gene transfer is going on constantly in your gut and all soil). And there are over 35.000 different gut bacterial species. We don't even know what most of them do yet.
A pinch of soil will contain billions of bacteria.
Many gut bacteria eat methane and other gases produced by different bacteria. That's why excess gas is a sure sign that you are suffering from some degree of gut dysbiosis, particularly if the gas is stinky. One sign that you are getting your microbiota back to speed is that the gas you produce is not uncomfortable at all, and doesn't smell. Bloating, on the other hand, is a sure sign that you have some bacterial overgrowth in your small intestine. Your colon doesn't need less soluble fibre. You need less bacteria in your small intestine. Eventually you'll be able to get soluble fiber encapsulated in such a way that the soluble fiber they contain only becomes available when it reaches your colon. Until then you will just have to ramp up the soluble fiber you consume slowly. Your digestive system is always going to be a pretty sickly process unless you pamper such a signicant part of it - your colon - with soluble fiber. Dr. Peat's other dietary recommendations will help you address gut dysbiosis too. The small amounts of PUFA you get automatically in a Peat inspired diet are just right for the evolutionary requirements of the human body. You get plenty of starch from below ground vegetables, particularly potatoes. And you inevitably get part of your colon's normal requirement of soluble fiber too. But eat the whole orange. Seriously

@Xplus
You ate low saturated fat???? Not much gelatin or ammal soluble fibet - collagen ???? Paleo??? Most so called Paleo diets are anything but. Paleo humans ate way more carbohydrate. The siill living hunter gatherer societies like the Australian Aborigines, eat plenty of carbohydrate. And of course, plenty of soluble fiber, because it's ubiquitous in whole foods - just as nature/evolution designed humans to do.
Grains?? Whole grains??? Eating grains is a dietary disaster. Before agriculture - very recently in our evolutionary past, we ate tiny amounts of grains. Try gathering grass seed if you aren't convinced.
Look I think Peatarian principles are mostly great. Often inadvertently I might add. Pufa's aren't 'bad'. We just need tiny amounts of them. Which a Peat inspired dietary approach provides perfectly. Even water is toxic if you consume too much of it.
Stuart

 

[tara]

You don't need a 'dietary philosophy' Xplus, you really don't. Just eat the fresh whole fruit, whole vegetables and whole animals (eg include plenty of bone, collagen and gelatin along with the muscle that humans evolved to eat. You'll automatically get plenty of soluble fiber. And the gut bacteria whose health you are responsible for (and whose health is inexorably tied to your own long term health -by design) will repay you incalculably. as nature intends. And don't eat any food that would have been difficult to obtain in any quantity before extractive technologies or agriculture were developed. There's small amounts of PUFA'S in all foods, notably even pasture fed eggs and shellfish. Those very small amounts won't do you any harm. In fact the way evolution works those small amounts will probably turn out to do a lot of good. Dose is the poison after all. Google 'hormesis' sometime. Potatoes are very high starch foods, humans and prehumans have been digging up and thriving on both raw and cooked tubers since we developed the opposable thumb.
Look to evolution Xplus, not dietary theories.

Looks like a dietary philosophy to me. :)

 

[Stuart]

@ tara
It might help to use the breast milk analogy again. Feeding infant humans breast milk is not a 'dietary' philosophy'. Its just what evolution designed for them. And part of the breast milk is perfectly designed by that same evolutionary process to pamper their gut microbiota. Which whichever way you shake it, is an integral part of us, and deserves to be properly looked after. Rather than marginalized because it doesn't suit a particular human inspired dietary approach.
Although I suppose you might decide that the best imitation of breast milk that human ingenuity can devise - formula- is better.
Peatarianism is one human's approach to nourishing the human body best. It never occurred to you that billions of years of evolution has already made us who we are, including the food we are designed to eat?
Human's are funny. Sometimes we just miss the woods for the trees I think. Whenever humans see themselves as cleverer than nature, we create problems for ourselves don't you think?
But I will say that Amazoniac's comment that whenever people are sick , it becomes more nuanced, is definitely true. But it is important to keep in mind that resurrecting your microbiome to optimum health should always be the goal. Thinking you can perpetually sideline it by neglecting its soluble fiber design imperatives is just human folly.
Stuart

 

[Zachs]

I honestly don't understand how you extrapolate that adults need 70g of soluble fiber based on the fiber content of beast milk? Human babies are born sterile, this would make sense that fiber would be needed as a bulking agent and prebiotic. Adults on the other hand have fully established gut flora and no need for anywhere near that amount to keep homeostasis, and very little fiber is needed for any sort of stool bulk.

And your argument is just silly. There are many cultures around the world that have been well documented that thrive off of far less fiber. Silly evolutionary assumptions aside, your argument is invalid.

Also you keep saying "billions of years of evolution" as if the ancient tad pole that first crawled out of the sea has somehow anything to do with our gut let alone our ancient ancestors some 1 million years. Gut biomes can chance in a few generations, you can change your biome in weeks depending on diet. No, everyone on earth does not need 70g of soluble fiber a day or their gut bugs will eat their colon and give them cancer.