1 Common symptoms include abdominal cramping, gas, bloating, loose stool or constipation (or an alternation of both), and sometimes mucus in the stool. Now according to conventional wisdom IBS can’t be cured, butsymptoms can be reduced. 2 My experience is that symptoms can be relieved and the condition can be cured when the root causes are treated. Pinpointing a cause There are many different causes of IBS. For example, food intolerances can cause havoc in the digestive tract. One of the most common is the milk sugar, known as lactose. By age twenty about 30 million American adults have some degree of lactose intolerance. Another common... and growing...intolerance I see with patients is gluten, especially wheat. I believe the genetic modification of wheat has changed its molecularstructure so much that for many it’s now recognized as a foreign invader in the digestive tract. Milk and wheat ate just two of countless foods that can cause IBS symptoms. Your local holistic doctor can give you teststo pinpoint your own trigger foods. Not getting enough fiber in your diet can also cause uncomfortable IBS symptoms to kick in. But with fiber it always takes a little bit of trial and error to get the balance right. Some patients with IBS respond well to increased fiber in their diet while others need to increase the amount slowly or else their symptoms worsen. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds are all good sources fiber. But be careful when it comes to nuts, especially peanuts since they’re highly allergenic. 

1 Common symptoms include abdominal cramping, gas, bloating, loose stool or constipation (or an alternation of both), and sometimes mucus in the stool. Now according to conventional wisdom IBS can’t be cured, butsymptoms can be reduced. 2 My experience is that symptoms can be relieved and the condition can be cured when the root causes are treated. Pinpointing a cause There are many different causes of IBS. For example, food intolerances can cause havoc in the digestive tract. One of the most common is the milk sugar, known as lactose. By age twenty about 30 million American adults have some degree of lactose intolerance. Another common... and growing...intolerance I see with patients is gluten, especially wheat. I believe the genetic modification of wheat has changed its molecularstructure so much that for many it’s now recognized as a foreign invader in the digestive tract. Milk and wheat ate just two of countless foods that can cause IBS symptoms. Your local holistic doctor can give you teststo pinpoint your own trigger foods. Not getting enough fiber in your diet can also cause uncomfortable IBS symptoms to kick in. But with fiber it always takes a little bit of trial and error to get the balance right. Some patients with IBS respond well to increased fiber in their diet while others need to increase the amount slowly or else their symptoms worsen. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds are all good sources fiber. But be careful when it comes to nuts, especially peanuts since they’re highly allergenic. 

Good supplemental sources of fiber include chia seeds, Psyllium, and ground flaxseeds. Make sure to ingest a good amount of water...around 8 to 10 ounces per serving of fiber...so you don’t plug up your bowels! Avoid getting sick from the stress As is the case with most conditions, stress can be a big factor when it comesto how well your gut is doing its job. Stress can have a negative effect on your digestion. So it’s important to tune into the factors in your life that are causing you stress and to look for ways to reduce those sources of strain. But, let’s face facts. No one’s life is 100 percent stress free. So it’s also important to have outlets that can help you reduce your stress level like exercise or other activities. The activities you choose to get involved in for stress relief aren’t nearly as important as how they make you feel. Just make sure yours don’t involve overeating or other unhealthy activities. Shine a light on overlooked infections An undiagnosed intestinal infection can lead to IBS. In fact, it’s quite common. Take candida albicans for example. This yeast lives in the digestive tract of virtually every human being walking this earth. Normally candida doesn’t cause problems, but if you introduce an antibiotic the tables can suddenly turn. The problem, of course, is that the antibiotic doesn’t just destroy the bad bugs it destroys the good ones too. And once your gut flora is out of balance the candida can overgrow and become infectious. A high sugar diet or chlorine laden water supply also contributes to candida overgrowth. 

