['lizbeth]

A paragraph from: Why Isn't My Brain Working, The Gut-Brain Axis, p175 by Datis Kharrazian, DHSc, DC, MS

(for those of us complaining of "chemo brain")

"Poor gut health can do more than cause depression. A study publish in the Lancet found subjects with inflammatory bowel disease developed white-matter lesions in the brain, a identified by MRI, with almost the same frequency as patient with multiple sclerosis (a disease of brain myelin destruction). Forty-two percent of patients with Crohn's disease and 46 percent of patient with ulcerative colitis had white matter lesions in their brain. Several other studies have shown the same results.

It is interesting to watch this mechanism at work in people. When the gut and the brain are "on fire" people don't experience pain. This is because neither the brain or the mucosal lining of the intestinal walls have pain fibers. Instead of pain you might see bloating follow by brain fog - intestinal inflammation causes gut distention while brain inflammation slows the transmission of information from one neuron to another, resulting in brain fog.

For example, a person who is dairy-intolerant may notice her belly become distended when she eat dairy, she cannot find the right words when speaking, and she loses her ability to focus and concentrate. Food sensitivities, leaky gut, and gut flora imbalances can cause these inflammatory responses."