This month there is a lot of talk about breast cancer and breast cancer awareness. With this in mind it is a good time to look inward and see how our digestive bacteria can help or hinder us in detoxifying the “bad” estrogens to maintain good health. This is a complex issue in which bacteria and our microflora play an important and often overlooked role.

Different Types of Estrogen

There are three types of estrogen that we produce and use in our bodies for different functions. There are Estrone, Estriol and Estradiol.

Estradiol, made from Estrone, is the so-called “good” estrogen that promotes health.

Estrone can go either way. It can be converted to 2-OH Estrone which is protective or to 4-OH Estrone which is dangerous. It can also be converted to 16a-OH Estrone (bad) on its way to becoming Estriol, which is protective. When it does not get converted all the way and gets stuck at 16a-OH Estrone it is dangerous.

I believe it was 2002 that Estrogen was added to the official list of carcinogens.  It seems so strange to think of this because it is a substance that our bodies do create.  It is interesting to think that a lack of balance, even of something natural, can cause so many problems.  The amount of Estriol ideally should be equal to or greater than the amount of Estrone and Estradiol put together.  When this ratio is off the risk of cancer is increased.  I still feel that this is wrong-focus.  Our ability to maintain balance with our essential and beautiful hormone, estrogen, through good liver function and detoxification are the determining factors for whether this affects us.  Instead we are focusing on a hormone that we, as women, require and that many doctors do not even realize is a group of hormones, not a single one.

There are many sources of xenoestrogens in our environment such as skin creams, plastic bottles and pharmaceuticals.  These are chemicals that mimic estrogens and are harmful to our health. You may have heard of phthalates and BPAs.  These guys block our receptors and essentially get “in the way” of protective estrogens and at a cost.  Even I have BPA in my blood when I get it tested through Vibrant Wellness.  So we each have these things, from the environment or from our history, and we need to learn to get rid of them.

Detoxifying Estrogens

All estrogens are detoxified in the liver through phase 2 detoxification in which they are bound to something called glucoronic acid. This renders them inert and they are then passed through the liver itself to the gall bladder through which they are sent into the digestive tract for excretion. Isn’t the liver amazing?

Harmful Bacteria

We each have a balance of protective and harmful bacteria in our digestive systems and the presence of the protective bacteria keeps the harmful ones in check and in balance. Different bacteria have different abilities when it comes to breaking down foods and other substances. One thing that some of the strains of “bad” bacteria excel at is breaking the harmful estrogens away from the glucoronic acid through an enzyme (byproduct) that they create. This makes the estrogens active again. With a sluggish, leaky or imbalanced digestive tract many of these estrogens can then be reabsorbed and the cycle begins all over again. As you can see over time there can be quite a backup of estrogens in the liver waiting to be detoxified.

What to Do

Eat a diet high in green veggies, try to exercise and not be smoking. This will help to encourage the conversion of the estrogens to the protective rather than the dangerous forms. Magnesium and Iodine are particularly important here.

Use probiotic foods to help you to balance the harmful and helpful bacteria in your digestive system so that you can eliminate as many of the estrogens that you don’t want in your system as possible. Balance the flora so that you will prevent as much as possible the reabsorption of harmful estrogens back into the system. If you would prefer to take a probiotic supplement rather than to invest time in yogurt and cheese making then make sure you have access to a good one with a variety of strains. If you include this in a complete gut rebuilding program you will be unstoppable.

Use the comments. Let me know if you have any questions about this. Which probiotics are you currently using and how do they make you feel?

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While it is difficult to overestimate the importance of fermented foods most people fall into one of two camps: the fermented foods can save the universe within camp OR the meh, fermented foods; they’re just trying to sell yogurt camp. Both of these perspectives have some of the truth. Let’s take a look.

Fermented foods can save the universe within

Some people have amazing results from simply adding fermented foods to their diets, any fermented food, any amount.  Most people have some results from adding ferments but some don’t get the results they are looking for or expect.  There are important differences between people that lead to different results.

The rest of what a person is eating really matters.  Fermented foods do much better as a part of a total gut rebuilding program and have a difficult time really taking hold and changing the universe within all on their own.  The food we feed our digestive bacteria does more than the probiotics we take.  With hundreds and hundreds of bacterial strains in our intestinal tracts when we are born and different exposures to environments, foods, toxins and anti-bacterials (antibiotics) over our lifetimes we each have a unique bacterial blueprint that reflects our birth experience and our life story.

Some people have difficulties detoxifying the byproducts of certain bacteria due to genetic and other health factors.  Some people have reactions to certain bacteria.  Other bacteria can overproduce and come out of balance when exposed to certain foods (gluten for example), contributing to chronic conditions such as diabetes and celiac disease.  This is a unique tapestry for each person.  This is why something that is great for one person is not so great for another at a given time.  Many different strains of bacteria have been associated with different conditions and it is important to know friend flora from foe before throwing back a few billion of them in fermented foods.  And these differences depend on each of us.  What may help to balance one person may do the opposite for someone else.

