# Good Endo Article



## AIRPLANE (Mar 15, 2004)

www.https://www.yahoo.com/style/doctors-hadnt-missed-13-symptoms-200100752.html


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## tummyrumbles (Aug 14, 2005)

Thanks for that Airplane. Endometriosis is considered to be an autoimmune disease. This is a very complex topic and it's quite possible IBS itself is a low level autoimmune disease. The main cause is believed to be wheat but the evidence is all circumstantial except for Celiac Disease, which is the only autoimmune disease I know of that has specific biomarkers. The lectins in wheat start the whole process rolling, and it could set up problems in the gut, or your joints, brain, anywhere in the body. I've been reading up on this over the last few months and there's a lot to learn. Basically all of us should just stop eating wheat. To be on the safe side, because wheat cross-reacts with other grains, try to reduce all these as well. White rice seems to be the safest grain but I find it constipating. Gliadin and other proteins in wheat breach the intestinal lining, and these proteins are seen as pathogens by our immune system. This sets up worsening inflammation and depending on which genes you have can lead to any number of autoimmune diseases. The general term for this is gluten intolerance or lectin intolerance but these terms seem to be on the fringes of medical opinion. Mainstream medicine hasn't fully accepted these theories but there are a lot of studies that point to wheat as the precurser in all this. I also don't eat nightshades or dairy either. The real improvement in my symptoms was eating more salads and it could be either that raw vegetables have their own enzymes and I have a lack of stomach acid, or that I have a lectin intolerance and the improvement is due to not eating grains. Maybe it's a bit of both.


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## AIRPLANE (Mar 15, 2004)

Tummyrumbles,

Yes, I do see that anti-inflammatory diets are often recommended for endometriosis- no wheat or dairy seem to be the top two, as well as sugar, especially for PCOS which I also strongly suspect that I have/had- I am in menopause but, contrary to what mainstream medicine says,these issues do not automatically disappear with menopause or hysterectomy- in fact, there have even been a few cases of endo found in men! Interesting to read that PCOS and endometriosis often occur together. I recently read that Dr Christiane Northrop also suspects endometriosis in patients who have fibroids, which is the reason why I had a hysterectomy many years ago (kept ovaries).

What actually is at the root of endo is hotly debated. In the past, it was believed to be due to a Dr Sampson's theory that it started with retrograde menstruation, which meant that a lot of Drs didn't think that it was worth trying to remove since the endo would likely just keep returning. But that theory is now being challenged. Instead, some believe that some of us are actually born with it, and it is just a matter of if/when it becomes active. While there are very few of them, there are some surgeons who do excision surgery, removing endo at the root as opposed to the typical lasering, and have had some very successful outcomes from it. I have had symptoms since my very first period at age 11.It tends to run in families, and my older sister was diagnosed with it when she had an ectopic pregnancy. I never married or tried to have children which, as the article mentioned, is often the only time that many women manage to even get it diagnosed!

I found the mention of the hormone tests done by the writer's naturopathic Dr interesting. Since issues like endo, PCOS, adenomyosis, and fibroids quite frequently are associated with estrogen dominance, it seems like this type of testing should be routine for women having issues, but clearly it is not happening.

Also, there is mixed opinion on diet specifics for estrogen dominance. Some believe that phytoestrogens- like soy- are actually helpful, while others say no. (Of course, soy- like wheat-is a big GMO crop which is not good) I know that I cannot tolerate soy beverages- they gave me cramps and often instant diarrhea. And I have also read that cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower can help with the estrogen/progesterone balance, but I don't tolerate those well either. There is a supplement called DIM that I am going to try, starting at a very low dose. I am nervous about it because it is derived from cruciferous vegetables. I did read that if you take too high of a dosage that it can cause diarrhea.


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## tummyrumbles (Aug 14, 2005)

I'm past menopause now and never had problems there but yes, unfortunately you can be born with things and it could be that disease is inevitable in some cases. I found an interesting article about a lady who had PCOS and endometriosis and found a wheat free diet fixed her.

http://www.nutritionalanarchy.com/2014/04/14/gluten-intolerance-isnt-just-a-fad-it-can-wreck-your-whole-life/

It's said that disease begins in the gut and I believe this very strongly, especially for westernised disease - autoimmune disease, diabetes, cancer etc. We all have genetic weaknesses and susceptibilities but if we're eating healthy food we have a good chance of not getting disease, at least not for a long time.

I'm not really big on supplements as they're never as good as the real thing. Why not do what I'm doing and try fermenting your own vegs? I bought a whole lot of mason jars today and I'm going to try making my own sauerkraut. I've found a lot of improvement with eating raw foods and fermented cruciferous veges like cabbage are supposed to be a lot easier digested and might even be considered to be low FODMAP as most of the gas has been released already. I certainly hope so, as I spent a mint today and I'd be disappointed if it doesn't work. Buying a jar of sauerkraut at the health shop is $20.00 over here! I know the big thing with sauerkraut or any other fermented veges is to just have a tiny bit to start with. Certain bacteria in the colon digest certain veges and if you introduce a new food you have to give the bacteria time to grow, or something like that. What you don't want is an osmotic effect where too much of a new food rushes through causing diarrhea.

