PLT Test Blog

    Today’s post is about some drugs/supplements that have already been discussed in earlier posts.   Rifaximin, used in cycles, is an effective part of our reader Maja’s therapy, while Sodium Butyrate was highlighted long ago by our reader in Switzerland, Alli. I had a consultation with a gastroenterologist last week and came away with a prescription for Rifaximin, microencapsulated  Sodium Butyrate and Lactobacillus Plantarum 299v. Where we live, these are all inexpensive. Rifaximin is an antibiotic with extra benefits and costs about 7 euros (9 dollars).   A course of Rifaximin can cost $2,000 in the United States. I was pleased to read that the private equity owners of a pharmaceutical company that raised the price of a common thyroid drug by 6000% have just been fined $140 million in the UK. Advanz Pharma and former private equity owners were fined £100m by markets watchdog Perhaps some of our US readers should query the crazy price of drugs in the US...

Not all stools were created equal There was a comment recently left on this blog posing the question of what makes a good donor for FMT ( Fecal Microbiota Transplantation), or a “poop transplant” in plain English. FMT is actually an approved therapy for Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). Research has shown   FMT to be more effective than the antibiotic vancomycin . To quote from the research, “ The infusion of donor feces was significantly more effective for the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infection than the use of vancomycin” . FMT might not be for discussion at the dinner table, but it is highly effective in some instances. FMT is actually far more widely used than you might imagine.   In one of today’s papers from China they had treated 1,387 people using 20 donors, for a wide variety of conditions. In the US, autism researchers at Arizona State University showed a benefit that was maintained after a period of two years. Autism symptoms reduced nearly 50 p...

Today’s post has two themes, one relates to Transitory Autism, where a toddler with autism appears to “grow out” of the condition and the other is another substance produced in the gut, like we saw earlier with Propionic acid, that can produce “autism”.    Increased intestinal transit time and bacteria produce P-Cresol If your gut produces a lot of propionic acid, instead of butyric acid, you can appear to have autism. Today we see that producing too much P-Cresol in your gut produces symptoms of autism. I suspect in most cases P-Cresol is making severe autism worse, rather than making a neurologically healthy, but likely constipated, person exhibit autism. Elevated P-Cresol is associated with increased intestinal transit time and not Clostridium type bacteria.   We know that elevated P-Cresol is reduced after oral supplementation with oligofructose-enriched inulin.   It is suggested that certain probiotic bacteria might also lower P-Cresol.   A microbiota trans...