Summary:
A unique bacterial metabolic product in urine allows GI symptoms following carbohydrate ingestion to be tied to a specific type of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.

alcohol sensitivity
bloating
fatigue
flatulence

K91 Urine Organix Profile

34

M

3/11/2004

History This 34 year old man has had flatulence and bloating progress to extreme levels in recent weeks while his sense of chronic fatigue has been also worsening. He also has noticed that the symptoms worsen markedly when he drinks alcoholic beverages. Description of Results There are several moderate to severe nutrient issues on the first page, but the outstanding feature that corroborates the clinical observations is the profound elevation of tricarb (analyte #42) without other microbial markers. That means that he is harboring a specific tricarb-producing organism. Recommendations The first thing to do is to supplement magnesium aggressively (~800mg) because tricarb binds Mg very tightly, completely preventing absorption and inducing deficiency. The situation is well-studied in ruminants where death from Mg deficiency has been reported to wipe out whole herds of animals. The condition in those animals is induced by over-feeding carbohydrate, thus stimulating ruminal overgrowth of specific bacterial strains that have been identified. Humans do not have rumens, but they do have microaerophilic small intestinal areas proximal to the stomach that can harbor similar organisms. The fact the tricarb is so high in cases like this one tell us that humans, in fact, are susceptible to such a specific dysbiosis. The profound sense of fatigue can result from magnesium deficiency. A short course of prescription antibiotics should bring the populations down. Use probiotics, of course, and have him restrict dietary carbohydrate for the next 60 days and stay off the alcohol until the intestinal populations are resolved. Other Comments This case illustrates how dietary carbohydrate-induced intestinal microbial overgrowth situations can be differentiated by the patterns of products detected in urine. We might categorize such responses as 1) Bacterial --- Tricarballylate producers --- D-Lactate producers 2) Fungal --- D-Arabinitol producers --- Tartarate producers Whenever ingestion of carbohydrate tends to produce symptoms of bloating, belching, and flatulence, one of these types of overgrowth should be suspected. The tricarb-type of overgrowth seems to be produced by aerophilic bacteria, so it may be expected to occur in the more proximal regions of the small intestines such as mid to lower jejunal. The bacterial metabolic responses to dietary carbohydrate are rapid, so that symptoms are more clearly associated with intake than for more distal and dispersed colonization such as usually occurs with C. albicans (D-arabinitol production) and L. acidophilus (D-lactate production).

Lab Data Figure . Tricarb OAU p1.gif Figure . Tricarb OAU p2.gif