Homeostatic Soil Organisms for One's Primal Defense

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Feb, 2001  by Morton Walker

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During 1996, at the age of nineteen, Jordan Rubin of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida had arrived at death's door, suffering from the most severe symptoms of Crohn's disease. This condition is a chronic, inflammatory, abnormality of the bowel showing overlapping clinical, epidemiologic, and pathologic findings. But medical science has determined no definite cause for the condition. It produces numerous, serious discomforts by exhibiting four common and characteristic disease patterns: (a) inflammation with pain and tenderness in the right lower part of the abdomen; (b) recurring acute intestinal obstructions that bring on deeply painful spasms of the intestinal wall, swelling of the abdomen, persistent diarrhea, and vomiting; (c) inflammation and chronic partial intestinal obstruction causing subtle but serious malnutrition and chronic debility; (d) abnormal channels (fistulas) with many pus-filled pockets of infection (abscesses) that produce fever, painful masses in the abdomen, and severe weight loss. Jordan R ubin showed all four of these disease patterns. [1]

For more than two years the young man experienced between twelve and 30 usually bloody bowel movements per day. They came on all night too, allowing him to sleep no more than one hour at any given time.

Laboratory tests showed that Jordan had no iron in his blood, and his serum measurement for albumin indicated muscle wasting (cachexia). By laboratory standards, this patient's blood was like that of a dead man. His body was affected by candidiasis, amoebiasis, cryptosporidiosis, extreme intestinal dysbiosis, acute electrolyte imbalance, elevated C-reactive protein, anemia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, diabetes, hair loss, and leukocytosis. The chance for recovery by conventional treatment methods remained discouraging, because Jordan also exhibited malabsorption syndrome for food nutrients. He could not assimilate the nutrients in food even if he had any appetite, which had been lacking for him for over a year. Jordan had dropped so much weight, from 180 to 104 pounds, he looked like a survivor of a Nazi death camp (see Photograph 1).

Jordan Rubin's quality of life was nonexistent. To find some viable therapy, he consulted over 70 health practitioners worldwide and tried more than 200 different nutritional products, including several probiotic preparations. As he explained to me, "During the two years of my illness, despite my ongoing search for treatment, I was never granted even one day of reprieve from the symptoms of Crohn's disease. The excessive amounts of emotional, physical, and mental distress caused me to want to die. All I could do was pray to a compassionate God that the cure for Crohn's disease would someday be found.

"And then," he added with a smile, "it happened!"

The Cure for Crohn's Disease Comes to Jordan Rubin

Most people are unaware of the groundbreaking findings of Nobel laureate Elie Metchnikoff, PhD, the Russian bacteriologist who more than 91 years ago documented a direct link between human longevity and the necessity of maintaining a healthy balance between those beneficial and pathological microorganisms residing within the human gut. Dr. Metchnikoff's 1908 Nobel prize in physiology had been awarded for his discovery of phagocytes and other immune system components, but his accurate description of vital elements in the body's intestinal flora is equally important. [2]

Dr. Metchnikoff came to believe that human beings could live to the age of 150 years if they kept the organisms within their intestines in a state of homeostatic balance. This, he said, could be accomplished by consuming live, fermented foods. Such a concept expressed way back in 1909 by this great scientist forms the foundation for the cure of Crohn's disease that came to Jordan Rubin.

Jordan was able to regain his health by supplementing the small amount that he could eat with homeostatic soil organisms (HSOs[TM]) which reversed the degenerative process of his Crohn's disease. The HSOs[TM] detoxified Jordan's intestinal tract, increased his ability to absorb nutrients from food, and boosted his immune system, especially in its ability to phagocytize viruses and bacteria. Moreover, the HSOs[TM] turned really aggressive against pathological molds, yeasts, fungi, and parasites of all types which permeated his gut. They stimulate the formation of lactoferrin (the iron-binding protein found in neutrophils which exerts antimicrobial activity by withholding iron from any harmful microorganisms that the patient ingests).

Homeostatic soil organisms are super probiotics (the opposite of antibiotics). They restore balance to an autointoxicated gastrointestinal tract in a specific manner.

Upon being swallowed, the HSOs[TM] activate and bring about gut restoration by attaching themselves to the intestinal mucosa. On the gut wall they reproduce to form colonies along the course of "receptor sites" which had previously been established by harmful bacteria and other pathological microorganisms. These pathogens are crowded out or eaten up by the probiotics so that symptoms of illness they had been producing tend to terminate eventually. The time factor for symptomatic healing is dependent upon the volume of pathogens lodged at the gut's receptor sites. No matter what the number of bad bacteria or other pathogens, HSOs[TM] implant themselves and bring about gut restoration.