Generally speaking vegetables are best for good health, as long as you can tolerate them. This is the part I'm not sure about. If you eat cruciferous veges and get a lot of gas, does this mean they're harming you? I judge things more by evacuation the next day. If it's explosive and gassy and takes a long time then I think this points to inflammation. And if it won't come out at all I think that's inflammation as well. But I don't tolerate high FODMAPs well at all and it could be that these are just toxic foods for me, at least for the moment. This is why I'm pinning my hopes on sauerkraut & other fermented raw veges as I'm running out of options. Wheat and soy for instance are highly inflammatory foods for me, as well as all legumes and nuts. And soy being a phytoestrogen can influence hormones as well. All of these foods resist digestion. Vitamin D is supposed to be good as it regulates the immune system. I saw an article the other day they were recommending vitamin D for multiple sclerosis. Egg yolks and fish are high in Vitamin D.


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## jaumeb (Sep 1, 2014)

I use fido jars to ferment veggies.


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## AIRPLANE (Mar 15, 2004)

Thanks for that article, Tummyrumbles. Yes, I agree that wheat- and maybe all gluten foods should probably be avoided by many of us.I have been eating half of an organic, sprouted wheat English Muffin many days but who knows if even that is OK. I do have Dr William Davis's book, Wheat Belly which I read a few years ago.

I will be interested to hear how your fermented vegetable experiment goes. Of course, with the inflammation and autoimmune issues, there is also the complicating factor of leaky gut (intestinal permeability) which could also result in bad reactions to foods. Mainstream medicine still refuses to acknowledge that issue. With leaky gut, it would make sense that we would develop the worst reactions to any foods that we eat frequently, and wheat would certainly be one of them, besides all of the other bad things about modern wheat, which is due to the greed of large corporations like Monsanto who I heard has been quietly buying up small seed companies, although the public backlash appears to be gaining strength and more companies are turning to organic foods.

And as we have talked about before, there could be a lack of enzymes to break down foods that we haven't been eating, which is of course why we have to eat them in small amounts in the beginning. Plus, I wonder if our enzymes could have anything to do with heredity. For example, dairy products have not been a typical part of some culture's diets, and when they relocate to a country where dairy is commonly consumed, they have bad reactions to it and I don't know if that ever really changes. (Of course, we know that dairy isn't always the best food anyway. Some people insist that the milk was designed specifically for baby calves, and cows obviously don't even consume milk once they are weaned!)

I don't blame you for not wanting to go the supplement route. They can be expensive, and if they cause bad reactions then they end up in the trash. I don't know about Australia, but in the US, supplements aren't regulated by the FDA, which is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they have too much control over our healthcare and are influenced by big corporations. But on the other hand, when it comes to supplements, you never know what you are really getting. It could essentially be just a sugar pill,containing very little of what it claims, or contain things like glass, insect parts or even dangerous levels of certain ingredients.


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## jaumeb (Sep 1, 2014)

I am looking into Weston A. Price ideas. There is the possibility that the milk from a goat you keep in your garden is healthy while the milk in the supermarket ... shouldn't deserve the name of milk as it is just an industrial product.


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## tummyrumbles (Aug 14, 2005)

Jaumeb, there is a bit of controversy about mason jars but generally if you keep the veges under brine they should be OK.

http://www.foodrenegade.com/mason-jar-ferments-safe/

Some people put a small glass jar on top of the mixture to keep the veges submerged. They also put a layer of oil on top.


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## tummyrumbles (Aug 14, 2005)

Airplane, I don't understand mainstream medicine at all. They claim that they don't know what the cause of leaky gut is, apart from Celiac Disease, but there's so many studies on wheat and its effects in the gut now. In autoimmunity the immune system attacks our own tissue. It does this in Celiac disease and it has been proven that the protein in wheat, gliadin, not only causes gut inflammation but also opens the gaps in the intestinal lining. People with autoimmune diseases all seem to have higher levels of anti-gliadin antibodies as well. It's known that the tissues that autoimmunity targets, in all diseases, are sequences of proteins that resemble sequences of wheat protein. This is how the innate immune system works. It will attack anything that looks like wheat. Other grains can be a problem because they cross-react, or resemble wheat, so these proteins will be attacked as well. Some proteins in dairy also resemble proteins in wheat. So basically our immune system can mistakenly attack any proteins or tissue in our body that looks like wheat, whether it's in the brain, pelvis or anywhere.

Sprouted wheat still has the harmful lectins that do damage. And yes, I think you were the one that initially brought up the fact that enzymes take a while to get used to new foods. I'm still trying to find out how this works exactly as it's interesting and might explain why so many here say they can't eat fibre. I think I do so well on the raw salads because they have their own enzymes which means if I have low stomach acid as well there's less work for it to do as well.

Lectins in wheat, dairy, legumes & nightshades are proteins that enzymes can't digest well at all. These are the problem proteins that cause an immune reaction if they get into the blood stream through the gut. A Paleo autoimmune diet, which is what I'm basically on, is naturally low lectin. The only lectins you eat are from veges and these are relatively harmless.


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