The same type of overgrowth can happen with other bacteria in your small intestine as well. But no matter the bug, bacteria, or yeast that triggers it the results are the same...the classic IBS symptoms of gas, abdominal pain, and distention. Your doctor can easily diagnose this problem with a procedure known as the Hydrogen Breath Test. You will be given a sugar...either lactulose or glucose...to eat. Then a number of breath samples are stored in a special bag and sent off to the lab for analysis. If it turns out that you have a hidden candida or bacterial infection then herbal antibacterial agents and probiotics can be used to reduce the level of the bacteria in your small intestine. Look what came with dinner Now let’s get back to that unwelcome dinnertime surprise I hinted at earlier. I admit it’s not a popular topic...but it’s an important one. I’m talking about parasites that can infect you in a number of ways, including hitching a ride inside on your fork. Not surprisingly parasites are the number one thing that’s guaranteed to gross my patients out when I review their stool test results. Until that point most people think of parasites as a third world problem, and it certainly is with hundreds of millions of people harboring parasitic infections, especially poorer nations because of poor sanitation. However, the uncomfortable truth is that in America they’re a lot more common than you would expect. In fact, they affect millions here every year. Most people who have parasites are unaware of their infection. They, and their doctors, assume that since they don’t have extreme digestive symptoms such as gushing diarrhea, blood in their stool, fever, or weight loss that it’s not a possibility.

 They’re wrong. And, unfortunately, relying on traditional lab tests alone can be tricky because unless it’s a severe infection the traditional test can miss detecting the parasites. You see the bugs often attach to the wall of the digestive tract and this means that they may not always be present in the stool. I have had good results using a newer technology which utilizes DNA analysis to identify a variety of parasites. It’s a much more sensitive test than what laboratories currently use in their analysis. In the case of Sam that I told you about at the beginning of this article we found he had two different parasites, one of which was a type of worm. Using a combination of medications, anti-parasitic herbs, and a probiotic we were able to eliminate Sam’s ten-year-old problem in just four weeks! There’s a natural and powerful anti-cancer therapy hiding in a common food that’s practically unknown to almost every oncologistin North America.Yet, if you travel to a country such as Hungary you will find that it’s an accepted therapy by cancer specialists. I’m talking about fermented wheat germ extract (FWGE). This special extract is different than the wheat germ oil you’ll find on the shelves of your local health food store. FWGE was developed by Dr. Mate Hidvegi, a Hungarian chemist, in the 1990s.

 He was following up on the work of Dr. Albert Szent Gyorgyi who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1937 for the discovery of vitamin C and the life-sustaining processes of cellular metabolism. Dr. Gyorgyi theorized that substances known as benzoquinones, (also known as DMBQ’s), play a critical role in glucose metabolism. Before completing his work in this area he died in 1986. Dr. Mate Hidvégi followed up on this research with a team of scientists. He developed a patented process of fermenting wheat germ with baker’s yeast. The result was a well- researched natural substance with more than 100 studies described in over 20 peer-reviewed medical journals. For example, it has been studied at UCLA, General Clinical Research Center and Clinical Nutrition Research Unit as well as The Scientific Program, NATO. Many of those studies explored its use for the complementary treatment of cancer. How FWGE works FWGE has unique actions in the body that make it a powerful assistant in the fight against cancer. You see cancer cells thrive on glucose, using the sugar for fuel. But fermented wheat germ blocks those cells from gobbling up the glucose. It accomplishes this by inhibiting an enzyme known as glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) which is required for glucose metabolism. Studies show it can inhibit this enzyme by up to a stunning 95 percent. 1 Without a fuel supply the cancer cells are unable to grow and eventually they die. But FWGE’s anti-cancer actions don’t stop there. Not by a long shot.

 In fact, the wheat germ hits cancer with not just one but two more cancer-killing punches. First FWGE reduces the amount of a specific protein found on tumor cells. When this protein is curbed it gives the body’s own cancer-killing immune cells the opening they need to attack the cancer cells more effectively. Second FWGE completes the job by supercharging the activity of certain immune cells that target tumors. There are likely a number of components of FWGE that gives it its unique anti-cancer properties, but the best studied is a group of chemicals called benzoquinones. (I mentioned them earlier.) Wheat germ naturally contains some benzoquinones and the fermentation process causes their levels to skyrocket. And the higher the benzoquinones levels are the higher the anticancer potential of FWGE is. Regular wheat germ extract doesn’t have nearly the levels of benzoquinonesthat the fermented version has and this is why the run-of-the-mill extracts don’t have similar therapeutic activity. And, most importantly, unlike chemotherapy and radiation FWGE is able to accomplish its anti-cancer effects without doing any damage to healthy cells in the process. Let’s take a look at a couple of those over 100 studies on FWGE that I mentioned earlier. There are plenty to choose from, but let’s focus on just a few of the human studies today. 

