The higher protein concentration of infant formulas compared with breast milk has been suggested to be a source of metabolic stress on tissues such as the liver and kidneys in the still-developing infant. It is also thought to be a contributing factor to growth differences observed between formula-fed and breastfed infants. In a double-blind randomized controlled trial, 21 fed infants standard formula or α-lactalbumin–enriched formula (25% of total protein vs 11% in the standard formula) from 6 weeks to 6 months of age and compared them with breastfed infants. The protein content of each formula was 13.1 g/L. Compared with infants fed the standard formula, infants fed the α-lactalbumin–enriched formula had a growth pattern more similar to that of breastfed infants and plasma amino acid concentrations similar to or higher than those of breastfed infants.
Intestinal barrier loss alone is insufficient to initiate disease in IBD. A dysfunctional autophagic mechanism leads to chronic intestinal inflammation in IBD. The maintenance of gut mucosal equilibrium requires a balance between enterocyte loss by apoptosis and the generation of new cells by proliferation from stem cell precursors at the base of the intestinal crypts.
Macrophages functions change during infection and inflammation. The intestinal macrophage pool requires continual renewal from circulating blood monocytes, unlike most other tissue macrophages, which derive from primitive precursors that subsequently self-renew.
SIBO can produce a mild to severe chronic encephalopathy.
Gasotransmitters operate independently of immune receptors. Previously researchers have thought of signaling pathways as entailing a ligand binding to a receptor. However, gases can also trigger signaling cascades in the body. The best known is nitric oxide, or NO, which regulates a host of functions, notably blood pressure. H2S has a high co-morbidity with seizure activity.The liver has long been recognized as the primary organ of detoxification but, there is now growing evidence that the gut also plays a central role in the detoxification process. Given that the small intestine functions predominantly as an absorptive organ its significance in the metabolism of non-nutritive dietary constituents and xenobiotics seems to have been significantly underestimated. This is in spite of the fact that the small intestine is the first site of xenobiotic exposure and that, over the course of a lifetime, is presented with the largest load of antigens and xenobiotics confronting the human body.
Given that the small intestine functions predominantly as an absorptive organ its significance in the metabolism of non-nutritive dietary constituents and xenobiotics seems to have been significantly underestimated.
Detoxification begins at the tips of the villi and the gut is equal to the liver for detoxification.
Macrophages functions change during infection and inflammation. The intestinal macrophage pool requires continual renewal from circulating blood monocytes, unlike most other tissue macrophages, which derive from primitive precursors that subsequently self-renew.
The vitamin D binding protein (DBP) was initially discovered as a major liver-derived polymorphic protein and called group-specific component or Gc. Vitamin D Binding Protein is otherwise know as: VDBP Gc-Protein Glycoprotein Transport protein Gc-Globulin. In general, total Gc-globulin levels are decreased in all patients with hepatotoxicity. Patients with ALF (Acute Liver Failure) have total Gc-globulin concentrations of approximately 100 mg/L which is less than one third of normal values.
Acute liver failure (fulminant hepatic failure) and prognosis. It is safe to say that acute liver failure (ALF) is one of the most dramatic conditions in medicine. The failing liver leads by definition to hepatic encephalopathy within a short time after initial symptoms and may also lead to a cascade of organ failures including renal failure, circulatory collapse, and pulmonary dysfunction. Further, severe infections, deep coagulopathy, and the risk of cerebral edema, intracranial hypertension, and cerebral herniation adds to the picture of an extreme disease entity. Not surprisingly, the mortality rate in ALF has historically been very high, with survival being the exception to the rule.
So far, eleven clinical studies regarding Gc-globulin and ALF have been published. Eight studies have reported on total Gc-globulin levels. The results were very similar among the studies; Gc-globulin concentrations were reduced to between 25% and 49% of normal. Free Gc-globulin levels (reported in 5 studies) were even lower, between 12% and 26% of normal, and complex ratios (reported in 5 studies) were elevated in all papers. Thus, the stress on the actin scavenger system in ALF seems very obvious.
Professor Alex Ford, of Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Biology, said: ‘Our aquatic life is bathing in a soup of antidepressants.
Soaring antidepressant use is turning our waters into a ‘drug soup’ and changing marine life’s ability to mate, feed and move…
‘Antidepressant and antianxiety medications are found everywhere, in sewage, surface water, ground water, drinking water, soil, and accumulating in wildlife tissues. One in six adults – more than seven million people in England alone – take antidepressants.
In the US, this number almost as high as a proportion of the total population at just over one in seven. 
Adding...