Duncan CrowBuy Inulin here and start to correct your bowel ecology today.
Feedback from people who have used and are using this more scientific approach and got better in a much shorter time than diet alone underscores its validity.
Add some psyllium fiber, available in natural or orange
Dreamfields low-carb pasta containing inulin and fiber, might allow the dietary flexibility you need.
Correct dysbiosis even more quickly by adding one of these probiotics
Now Foods - Eight probiotic formula in enteric-coated capsules
Now Foods - Probiotic Defense with SBOs in a powder or capsules with NO bacillus licheniformis!
Now Foods - Probiotic capsule with 8 billion oganisms - old school but tried and true
Bad bowel bacteria (A.K.A. dysbiosis or dysbacteriosis) is a condition in which there are not enough good bowel bacteria (probiotics) to control the fluorish of bad bacteria, viruses, yeasts and fungi that produce gas, flatulence and toxin load 24 hours a day as they ferment your food. Dysbiosis is a chronic condition caused by a high-carbohydate and low-inulin diet, and a low level condition can be easily made much worse by an antibiotic regime, in which case it's often called antibiotic-associated diarrhea.
Candida, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Rheumatoid Arthritis, Yeast Infections, Urinary Tract Infections (UTI), Pancreatitis, Vaginitis, Ear Infections, Diarrhea, Constipation, Lupus, Breast Cancer, Cirrhosis of the Liver, Acne, Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), and Psoriasis have been linked to dysbiosis; the inulin references are below.
Dysbiosis is corrected naturally with inulin, a natural functional food ingredient that is water-extracted from the root of a common vegetable such as the chicory plant, Cichorium intybus, and a few other species. Sounds simple because it IS simple.
So what is prebiotic inulin ?
Inulin is an indigestible carbohydrate that reaches the colon unchanged to feed healthy (probiotic) bacteria such as bifidobacteria and lactobacilli. Bifidobacteria is the main gut bacteria in young children; probiotics at lower numbers in children and adults outcompete the bad organisms and also produce benefical short chain fatty acids and b-vitamins, anti-cancer enzymes, acids and bacteriocin anti-biotics. Inulin aids many of the human body’s key metabolic functions including being a PREbiotic food for PRObiotic (good) bacteria. The probiotic organisms in your intestine rely on a steady supply of prebiotic in order to be an active culture. Only an active culture can outcompete pathogens and put beneficial byproducts on the bowel lining; even an added culture you eat as probiotic capsules can not do that unless it's fed.
FOS (fructo-oligosaccharides) is a subset of inulin distinguished from the rest of the inulin by shorter chain lengths of complex sugars, resulting in its fermentation by a much wider variety of bacteria, fungus, and yeasts. While FOS and other prebiotics feed some good and some bad bowel bacteria, inulin is a much more specific PREbiotic even though in its natural "native" form it contains small amounts of FOS and some natural sugar. So, inulin is not FOS, and the two terms are not interchangeable. Further, the problematic short-chain FOS and sugar can be removed, leaving the long-chain part that feeds only good, PRObiotic bacteria as the inulin references show. So, "native inulin" must also be distinguished from "long chain" inulin.
Some probiotic manufacturers, perhaps themselves confused, confuse the public on the difference between FOS and inulin. They state (perhaps to increase probiotic sales?) that FOS can cause digestive upset, and they don't mention that the inulin references detail a better prebiotic that does not cause issues that short chain FOS does.
How does inulin work?
>>>This native inulin<<< on the left, like "long-chain inulin" feeds your probiotic culture. On the crucial position of the bowel lining, an actively growing probiotic culture creates an unfavorable environment for unhealthy bowel bacteria such as E.coli, Clostridia, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Rotavirus, yeasts, and opportunistic fungi such as candida, any of which are present but can only fluorish in an environment of intestinal dysbiosis. The outcome is improved bowel habit, nutrient and mineral absorption, blood sugar and insulin levels, LDL and VLDL cholesterol, blood pressure, and dramatically reduced cancer risk as the inulin references show. Inulin is a crucially important part of the diet, but many people are deficient, and that's why so many have bowel diseases and dysbiosis.
How do we get inulin?
