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Fat substitutes such as Olestra result in weight gain, not loss! They disrupt the body's mechanisms to control food intake. Olestra works by binding up to 8 triglyceride molecules in such a way that the enzyme lipase cannot begin the fat digestive process and it passes out with the stool. Side effects include abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and oily stools....

The microflora of the GI tract is an organ at the interface of the internal and external milieu that helps us adapt to the environment in which we live. We can modify the kinds of microflora in the gut to regulate immunity, metabolic processes, risk for gut infections, C diff and candida infections, and now even the tendency to get type 2 diabetes and fatty liver....

Studies from the Wistar Institute published in April of 2014 suggest that the microbes that make up the microflora of the intestinal tract can suppress DNA repair in the cells lining the intestinal tract and lead to colorectal cancer. It is only recently that most gastroenterologists have begun to appreciate the importance of the microflora in the gut. We...

According to the October 2014 issue of the journal, Nature, artificial sweeteners such as saccharine, Splenda, and Nutrasweet (aspartame) cause changes in the human microbiome (intestinal microflora) that lead to glucose intolerance (insulin resistance) within one week in more than half of the subjects of a small study. When stool from these people was tranplanted...

No one wants to get colon cancer and colonoscopy has been touted to be the best way to find asymptomatic precanceous and cancerous lesions of the colon that could be lifesaving. This makes logical sense, however, the United States Preventive Services Task Force in now questioning this test for healthy people who have no GI symptoms.   

A synthetic "poop" was developed by researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada that works to treat C. diff infections of the GI tract. Now that stool transplants are becoming commonplace in the treatment of C. diff infection, an artificial culture of normal flora of the GI tract has been developed that avoids potential problems of occult infections...