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The Bowel and Health
Most people are not aware that the intestines play critical roles in the body's immune and detoxification systems. Understanding these roles can help a person grasp the connection between good diet, good digestion and good health. According to Dan Lukaczer, N.D., in an article called "Gastrointestinal Health and Disease" published in December 1996 issue of Nutrition Science News, "A substantial body of research has shown that incomplete, imbalanced and dysfunctional digestive processes may be associated with a wide variety of serious diseases ranging from colitis and cancer to asthma and arthritis."
Digestion begins in the mouth. Chewing food well is undoubtedly the easiest way to improve digestion. The process continues in the stomach. It's important to remember that not all food is digested in the same place, nor with the same enzymes. This is why the concept of food combining, an awareness that teaches how to reduce the simultaneous ingestion of foods that are digestively incompatible, can be very helpful to persons who have digestive problems. Ultimately that will be most of us, as our production of digestive acids declines with age.
After leaving the stomach, partially digested food enters the small intestine, where the majority of digestion and absorption takes place. Bile, manufactured by the liver, the body's primary organ of detoxification, and stored in the gallbladder, is secreted through the bile duct into the small intestine and begins to break down fats into small components. Hormones in the bloodstream are activated by the entry of food into the small intestine and stimulate release of pancreatic enzymes into the small intestine. These enzymes break down proteins into amino acids, carbohydrates into sugars and fats into fatty acids. At this stage in a healthy body, food has become molecules small enough to be properly absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestinal wall.
Poor digestion can be stimulated with supplemental bile salts and pancreatic enzymes.
The material that remains unabsorbed at the end of the small intestine is pushed into the large intestine. Rather than being just a transport phase for waste material, the large intestine is a biologically active site where trillions of bacteria compete. In the large intestine of a healthy person, friendly flora such as lactobacillus acidophilus manufacture vitamins (B12, biotin and vitamin K), degrade toxins, prevent colonization by pathogens, crowd out other less beneficial species, stimulate the immune system and produce short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) from fiber, which are the primary energy souce for the cells lining the colon. Low SCFA production has been linked to colon cancer and ulcerative colitis. An unhealthy colonic environment is sometimes known as dysbiosis, and certain laboratory tests can provide a dysbiosis index, or rating of the health of the colonic environment. Among other factors, they measure the levels and types of bacteria present, the ph balance, the level of short-chain fatty acids, and the presence of antibody proteins.
The small intestine plays several critical roles in immune function. While most immune cells are manufactured in the bone marrow of the larger bones, they do not mature there. Instead, they migrate and mature in colonies, accumulations in a network known as the reticuloedothelial system, or RES. These accumulations are found in the walls of the intestines, among other places. They are also found in the nervous system, the lungs and in connective tissue. In the course of their maturation, these cells begin to differentiate between "self" and "non-self." We still don't fully understand the mechanisms involved, but it is probably not accidental that auto-immune illnesses often manifest symptoms in areas of RES accumulation.
There are several major ways in which dysfunction in the intestinal tract can affect health.
First of all, if transport through the large intestine is too sluggish, toxins and bacteria in food, which were selectively avoided by the absorbtion processes in the small intestines, are absorbed through the large intestine wall. A diet high in fiber, which can come from fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, is essential to provide the bulk that keeps the bowels moving regularly. A healthy bowel moves from one to three times a day.
Severe health implications can result from a condition known as "leaky gut syndrome" in which molecules of partially digested food pass into the bloodstream. Normally these food molecules would be blocked by the small intestines' selective absorbtion processes until they were further broken down. Leaky gut syndrome can be caused by excessive use of alcohol and non-steriodal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) such as aspirin and acetaminophen, as well as by birth control pills. Persons with food allergies in general and cow's milk allergy in particular often develop leaky gut syndrome.
Often the condition can be traced to a prescription of antibiotics, which destroy the beneficial flora in the intestinal tract, allowing a yeast infection to developed. When allowed to grow unchecked by the positive bacteria, these fungi can enter a mycelial form in which they burrow through the thin intestinal wall, causing lesions, that allow large protein molecules to escape through to the bloodstream.
The liver then has two added tasks--one of reacting to such food particles as though they were toxins, and the other of reacting to actual toxins generated when the yeast dies. Another burden is created on the immune system, which reacts to these partially digested food molecules as though they were foreign invaders and begins to attack its own cells, a condition called autoimmune disease.
The result of leaky gut syndrome can be severe food allergies, abdominal pain, inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease resulting in severe diarrhea and cramps, and chronic skin conditions such as eczema and hives. Rheumatoid arthritis appears to be a complication related to poor diet and gut permeability. Recent studies on HIV-infected individiuals show that gut permeability appears to increase as the disease progresses, suggesting a correlation between the two.
Because an autoimmune condition can then wreck havoc on an individual's endocrine system, which regulates the function of the entire body, resolving the health problems that can result from yeast infections and leaky gut syndrome can be complex. A licensed holistic health care practitioner is definitely warranted. (see Finding allies in health care.) In the meantime, a personal detoxification program can minimize the load on an individual's liver and thereby help improve immune function.
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