Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Barley Grass

Researching supplements to heal the gut, I came across an article about sources of fuel for the cells lining your intestinal tract.  It mentioned that L-Glutamine has been seen to help ulcerative colitis in animal models, but not human models.  They believe that L-Glutamine may be beneficial in the small intestine, but that the large intestine (colon) use different sources.

Ulcerative colitis only affects the colon.  Since oral doses of L-Glutamine are rapidly absorbed by the small intestine, it's unlikely that any of it would make it to the colon, thus being ineffective.  Instead, they believe that the colon prefers a short-chain fatty acid called n-butyrate.

I found that n-butyrate is in Barley Grass, which has been studied as an adjunct therapy for Ulcerative Colitis.  Online forums for UC sufferers stated that Barley Grass did help with the bleeding, but also increased their number of bowel movements by about 1 per day.

So, I went to my local health food store and purchased a 2.8oz bottle of Barley Grass Juice Powder for around $13.

I first tried it (2 tsp) in an 8oz glass of cold water, as instructed.  It was not tasty.  I had to choke it down.  In the future, I will be sure to add it to a juice or smoothie of some sort.

Other instructions state that this should be taken on an empty stomach (20 minutes before, or 2 hours after a meal).

Right now, I plan to take it every other day.  The 2.8oz bottles contains 13 servings, so that should be a good trial month.



2 comments:

  1. When I first tried my hand at including health supplements to my everyday diet, I made the same move of following instructions and drinking it with just water. It wasn’t pleasant, but I understood why it was the recommended way of consumption. Some people might end up cheating on their diets by adding too much sugar, so their taste buds could have a more pleasant experience. Have you come up with juice/smoothie recipes? I would appreciate it if you could share them. :)

    Erlinda Lilly

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  2. I did start adding it to the Avocado Pineapple smoothie recipe that I made (in my blog), but had to stop due to a UC flare that has limited my food varieties. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to test it out as I had planned and was concerned that a "smoothie" concoction was not exactly taking it on an empty stomach.

    I have used the Vega Shake & Go Smoothie mixtures, which I would recommend, and wonder if adding the Barley Grass to them would help to consume it. The smoothie mixes only have 6 grams of sugar. http://myvega.com/products/vega-shake-and-go/features-benefits

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