These studies show an overall improvement in survival, disease-free survival, and improved quality of life. Kicking colorectal cancer Hungarian researchers tested the effect of FWGE on sixty-six patients with colorectal cancer. The volunteers received FWGE supplementation for more than 6 months while 104 control patients received traditional anticancer therapies alone. By the end of the study 23 percent of the patients receiving conventional cancer treatments had their cancer spread. In sharp contrast, only eight percent of the FWGE patients saw their cancer spread.Melanoma meets its match In one randomized clinical trial patients with melanoma were given standard chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus FWGE for one year. After a seven-year follow up period, researchers found that patients who had taken FWGE were half as likely to die from melanoma during this time. 3 Opting out of oral cancers There’s very little research available on natural products for cancers of the mouth and neck so I was pleased to uncover such positive research on FWGE. Researchers followed 22 patients with oral cancer who took FWGE and compared them with 21 patients not receiving FWGE. Those who took FWGE reduced the risk for cancer progression by a stunning 85 percent.

. 4 In fact, FWGEs abilities to fight the spread of oral cancer are so impressive that when the Hungarian Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons reviewed the research they sung the fermented wheat germ’s praises saying: “For patients suffering from head- and neck tumors—primarily malignant tumorous diseases of the oral cavity, the progression of the disease can be slowed significantly, the five-year survival rate increased considerably, the quality of life improved, and the oxidative stress on the patients reduced by the long-term application of the supplementary formula FWGE (FWGE). The Association considers the supportive treatment with the formula FWGE as an important part of the complex therapeutic protocols applied in stages II, III and IV of malignant tumorous diseases of the oral cavity.”5 I’d call that a ringing endorsement. Curb chemo infections One of the many risks with chemotherapy is the suppression of your white blood cells which fight infection. FWGE was found, in one study, to have the ability to head infections off at the pass in children and teenagers undergoing chemotherapy. 

When researchers followed 22 kids and teens who were being treated for different types of cancer they found that those who received FWGE had significantly fewer infections and fevers while receiving chemotherapy.6 Leave behind lung Cancer At the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center an open trial with 16 people with lung cancer who were receiving standard cancer therapy was supplemented with FWGE. Patient’s symptoms and quality of life were monitored with a questionnaire. Researchers found a significant improvement in the overall state of health including a reduction in fatigue and pain, and an improvement in appetite and emotional state. 7 Ban breast cancer In 2004 Hungarian researchers put FWGE to the test against human breast cancer cells. When the fermented wheat germ was combined with the estrogenblocking breast-cancer drug Tamoxifen it increased the rate of cancer cell death.8 Beat rheumatoid arthritis Over the years I’ve told you about a number of natural substances that may help with the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) including collagen, MSM, fish oil, and turmeric. 

It looks like we might need to add FWGE to that list. Interestingly, FWGE has been shown in preliminary studies to help people with their RA symptoms. In a year-long study patients with RA had a significant reduction in stiffness at their six- and 12-month follow up. Half of the participants were even able to reduce the amount of steroids they were taking. 9 Dosage and usage details In the morning before breakfast I generally recommend, taking one packet containing 8.5 to 9 g of FWGE daily mixed with eight ounces cold water or any other beverage that contains less than 10 mg vitamin C per eight-ounce serving. Store the packets at room temperature or in the refrigerator. It’s also available in tablets. The typical tablet dosage is 5 tabs twice a day on an empty stomach. Side effects are very uncommon with FWGE. Some people occasionally have minor digestive upset and that can be relieved by dividing the dose in half twice daily. Be sure to not take vitamin C supplements or beverages containing high amounts of vitamin C within two hours of ingesting FWGE. If you are pregnant, a nursing mother, have had an organ or tissue transplant, are suffering from bleeding gastrointestinal ulcers, malabsorption syndrome, gluten sensitive enterophaties (celiac sprue), fructose intolerance, or have hypersensitivity to gluten or wheat germ you should not use FWGE.