In the National library of medicine there are over 43000 studies on Ascorbic acid - which has been used safely as a proven medicine since early 20th century at least, and there are a lot less than 600 studies that make even scant reference to sodium ascorbate, which was developed to use in skin products. (It's easy to get sunburn with ascorbic acid in skin products).
Ascorbic acid has the benefit of being an acid - which enables REDOX reactions to detoxify almost any water soluble toxin in the system. Sodium ascorbate on the other hand, has the DISadvantage of having extra sodium which may especially affect someone with health issues or high blood pressure, if taken in the excessive daily amounts needed to induce an overdose response of loose stools.
The 5000 sodium ascorbate would contain 655 mg of sodium.
I'm a believer in getting to the cause of the problem, which is more likely a deficiency of magnesium, as that is what's needed for peristalsis to be effective, and without which a compacted stool can be expected. It's why Milk of Magnesia is effective as a laxative. Once compaction is severe then Milk of Magnesium will likely be the fastest "fix", after which I'd suggest using Magnesium chloride supplements to maintain proper magnesium levels.
As to eating legumes, not all blood types do well on those, and they do clog people with some blood types. I'd stick to proteins that are easy to digest like meat, fish and egg.
New foods also take time to learn how to digest, and for a sensitive individual, a 1/4 teaspoon a day for first week, and and a 1/4 teasp more each week, is one way to introduce something new - and of course stop if the body has adverse responses.
Maria, gut bacteria do not mutate to adapt to food - it's more that different types of bacteria outcompete the others for a specific food substrate that they can use more efficiently than other bacteria.
However in this situation a diet change was attempted which would affect short chain fatty acids produced by gut bacteria - probably a change away from a meat-based protein to a legume-based protein - and that changes the bacteria metabolism from high-butyrate producing to lower-butyrate producing with more acetate and propionate.
The main short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) which bacteria make to keep the body healthy - are butyrate, propionate and acetate. Meat-based diet produces the best/highest butyrate. Each short chain fatty acid has specific jobs to support specific organs, and butyrate supports colonocytes, and enterocytes of the gut and the immune system function in the gut area (which is about 80% of it).
Humans can use glucose or glutamine instead of butyrate (as would happen with beans instead of meat) ....but butyrate is 4 to 5 times as efficient.
Other diets allow propionate and acetate short chain fatty acids to be made mainly (which help liver and other body areas) - but with less or no butyrate. It's the lack of meat/fish/egg in the diet (animal protein) to result in sufficient butyrate production, that forces the inefficient use of the alternative chemical pathway for gut health. There will be more consequences to this than mere constipation.
In my opinion therefore, getting the body to adapt to using inefficient SCFAs is not necessarily a good or healthy idea, especially later in life.
Namaste,
Irene
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Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."