Of course I prefer to use testing all of these things BUT here’s a good test: If you are taking a probiotic or eating a new probiotic food and it makes you feel bad/worse and it goes on for longer than you would expect a detox to … take a picture of the label and stop eating it.  Just because something is working for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you and now you can tell them why.  Even if it works for everyone else and you’re the exception.  If you take another probiotic another time and it makes you feel a certain way you can look back and contrast the labels and over time draw some patterns.

Different types of bacteria “belong” in different parts of the digestive tract.  An overgrowth of the “wrong” type of bacteria in the wrong place can cause serious problems for some people and supplementing with those bacteria of course would not be a great idea in that case.  This kind of overgrowth and be very difficult to conquer or narrow down but it can be done as a part of a whole digestive rebuilding program that takes into consideration pH of different body systems, minerals required for digestive function, water, physical function, rebuilding the digestive organs, detoxifying the colon, targeted super herbs, amino acids/fatty acids/nutrients that are essential for digestive healing, removing trigger foods, rebuilding the flora and immunity.

Meh; They’re just trying to sell yogurt

Yes! Yes they are! As someone who is trying to sell people yogurt I must assure you that “they” are definitely trying to sell you yogurt, that’s their job.

In order for a food to be labeled as probiotic it must contain one of the bacterial strains “proven” through research to be beneficial to human health.  The bacteria on this probiotic list have been studied mostly in research funded by the yogurt companies.  If you remember above that there are thousands of bacterial strains that inhabit the digestive tract during our early lives out of thousands and thousands of possibilities you can see that this handful of proven bacteria is a drop in the proverbial gut bucket.

Not all bacteria are good, it is true that there are some less desirable strains for sure but they are by far the minority.  Like less than 2% are outright harmful.  However there are more than a handful of good ones and just because they were not featured in a study funded by someone’s pocketbook does not mean they are less good.  Some bacteria are more expensive or even impossible to replicate in a lab in a financially viable way.  Those, for the most part, haven’t been studied.  This is why many fermented foods and live cultured foods are not labeled as probiotic. Labelling can be very political.

Here is one example:  Companies can patent bacteria. And study them.  They can then claim that only their yogurt can restore balance in a certain way because it is the only one containing this bacteria specifically. I have a gut feeling that they are more interested in their bottom line than my health.

Yogurt cultures can be excellent for health but can have a very difficult time rebuilding native flora on their own. I would say that yogurt cultures cannot rebuild native flora but I hate to be so black-and-white. These types of bacteria cannot set up camp and build a new colony in the digestive tract on their own as they are mostly transient bacteria. Transient is still good!  They will help to digest food, they will push out other strains that don’t really belong their and they can change the environment to make it much healthier.

In this article I have not taken the time to address the other ingredients and constituents in yogurt. Some of those ingredients can really get in the way of a healing protocol.  It is no secret I skip the dairy but this is a topic for another article.

Please let me know what you think about patenting bacteria, building digestive health and whether you make or buy probiotics in the comments above this article.

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Have you or someone you know been diagnosed with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth?

Have you ever felt worse after taking probiotics?

Have you ever been told you are “too acidic” or that you have “acidosis”?

Or did you take a test like the one from Metametrix that showed high levels of D-Lactate?

D-Lactic acid in the blood can lead to acidosis because it can be hard for us to clear.

As we talked about in the video there are many bacteria that produce D-Lactic acid.

Here is a list of some of the most common types that you might find in supplements, green powders, smoothie mixes etc.:

Lactobacillus Acidophilus
Lactobacillus Plantarum
Lactobacillus Reuteri

Lactobacillus Delbrueckii subspecies Bulgaricus (also known as Lactobacillus Bulgaricus) which is found in Greek yogurt, in fact MUST be in greek yogurt

D-lactic acid forming bacteria are also present in Kefir, Jun and Kombucha.

Did these bacteria cause the problem? No, likely not. Chances are that it was a more opportunistic bacteria (staph/strep/enterococcus…) and not one of the Lactobacillus strains however if you are working through this and don’t really want to throw fuel on the fire you may consider avoiding these for a while.

There are also bacteria that consume the D-lactic acid so can really help out here. There are many many strains of bacteria that do this and are found in soils among other places. One of the most common is Eubacterium Hallii.  Never heard of it?  Not surprised.  I had not heard of it either before I began this research into bacterial cultures that degrade D lactic acid.

So why is D-Lactate a problem for some people and not others?  It has a little to do with leaky gut, a little to do with diet and undigested carbohydrates and a lot to do with small intestinal environment and motility.

If you are looking for D-lactate free probiotics check out Custom Probiotics at www.customprobiotics.com.

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