Well it appears what many patrons of Taco Bell have suspected for awhile might be landing Taco Bell in some hot water, or at least into a courtroom. The law firms “Blood Hurst & O’Reardon” & “Beasley Allen” have filed a class action lawsuit against Taco Bell’s parent company Yum Brands(the evil geniuses behind such fast food staples as Pizza Hut & KFC) claiming that Taco Bell’s ground “beef” may barely be beef at all.
The lawsuit claims that the ground beef filling may actually only consist of 35% actual beef. This flies in the face of the USDA policy book guidelines which state that for something to be called ground beef it must contain less than 30% beef fat & not be adulterated with any kind of extenders. The USDA does allow for a product to be labeled as “taco meat filling” if it has at least 40% beef, which Taco Bell supposedly fails to meet as well. Continue reading “Taco Bell Meat May Not Be Making The Grade” »
The FDA recently granted fast-track status for the drug MuDelta which was created by Furiex Pharmaceuticals. MuDelta is a combo delta opioid receptor agonist(stimulates) and a mu receptor antagonist(blocks stimulation). The drug has similarities to another opioid receptor drug Naltrexone, however Naltrexone is purely a opioid receptor antagonist for the mu, kappa & to a small extent delta receptors. It does not have agonist properties and thus doesn’t stimulate any of the receptors.
Continue reading “Furiex’s New Irritable Bowel Syndrome Drug “MuDelta”” »
From the land of pizza comes some good news for those dealing with Celiac disease. A recent study, headed by University of Naples(Italy) doctor Luigi Greco found that wheat treated with lactobacillus & a fungal enzyme could be eaten by those dealing with Celiac disease. The fermentation of the wheat causes it to hydrolyze and reduces the residual gluten content of the final product. Gluten is a naturally occurring protein inside wheat that damages the small intestine of those dealing with Celiac disease due to an autoimmune reaction. Continue reading “Those With Celiac Disease May Be Able To Eat Future Sourdough Wheat Products” »
I posted a few days ago about Chelsey Macey who was suing Mission Organics, Natural Selection Foods & Dole Foods over E. Coli contaminated spinach which caused her to become deathly ill and later develop life altering Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Well the lawsuit is now settled out of court with the amount awarded to her sealed, so we don’t know exactly how much she was given, but the jury was already about to award $5 million in damages & had yet to decide on the award for pain & suffering. One would probably reason then that the the settlement was for over $5 million. Continue reading “Woman Settles Out of Court in Irritable Bowel Syndrome E. Coli Spinach Lawsuit” »
A recent study by the Boston School of Medicine has found that those who are dealing with Crohn’s Disease are more likely to be deficient in Vitamin D2 partially due to problems with absorbing it. The study found that those with Crohn’s had a absorption rate that was 30% lower than normal & approximately 70% of the patients had Vitamin D deficiencies. Vitamin D is often labeled as ‘the sunshine vitamin’ as it can be produced by the skin when exposed to sunlight or obtained from foods and/or in supplements.
If you’d like to try supplementing Vitamin D2 check out Now Foods’ 2000 IU Vitamin D2. Keep in mind that a lot of the Vitamin D on store or pharmacy shelves is Vitamin D3, not D2, so keep that in mind when buying a supplement.
You can review all the findings by reading the full study.
Well better late than never that I post this up here. Crystal from Living With Gastroparesis started up a Kicker Starter project to create an in-depth book about gastroparesis. This is a great idea and it looks like there has been a huge amount of interest in such a book. Gastroparesis really does not get the attention it deserves and I have no doubt this book will be of great benefit to someone who is struggling with this disease.
Kick Starter Project Link
While searching the news today I saw a lot of outlets focusing in on a study recently released by the Statens Serum Institute(Denmark) about a possible link between antibiotics and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Upon looking at the abstract and the title of the study I think we have a case once again of people mistaking Irritable Bowel Syndrome for Inflammatory Bowel Disease / Crohn’s Disease / Ulcerative Colitis. Continue reading “Study on Antibiotics is Related to Inflammatory Bowel Disease Not IBS” »
If you’ve made a new years resolution to lose weight this year & you have IBS, here’s some more motivation. A recent study(Reuters) by the Swedes at the University of Gothenburg shows that moderate to vigorous exercise for 20 – 60 minutes, 3 – 5 days per week can be helpful with Irritable Bowel Syndrome symptoms. The study showed 43% improvement for those in the exercise group, compared to 25% improvement for those who did not change their habits. Not earth shattering but it does hint that exercise can be helpful for Irritable Bowel Syndrome & of course exercise is usually good for you overall, something that most people probably don’t get enough of. Continue reading “Weight Loss Resolution Might Have Hidden IBS Benefits” »
A recent study review found that 12 out of 16 probiotic studies saw better outcomes when using multiple probiotic strains instead of just a single strain. These studies covered many different topics such as inflammatory bowel disorder, Helicobacter pylori, gut function & others.
I don’t find this terribly surprising as our digestive tract is teaming with all sorts bacterial flora. There is no jack of all trades probiotic that does everything for the digestive tract. There are also many different sub-strains of probiotics out there. If you go to the store you’ll probably see a lot of bottles labeled as being L. Acidophilus, however each company breeds it’s own strain(unless the companies outsourced from same lab) of L. Acidophilus so you might even get slightly different results depending on which brand you choose. There also may be a host of probiotic sub-strains we haven’t discovered yet. This is why something like fecal transplantation is interesting because it takes a working bacterial ecosystem and transplants it into someone who does not have one. It’s hard to slowly rebuild a healthy bacterial ecosystem with only a handful of bacteria, especially when we do not know which bacteria are most effective for each person & we may even be missing some.
I reported about a study on Rifaximin a few months ago. I was not that impressed by the results at that time. Well there has been a new study released on Rifaxmin showing pretty much the same unimpressive results. The facts are still that only about 11% saw benefit over placebo. That difference seems even more dubious what with the recent placebo study showing a similar level of efficacy. Who knows if the Rifaximin is really doing anything at all? Additionally patients are only tracked for 10-weeks, there is no information for what happens after that. It appears I am not alone in my concerns regarding the study. If you check out the comments on the study you’ll find there are a few doctors chiming in with their concerns:
“Here we go on another journey into a poorly supported area of new treatment…….this article barely shows a statistically signifincant difference, and certainly not a convincing one.” – MICHAEL ELIASTAM, MD
“This study is problematic in several ways, not least of which is the long list of companies involved, and somehow attached to the trial’s outcome.” – DAVID GLUCK, MD
“As a practicing gastroenterologist for 12 years as well as an IBS sufferer for almost 40, I realized long ago that we cannot treat IBS with a pill and that IBS is for life, and not for 10 weeks. I have been following Dr. Pimental’s studies for years, and I have yet to see anything last as long as the stress and psychological manipulation techniques that I and many others have been advocating for years.” – KIMBERLY CUSATO, MD
So buyer beware, Rifaximin may not be all it’s cracked up to be or what the hype my have you believe.