The Only Time You Should Treat Food Poisoning...

Any time there's a new case of contaminated food, I get a lot of calls asking about it. You probably heard all the commotion in July when the Food and Drug Administration thought tomatoes were responsible for a lot of salmonella cases. It turns out the tomatoes were fine. It was peppers from Mexico that were the culprit.

Regardless of the source, food poisoning is a reality we have to deal with. And new information shows that it's far more common than we know, causes more problems than we thought, and, if you don't treat it right, you could make the situation worse.

There are many organisms that can cause food poisoning. These include staph, salmonella, shigella, campylobacter, and even botulism. But the one that seems to make news the most is E. coli. It causes massive outbreaks of food-borne illnesses.

New evidence shows that food poisoning can come back to haunt you later in life. Take Alyssa Chrobuck of Seattle, for instance. She was only five when hospitalized with deadly E. coli. She was part of the Jack-in-the-Box hamburger outbreak 15 years ago that made E. coli food poisoning notorious.

She's now a successful college student. But at age 20, she has a lot of medical problems. These include high blood pressure, hiatal hernia, thyroid removal, and endometriosis. She suffers recurring hospitalizations for colon inflammation. All because of the E. coli.

Another woman survived severe E. coli at age 8. She went on to have her colon removed in her 20s. Some people develop diabetes after food poisoning inflamed the pancreas. Many people get unusual inflammatory conditions after such infections.

What's really scary, though, is that you can make the complications of E. coli even worse. All you have to do is take antibiotics to treat the E. coli. Medical schools teach that you should not receive antibiotics for bacterial food poisoning. It's well known to prolong the problem. It can lead to resistance and other problems.

A University of Washington Medical School study found that taking antibiotics to treat E. coli greatly increases your risk of developing the potentially fatal kidney disease hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS).

But the long-term complications of antibiotic treatment could be even worse. There's growing evidence that treating E. coli with antibiotics can lead to high blood pressure and kidney damage later in life. In fact, some people develop complete kidney failure 10-20 years after surviving a full blown E. coli infection as a child.

The other bugs can cause similar problems when treated with antibiotics. Salmonella and shigella, for instance, can cause arthritis years after the poisoning occurs. Sometimes a paralysis can occur after campylobacter.

Here's why: Treating bacteria with antibiotics only causes them to dig deeper into your body. Their toxins can then impregnate the inner fluids and structures of your body.

With antibiotics, bacteria can morph into an invisible form called cell-wall-deficient bacteria (CWD or L-form bacteria). Why? Many antibiotics target the cell wall of the organisms. If the bacteria transform into a CWD, they won't be vulnerable to the drug. Bacteria are more fragile without a cell wall. But without the cell wall, the bacteria can hide easier from your immune cells.

Your white blood cells are on surveillance for the bacterial cell walls. Because your white blood cells can't find the CWD bugs, the bugs can set up a long-term, low-grade infection somewhere in your body. That can emerge years later as arthritis, colitis, or other organ inflammation. Additionally, antibiotic therapy can set you up for chronic Candida or fungal problems. Antibiotics kill off bacteria, both infectious and friendly. That leaves a void to fill by Candida, fungus, and resistant infectious bacteria.

The same is true for poison ivy or poison oak. It's a self-limiting condition. But many patients demand relief. And most doctors are quick to prescribe steroids. That's a no-no in natural circles. Steroids simply suppress the symptoms. They can prevent your body from natural elimination of the toxins. Then it can emerge years later and cause arthritis or other inflammation.

So what should you do to fight a bacterial infection? The answer to this problem is to avoid Band-Aid medicine. Never use antibiotics for food poisoning unless the germ is in your bloodstream. If it's in your bloodstream, your life might be in danger.

Try to avoid antibiotics altogether, even for more common problems. Almost all of these problems are self eliminating.

The best way to treat food poisoning is to assist your body to purge the bacteria by strengthening your immune system. Then there would be no vestiges left of the infection. You can do this using an assortment of natural treatments.

There are plenty of natural antibacterials and immune stimulants that won't cause the cell-wall deficient problems. These include Carnivora, vitamin A, echinacea, olive leaf extract, aloe vera, pau d'arco, propilis, citrus seed extract, and oil of oregano. They can make a great first line defense.

Oxidation and high-dose intravenous vitamin C are outstanding treatments for infection. They stimulate your natural immune defenses and they detoxify at the same time. Using these natural treatments is the best way to avoid any significant complications from food poisoning in the short and long term.

If you did use antibiotics with a previous infection, make sure you do a thorough detoxification. Ask your integrative physician for a plan that will help your specific illness. It might spare you from a serious long-term problem. Unpurged dead germs and their toxins can deposit in your tissues. Again, oxidation therapy would be a great aide here, and it would be my first choice. You can also find lots of herbal aids at your local health food store to support your liver and kidney elimination processes.

Ref: Associated Press, January 22, 2008.