Blended excerpts from Potential Within A Guide to Nutritional Empowerment
Authored by Franco Cavaleri ISBN 0-9731701-0-7
Original post: February 17, 2011
This article is composed of multiple excerpts to result in tone and content shifts and reference numbering that may be out of order.
The fiber, lignan enterolactone link.
The abundant use of antibiotics that you’ve likely applied frequently without second thought contributes to cholesterol anomalies more than you know.
If you’re like most North Americans, you’re an unwitting subject of large-scale experimentation for antibiotic administration. One of the factors contributing to LDL cholesterol elevation is a loss of gut-friendly bacteria, which the inadvertent use of antibiotics obliterates.
These symbiotic intestinal creatures convert dietary fiber into compounds called short-chain fatty acids, producing lignan enterolactone from lignan-fiber. Lignan enterolactone and other fiber-derived fatty acids protect against various cancers and cardiovascular diseases, including LDL elevation. Studies show that blood levels of enterolactone can be significantly lower for regular users of antibiotics compared to nonusers (41). The reason for the diminished protection is the antibiotic-induced reduction in friendly intestinal microflora. With a compromised gut, microflora, supplements, or food-nutrient sources that depend on bacterial metabolism, such as fructooligosaccharides and lignans, can’t deliver the expected health benefits.
In addition, gut microflora act as living obstructions to pathogens such as enterococcus and yeasts like Candida albicans (42, 43, 44). The common devastation of this bacterial flora in combination with dead, processed, fiber-scant foods is the likely cause of cholesterol disease, not to mention numerous other health problems. Fiber feeds this bacterial population; the LDL-regulating short-chain fatty acids (or volatile fatty acids, as they’re often called) are merely a byproduct of this feeding. In fact, some cases of hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol) were once treated with the shotgun approach of antibiotic administration—namely, the extensive application of neomycin—until the risks associated with such procedures were taken more seriously (45).
The objective of this treatment was to rid the body of pathogenic bacteria, making room for friendly bacteria. However, this was only a temporary solution to the problem. Now there are new facts that bring greater sense to the multiple-disease syndrome: hypercholesterolemia has been shown to interfere with nitricoxide synthase in the endothelial cells, and independent research has demonstrated that it’s likely caused by oxidized LDL (46, 47). This means that nitric-oxide production by the cells of our blood vessels can be impaired by high blood cholesterol, subsequently inducing elevated blood pressure—one reason these two conditions, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia, are often experienced concurrently. Nitric oxide is central to blood-pressure regulation. Furthermore, antioxidants prevent the oxidation of LDL and assist in the regulation of normal nitric-oxide activity to better control hypertension. Arginine supplements employed to enhance nitricoxide production and reduce blood pressure can’t function at the expected capacity unless nitric-oxide synthase (the enzyme responsible for producing nitric oxide from the amino acid arginine) is free of cholesterol’s inhibitive influence.
Problems such as those mentioned above can be avoided if the body’s immune system functions at full capacity to result in self-sufficiency, and Ageless Performance helps make that happen. The program incorporates these co-dependent synergies to decrease the risk of drug requirement. If the immune system fails and antibiotic use is required on an ongoing basis to treat, say, recurring infection, a secondary problem develops—the destruction of gut bacteria. However, the dilemma can be avoided if orally supplemented lactobacillus and bifidus bacteria are administered immediately after terminating the antibiotic cycle, if antibiotics are absolutely required—integrated complementary medicine. Such treatment inoculates the gut with friendly bacteria, keeping pathogens at bay and protecting the body from cancers, hypertension, and cholesterol elevation.
The sole cause of multiple anomalies is a failure to maintain a healthy immune system, including gut bacterial flora, but few, if any, health professionals ever see this.
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