Causes of SIBO-C (Methane)

Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO) is a gut dysbiosis. This means there's an imbalance of good-to-bad bacteria. When gut flora is unbalanced, there's always a reason, and the most common is years of eating a standard American diet that's heavy on chemical additives and processed grains and sugars and low in whole-food nutrients. Food toxins damage the intestine and make it "leaky" to gut bacteria and bacterial proteins. Malnutrition impairs the immune response and slows the healing of intestinal injuries. Add some type of "insult" to the gut, like food poisoning or a slew of antibiotic treatments that wipe out all the "good" bacteria, and you've got a perfect storm rising for SIBO to develop.

In SIBO, bacteria that are naturally occurring in the body but generally in the large intestine have migrated up to the small intestine, where they have less competition from "good bacteria" and are able to quickly over-colonize. Now that they're in the small intestine, they encounter our nutrients earlier in the digestive process and they're able to snap up essential nutrients like fats, iron and vitamin B-12. That's why people who have SIBO are almost always vitamin deficient.

The nutrient deficiencies caused by SIBO lead to leaky gut, so now the absorption of large protein molecules is possible, and this can cause an array of problems with the immune system and contribute to allergies, asthma and all types of autoimmune disorders, plus a general overall decline in health.

If you suspect you have SIBO, you'll be referred to a gastroenterologist. The gastro will want to run tests that usually include a colonoscopy, endoscopy and SIBO breath test. The colonoscopy and endoscopy, sometimes called an upper- and lower-GI, are to look for blockages and to take biopsies to rule out cancer and other infections. The breath test will measure the type and amount of gases your gut is producing. If you're a hydrogen producer, you have SIBO-D, the type of SIBO that causes diarrhea. If methane gas is found, you have SIBO-C, the constipation version.

Getting a SIBO diagnosis is one thing; tracking down the actual cause of your SIBO is even more complex.

Besides food toxins, other causes of leaky gut and SIBO can include use of prescription painkillers or other opiate drugs, birth control hormones or alcohol abuse.

Further causes that I seldom see discussed are:

• Parasympathetic nervous system disruption, which can be induced by stress
• Vagus nerve dysfunction, possibly from an injury to the head or spine
• A disruption in the Migrating Motor Complex, which cleans the gut during sleep, possibly from insomnia or other sleep dysfunction
• Nerve damage to the interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC)

If you're interested in learning the actual CAUSE of your SIBO, you'll need to find a functional medicine doctor, a type of doc who looks at disease systemically. The Institute for Functional Medicine has a doctor lookup by city.

My condition was likely the result of years of eating a low-carb diet, which leads to severe mucin-2 deficiency in the gut lining and finally to gastrointestinal disease. I also experienced several instances of food poisoning in the past ten years and that might have been a contributing factor.

In the book The Perfect Health Diet, author Paul Jaminet describes how low-carb diets lead to mucus deficiency and how that causes gastrointestinal diseases.

References:

SIBO: Methane or Hydrogen Dominant, What Is The Difference?

Physiology, injury and recovery of interstitial cells of Cajal: basic and clinical science

How Gut Disease Begins

33 Hidden Scientific Causes of IBS That Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About