>Hello Pete, I have been thinking about your situation and I wonder if
>you have used antibiotic drugs very often? My own digestive
>difficulties started that way, I lived 2 years in Central America in a
>place with very poor sanitation. I was prescribed many different drugs
>over the first year until I finally adapted to the local bacteria.
>Anyway, antibiotics wipe out all of the natural flora of your gut,
>making digestion much more difficult, bacteria do a lot of our
>digestion of plant matter for us. If the natural bacteria are gone
>then other bacteria will colonize the gut, some of them are harmless,
>but others can be very harmful. If you eat a lot of sugar/carbos you
>end up with yeast infections.

I'm not a big fan of antibiotics or any medicine and will rarely use
anything, so I don't think that is much of an issue. Although I am curious
if the antibiotics used in cattle can affect me from eating beef very
often. After all, 70% of antibiotics made in this country are used to
treat cattle, which need it from the problems caused from the grains and
impurities that are fed to cattle to fatten them up.

>That is what I had. I followed the Atkins anti yeast program for a
>while and it really helped. If I go overboard on sugar now I cut way
>back the next day to almost all meat and have few troubles. To get rid
>of yeast cut out carbos and especially sugar. Eat low carbo foods and
>take garlic capsules. I also eat yogurt pretty often to get
>lactobacilli. If you can't eat milk at all there are lacto bacillus
>pills you can try, to build up the gut bacteria.

I've tried Atkins and similar approaches but I can't lose fat eating a
higher fat diet, it effects me just like a high carb diet would, bloating,
discomfort, no fat loss, etc. The lacto bacillus pills do sound like a
good option.

>Anybody else have troubles start with antibiotics? My kids doctor
>gives them out  for practically any minor complaint. I worry about the
>kids developing resistance and then not being able to use them when
>something really big comes along.

This is a personal theory based on what I've learned, but perhaps being
given soy milk as a baby would interfere with the production of good
bacteria necessary to handle many foods, as well as a sluggish metabolism
by increased estrogen and a slowing of the thyroid.