Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/jTrtQsWO7y4   Next week’s bingeing on that pie with ice cream and whipped cream piled high could trigger inflammatory bowel disease or worsen the disease you already have.  A mouse study from Canada’s University of Alberta reports that sugar in the gut feeds renegade bacteria like E. coli that trigger inflammation and destructive immune responses.   It only took two days of the sugary diet to give the experimental animals a bellyache.  Patients with inflammatory bowel disorders like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis report similar experiences.   The good news is that your holiday sugar gorge may be neutralized by downing high fiber fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans and nuts that produce short-chain fatty acids.   Michael Laffin, Robert Fedorak, Aiden Zalasky, Heekuk Park, Amanpreet Gill, Ambika Agrawal, Ammar Keshteli, Naomi Hotte, Karen L. Madsen. A high-sugar diet rapidly enhances susceptibility to colitis via depletion of luminal short-chain fatty acids in mice. Scientific Repo