Can you read Egyptian Hieroglyphics? If so, you would learn some fascinating secrets of ancient Egyptian medicine. In Science and Secrets of Early Medicine—which makes for fascinating reading for all persons interested in ancient medical practices—we learn that many ancient Egyptian prescriptions included droppings from the common fly and pelicans, excrement from lizards and the Nile crocodile, even dung of the gazelle, as well as human urine. Even now, traveling into the 20th Century, we find North African nomads often treat dysentery with bits of fresh horse or camel dung.
What do we make of this dung therapy? Were the ancient Egyptians and their modern descendents out of their minds?
Not at all!
As explained in Science and Secrets of Early Medicine, we now know “that bacteria living in the human body release their excretory products into the faeces and urine, which therefore are rich in antibiotic substances.”
Well, today, we have a more palatable alternative: probiotics.
Very recently, researchers from the University of Paris dramatically demonstrated the impact that a healthy population of friendly flora in the body have on immunity in a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. What’s more, they found the effect to be sustained for some time even after supplementation was discontinued.
In this study, 28 healthy volunteers were told to drink milk with or without the two major friendly bacteria in the gut, Lactobacillus acidophilus or Bifidobacterium bifidum. Three weeks later, the scientists took blood samples from the volunteers and intentionally contaminated these samples with disease-causing E. Coli, that causes severe vomiting, nausea, kidney failure and death, particularly in children and the elderly. The percentage of white blood cells known as phagocytes (which ingest bacteria and cell debris) that attacked and gobbled up E. Coli was 40 to 80 percent higher in the persons receiving the friendly bacteria than it was in those drinking plain milk. Six weeks after the volunteers ceased drinking their milk with friendly bacteria, their phagocyte activity remained far higher than when they began the study.
“While most commonly considered for digestive function, probiotics play a crucial role in the immune activity of the human body,” says health writer Heather Granato. Friendly bacteria help the body to subdue many bacterial and other enemies including Candida albicans, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhosa, Staphylococcus aureus, shigella, Costridium difficile, Bacillus cereus, Streptococcus faecalis, and Campylobacter jejuni. They do so via their natural secretions, which act as natural antibiotics (especially when our levels of the B vitamins folic acid and riboflavin are adequate) and by population displacement of unfriendly bacteria.
Thus, they really rev up our immune function.
Bifidobacteria are the most predominating intestinal flora in infants. Children with high numbers of bifidobacteria resist enteric infections very effectively. In fact, the feeding of bifidobacteria-containing dairy products has been used to treat these infections in Japanese children with success.
This information is critical for adults and children alike, by the way. For example, we know that breast-fed babies get fewer infections. When a baby is born, the intestines are virtually sterile and free of microorganisms. Then, within days a land grab ensues, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the days of the Wild West. Friendly and unfriendly bacteria alike rush in to take over the empty land of the child’s intestine. By the fourth to seventh day, the intestines of breast-fed babies generally have enough friendly bifidobacteria from their mother’s milk to keep the bad guys at bay. Unfortunately, infant formula cannot provide the same beneficial bacteria. Thus, infants given formula tend to be overrun by bad bacteria.
This is similar to what happens with antibiotics, too. Only in this case, antibiotics wipe out populations of friendly bacterial inhabitants of portions of the intestines to set up the land grab. In this case, taking prebiotics and probiotics can position the good bacteria on our side to form an impenetrable barrier to keep out the bad bacteria.
We also know that, generally, compared to healthy children and adults, the elderly have very low counts of bifidobacteria. Yet, as bifidobacteria numbers drop, there is a corresponding increase in the numbers of toxic species of Clostridium perfringens detected in the elderly. This can cause all sorts of problems, as C. perfringens produces a host of undesirable substances including toxins and volatile amines that can be potentially cancer causing. Yet adults who bolster their population of friendly bacteria have demonstrated substantial decreases in clostridium counts as well as an increase in bifidobacterium counts. This translates into better health as we age.
Beneficial flora produce acidophiline bactericidins, defensins, cationic proteins and lactoferrin, all of which work to destroy other pathogenic or harmful bacteria that compete for a hold in the body.
Boosting the body’s populations of friendly bacteria boosts its anti-infectious properties. Medical journalist Dr. Morton Walker reports in his book Secrets of Long Life that Lactobacillus acidophilus contains several powerful anti-microbial compounds such as acidolin, acidophyllin, acidolphin, lactocidin, and bacteriocin. These germ-fighting bacterial compounds have been proven to eradicate E. coli, listeria, Streptococci staphylococci, Candida albicans, herpes and flu viruses. For example, in a laboratory study (in vitro), acidophyllin, one of the antibacterial components of acidophilus, caused a 50 percent inhibition in growth of 27 different types of bacterial species including 23 common pathogens.
Probiotics have a well-deserved reputation not only for favorably altering the intestinal microflora balance but also for inhibiting populations of harmful bacteria, boosting immune function, and supporting resistance to and recovery from infections.
In a very recent study, for example, supplements containing lactobacilli bacteria lessened the duration of winter infections (gastrointestinal and respiratory) by 20 percent in elderly people.
You will enjoy greater overall resistance to pathogens that can wreak health havoc, as this most recent study shows, and your ability to recover will also be improved.
Research reviews from the University of Turku, Finland, explored the role of probiotics in general human disease and, specifically, in immune function.
Probiotics work to reinforce the lines of gut defense-exclusion of pathogens, elimination of toxins and regulation of immune compounds. The gastrointestinal tract is an integral part of the innate immune system, functioning as a barrier against antigens from food and microorganisms. The researchers noted many probiotic effects are mediated through immune regulation, particularly through balanced control of cytokines, and that differences exist in the effects of different probiotics.
Probiotic bacteria, for example, signal the immune system through innate cell surface pattern receptors or by activating lymphoid cells (as found in the Peyer’s patches). In a clinical study of 30 healthy volunteers given Lactobacillus GG, Lactococcus lactis or placebo and then challenged with a Salmonella typhi oral vaccine, those given Lactobacillus GG had a greater increase in specific immunoglobulin-A (IgA). Researchers concluded the immunomodulatory effect of probiotics may, therefore, be strain-dependent.
But, based on other research, I doubt that one strain holds all that much of a greater edge. For example, studies on bifidobacterium have shown effects similar to the above results with completely different friendly species. Researchers from Kangwon National University, Republic of Korea, noted B. bifidum alone significantly induced total IgA and IgM synthesis by lymph nodes and Peyer patch cells. The researchers also found B. bifidum increased the number of Ig secreting cells but did not induce antibody responses. This is supported by a clinical study conducted at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Thirty healthy elderly volunteers were given milk supplemented with Bifidobacterium lactis HN019 in a typical or low dose. Both doses showed similar effectiveness in increasing proportions of total, helper and activated T lymphocytes and NK cells.
How to Use Probiotics for Healthy Immune Function