Title: Archaea: Hot springs, the Dead Sea, and your intestines | The Undoctored Blog
Headings: Archaea: Hot springs, the Dead Sea, and your intestines
Archaea: Hot springs, the Dead Sea, and your intestines
Content: Most humans harbor Archaea in their digestive tracts where they may provide some benefits, such as consuming hydrogen gas produced by bacteria, consuming toxic metabolites resulting from bacterial protein fermentation, and reducing trimethylamine intestinal content. And, despite the many human diseases caused by bacteria—tuberculosis, pneumonia, urinary tract infections, etc.—Archaea are largely benign and appear to not typically cause human diseases. In other words, they seem less opportunistic than bacteria or viruses, benign co-inhabitants in creatures like mammals. This is why it is surprising that evidence is mounting associating the proliferation of Archaea such as Methanobrevibacter smithii, so-called because it produces methane gas rather than hydrogen gas, with a form of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, SIBO, called methanogenic SIBO. Because methane gas has been shown to slow intestinal propulsive activity in the intestinal tract, the red flag for methanogenic SIBO is constipation. Now, recall that gliadin-derived opioid peptides can be responsible for constipation, as are other opioids, a fact that the ever-enterprising pharmaceutical industry puts to advantage. Gliadin-derived opioid peptides can also be responsible for severe, unremitting constipation, “obstipation,” an awful situation in which sufferers move their bowels every several weeks, partial and temporary relief provided by mega-dose laxatives and enemas. Banishing all gliadin-containing wheat and related grains can therefore provide dramatic relief to many cases of constipation. But Archaea can also cause constipation, often labeled IBS-C or irritable bowel syndrome with constipation. But why?