More than 36,000 plants world-wide contain natural "native" inulin; some common sources are shown in the tables below. Even though it exists in trace amounts in many foods, most foods don't contain much and a lot more is needed to get near the optimal 12-15 grams daily that would preclude most bowel disorders. Several portions of even high-inulin foods are required in order to get a few grams of inulin; requirements were met historically by a diet that used high-inulin foods as staples.(see table 1)
What do the inulin references tell us?
Science shows us inulin is a mixture of chains of fructose molecules capped with a glucose molecule, with the fructose chains ranging from 2 to 60 units long. It is a natual polymer, thus its indigestibility in the human gut, with the 'degree of polymerization' (DP) averaging about 9 purely because it contains some sugar and some short-chain FOS. However, the DP of commercial FOS (fructooligosaccharides) averages only 3.7. As previouly mentioned, many bad organisms make the specific enzyme required to break FOS down and use it; this is detailed in the first few pages of Tungland's review below. Long-chain Inulin with short-chain FOS and sugar removed averages DP 22.
Again, unlike the shorter-chain FOS and sugars that can be used by many bacteria, the longer chains, even within "native inulin", cannot be used by harmful bacteria because they do not produce the enzyme required to break it down. The table below shows the results of several studies that compared FOS-free, sugar-free inulin and other prebiotics and their effect on several pathogens. Note that even though the negative cultures were incubated for an additional seven days at body temperature, several days longer than in the human gut, the pathogens exhibited little or no growth.
This study is the souce of the table:
Fermentation of polysaccharides by Klebsielleae and other facultative bacilli
Appl. Environ. Microbiol. May 1980
Recent human experiments conducted by Gibson et al. (1995) at the Dunn Clinical Nutrition Center (UK) demonstrated that a daily intake of 15 grams of native inulin renders Bifidobacteria the numerically predominant species in feces and colon in 15 days, at the same time stagnating or decreasing the numbers of bacteroides, fusobacteria, clostridia and coliforms (e. coli) -- leaving the total bacterial count essentially unchanged. In addition, inulin's relatively long chain length can also provide a greater number of available carbohydrate units to be used for beneficial bacterial growth. 
As a soluble dietary fiber, inulin also shortens fecal transit time, slightly increases fecal bulk, reduces constipation, has been shown to reduce both serum and hepatic cholesterol and triglycerides, and may provide improved absorption of minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, and phosphate. Furthermore, unlike FOS, inulin's longer chain length makes it more easily tolerated by the human intestinal system. (Tokunaga, Oku, and Hosoya 1986).
Improving Hulda Clark's Protocols With Inulin
Dr. Hulda Clark targets trace methanol exposure as part of her parasite treatment, but she does not address the large amounts of methanol that are created during bowel dysbiosis as follows:
Food fermentation by several non-probiotic bacterial species produces a lot of hydrogen, which is used by hydrogen-using bacteria called hydrogenotrophic methanogens, as they're called, because they in turn produce methane from it. The methane adds to the large amount of methane that is aleady being produced through fermentation by many bacterial species. Methane is known to be a major component of bowel gases, and many methane-using bacteria, called methanotrophs, use methane to produce large quantities of toxic methanol.Because Dr. Hulda Clark left correcting dysbiosis with inulin out of her protocols, her more literal adherents maintain their dysbiosis as well as their main methanol exposure. Inulin references show bowel dysbiosis increases cancer, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome and candida risk. Clark calls her protocols "a cure for all diseases", so obviously her approach to intestinal health is incomplete and should be treated as such.
Improving Elaine Gottschall's Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD)
The SCD is fundamentally flawed by a similar ignorance of the crucially important role inulin plays in bowel health. In her work, dismissing 'inulin and FOS' should be replaced by an explanation of the difference between short FOS and long inulin fractions; both are detailed by our more current inulin references.
The SCD promotes the use of honey and other carbohydrates that have been proven to ferment by pathogens and proven to promote bowel dysbiosis and, in the upper intestine, a medical condition called SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth). To add to the insult it also limits the PREbiotic food inulin that is already deficient in the diet, and in so doing it restricts crucial probiotic fermentation. Low inulin intake is known to cause inflammatory bowel disorders, not cure them, and it also increases cancer and candidiasis risk.
