I'm not entirely sure that the things measured by the GSL are really well understood as to what the #'s mean and what if any benefit would come from trying to alter the levels.The way they score the test seems to indicate that you have to many bads and not enough goods, but with a -, 1+, 2+, etc. rating system it is hard to really judge, especially without getting a "this is what normal looks like" information along with the test.What I've not seen is how they decide what is a 1+ level for which organism.I presume that normally they exist in normal people at different concentrations, so what I don't know is if these results are absolute (for instance 1+ means lets say for sake of arguement 10 colonies, 2+ 20) It may be that normally people have a bunch of one species and not much of another, or visa versa. The other option is that they are individually scored (for instance 4+ is top 25% of what is seen in people and 1+ is the botton 25% of what is seen in people who actually have them so all things are 1-4+ but "normallized" based on the concentrations seen) that also is hard to know what it really means, but would give some idea if that was how they were scored as to what they mean (like I'm higher than usual in this and lower in that rather than just absolute #'s where could be everyone is always 4+ for some things if you didn't set the scale right or the various organisms are at vastly different concentrations normally).Given that I don't know what the #'s really mean (the web site so far hasn't been helpful in the data analysis end of things) and most of what I can mine out of the Medical literature typically are in things like Organisms/ml or CFU/ml (colony forming units) it's hard to know.The FAQ talks about the parasites they look for but not much info on the intestinal flora part of the test.I know that some things like Bifobacteria tend to be different between people that are breast fed vs people that aren't (I think it's breast fed are high non breast fed are not....but I'm not 100% sure I may have it backwards). So what the test could be representing is simply what your life was like during the time you were being colonized (most infants are colonized by various things during about the first year of life)I'm looking around for something about those two species.So far I know this from Geerdes-Fenge HF. Wiedersich A. Wagner S. Lehr KH. Koeppe P. Lode H. Levofloxacin pharmacokinetics and serum bactericidal activities against five enterobacterial species. Antimicrobial Agents & Chemotherapy. 44(12):3478-80, 2000 Dec.In 12 healthy females both of those species were found. Thie particular drug they used altered the amounts. So it seems that normal healthy people have some level of these thingsAbout the only other insight I gleaned about these two organisms is it sounds like in some ways they may be like E. coli. Some strains may be more problematic that others. Knowing you have a lot of E. coli may not mean anything healthwise. But if you get the wrong strain of it (E. coli O157:H7 is the one I think has the most bad press lately because it kills people) you can be in for a very bad time.Sorry I can't be of more help with this------------------Ph.D. in BiologyAuthorized Expert for IBS Self Help Group - Ask the Specialist forum
