Re: Calling Heather
07/07/03 01:35 PM
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Heather
Reged: 12/09/02
Posts: 7799
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Hi - I've checked out his site and I don't think it's legit. He blames people with IBS for the disorder - "Your lifestyle got you here". He says that IBS (and he lumps a lot of problems in with IBS, like GERD, which is not the same thing at all) is caused by bacteria or chemistry, and that antibiotics are the main cause. This flies in the face of quite a few years of well-documented research showing that people with IBS have dysfunctional enteric nervous systems. They don't have a bacterial or chemical problem. If he's going to make that claim, he needs to cite the studies that document it. There aren't any. There are, however, plenty of studies showing that IBS patients have abnormal gut responses to normal gut stimulations, and that IBS patients' brains (shown in PET scans) actually process nerve signals from the gut differently than normal people.
Even worse, in his article he lumps IBS in with IBD and talks about inflammation in the gut (there isn't any in IBS) and "leaky gut syndrome". There is ZERO evidence for any such syndrome. And IBS does NOT have any visible gut inflammation as IBD does. You cannot lump these disorders together - it's apples and oranges. He then claims that this all leads to food allergies - but allergies are a totally different problem which is an immune system reaction. There's no link established at all between IBS and the immune system.
The point of the article is to get patients to buy his supplements. They're only available through him. And they're supposed to cure IBS through bacteria and chemistry. If he really achieved these results, he'd be conducting a double-blind study and submitting results to a peer-reviewed journal. That's what doctors do with their research in order to have it accepted in the medical field. He's a doctor, but he's not doing this.
For foods, he has patients eliminate dairy and gas-producing veggies. If that doesn't work he has them eliminate fructose, and then gluten. He doesn't mention fiber at all, nor does he talk about how fats affect the GI tract.
Here's the list supplements you have to buy from him and take:
Ultra Flora Plus DF, Ultra Bifidus, Ultra Dophilus, Ultra Clear Sustain, Azeo-Pangen, Metagest and Intesol. God knows how much that would cost - I didn't see any prices listed.
At one point in his article he says, "Please don't think you're smarter than me." That's where I stopped reading. I want nothing to do with a doctor who thinks that a patient can't ever know their own body better than he can (is he God?)
Anyway, that's my take on it.
Best, Heather
-------------------- Heather is the Administrator of the IBS Message Boards. She is the author of Eating for IBS and The First Year: IBS, and the CEO of Heather's Tummy Care. Join her IBS Newsletter. Meet Heather on Facebook!
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