Proof of aberrant crypt foci and colon polyposis (cancer starts) seen in bowel dysbiosis is linked in the research below. Unfortunately, both Elaine Gottschall's and Hulda Clark's followers have been using snapshots of works in progress, promoting what we know today is less than stellar and potentially dangerous health misinformation to a trusting population. I urge these pepole instead to make the major changes to their regime that current prebiotic research and 5,000 years of historic practice predicate. Of course, many people still posess the character to be followers, even of the more cavalier and the trolls. I want to see people waking up, reading the inulin references, and taking appropriate action.
Inulin References:
A Comprehensive Scientific Review (1.35MB)
Bryan C. Tungland, 2000
Prebiotic carbohydrates modify the mucosa associated microflora of the human large bowel.
NOTE the mucosal layer is a crucially important position where delicate bowel lining tissues are exposed to the outcome
Gut 2004
Bacillary dysentery as a causative factor of irritable bowel syndrome and its pathogenesis.
Gut Aug 2004
Small Intestinal Bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) in fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome
British Medical Journal 2004
Here's a fair primer on Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
Dysbacteriosis in patients with colon polyposis
NOTE the link chronic dysbiosis has to colon cancer.
Zh Mikrobiol Epidemiol Immunobiol. Sept-Oct 2001
Experimental evidences on the potential of prebiotic fructans to reduce the risk of colon cancer.
Br J Nutr. 2002
Inulin-type fructans and reduction in colon cancer risk: review of experimental and human data.
Br J Nutr. 2005
Dysbiosis in inflammatory bowel disease
Gut 2004
Dysbiosis as a prerequisite for IBD
Gut 2004
Synbiotic therapy (Bifidobacterium longum/Synergy 1) initiates resolution of inflammation in patients with active ulcerative colitis: a randomised controlled pilot trial
Gut 2005
Effect of dietary inulin supplementation on inflammation of pouch mucosa in patients with an ileal pouch-anal anastomosis.
Dis Colon Rectum. 2002
Probiotics and Prebiotics in the Elderly
Postgraduate Medical Journal. 2004
Fermentation of polysaccharides by Klebsielleae and other facultative bacilli
Appl. Environ. Microbiol. May 1980
Inulin and oligofructose as dietary fiber: a review of the evidence.
Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2001 Jul; 41(5): 353-62.
Antioxidative effects of Cichorium intybus root extract on LDL (low density lipoprotein) oxidation.
Arch Pharm Res. 2001 Oct; 24(5): 431-6.
Anti-hepatotoxic effects of root and root callus extracts of Cichorium intybus L.
J Ethnopharmacol. 1998 Dec; 63(3): 227-31.
Prebiotics and probiotics: are they functional foods?
Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Jun;71(6 Suppl):1682S-7S; discussion 1688S-90S. Review.
Addition of inulin to a moderately high-carbohydrate diet reduces hepatic lipogenesis and plasma triacylglycerol concentrations in humans.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Mar;77(3):559-64.
Applications of inulin and oligofructose in health and nutrition.
J Biosci. 2002 Dec;27(7):703-14.
Dietary chicory inulin increases whole-body bone mineral density in growing male rats.
J Nutr. 2002 Dec;132(12):3599-602.
Non-toxic potentiation of cancer radiotherapy by dietary oligofructose or inulin.
Anticancer Res. 2002 Nov-Dec;22(6A):3319-23.
Biomarkers of bone health appropriate for evaluating functional foods designed to reduce risk of osteoporosis.
Br J Nutr. 2002 Nov;88 Suppl 2:S225-32. Review.
Antitumorigenic activity of the prebiotic inulin enriched with oligofructose in combination with the probiotics Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium lactis on azoxymethane-induced colon carcinogenesis in rats.
Carcinogenesis. 2002 Nov;23(11):1953-60.
Functional food concept and its application to prebiotics.
Dig Liver Dis. 2002 Sep;34 Suppl 2:S105-10. Review.
Dietary inulin suppresses azoxymethane-induced preneoplastic aberrant crypt foci in mature Fisher 344 rats.
J Nutr. 2002 Sep;132(9):2804-8.
Dietary inulin suppresses azoxymethane-induced aberrant crypt foci and colon tumors at the promotion stage in young Fisher 344 rats.
J Nutr. 2002 Sep;132(9):2809-13.
Effects of prebiotics on mineral metabolism.
Am J Clin Nutr 2001 Feb;73(2 Suppl):459S-464S
