How Intestinal Health and Integrity Is a Large Factor In Environmental and Many Illnesses

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http://www.healthiertalk.com/your-inner-tube-making-you-sick-1012

Is Your Inner Tube Making You Sick?
By Mark Hyman, MD on 10/16/2009
There might be something wrong with your inner tube, and it could be
making you sick and fat.

You may not even realize you have a problem …but if you have health
concerns of any kind or you are overweight, your inner tube could be
the root cause.

Of course, I’m not talking about a beach toy. I mean the inner tube of
life -- your digestive system!

It is likely that you suffer from (or have suffered from) some type of
digestive disorder -- irritable bowel syndrome, bloating,
constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, reflux, gas, and other things too
gross to mention in print.

And you are not alone. More than 100 million Americans have digestive
problems.

Two of the top five selling drugs in America are for digestive
problems, and they cost us billions and billions of dollars.

There are more than 200 over-the-counter (OTC) remedies for digestive
disorders, many of which can create additional digestive problems.

Visits for intestinal disorders are among the most common reasons for
trips to primary care physicians.

And that’s not even the worst news.

Most of us (including most doctors) do not recognize or know that
digestive problems wreak havoc in the entire body, leading to
allergies, arthritis, autoimmune disease, rashes, acne, chronic
fatigue, mood disorders, autism, dementia, cancer, and more.

So having a healthy gut means more than simply being free of
annoyances like bloating or heartburn! It is absolutely central to
your health. It is connected to EVERYTHING that happens in your body.

That’s why I almost always start helping people treat chronic health
problems by fixing their gut, which is what I want to help you do
today.

Today, you will learn how you can find out if you have a problem with
your gut (though many of you won’t need me to tell you -- your gut
will speak for itself!), and I will give you 7 simple steps you can
take today to heal your inner tube of life.

Fixing your digestion is the 4th key of the 7 Keys to UltraWellness or
functional medicine, and it is absolutely essential that you heal this
critical system in your body if you want to achieve optimum health.

Why your gut is so important? Let me explain …

How Your Gut Keeps You Healthy or Makes You Ill

The health of your gut determines what nutrients are absorbed and what
toxins, allergens, and microbes are kept out. It is directly linked to
the health of your whole body.

Intestinal health could be defined as the optimal digestion,
absorption, and assimilation of food. But that is a big job that
depends on many other factors. Let’s look at a few of them …

First, there are bugs in your gut that form a diverse and
interdependent ecosystem like a rainforest. In fact, there are 500
species and 3 pounds of bacteria in your gut which form a HUGE
chemical factory that helps you digest your food, regulate hormones,
excrete toxins, and produce vitamins and other healing compounds that
keep your gut and your body healthy.

This ecosystem of friendly bacteria must be in balance for you to be
healthy.

Too many of the wrong bacteria, like parasites and yeasts, or not
enough of the good ones, like Lactobacillus or Bifidobacteria, can
seriously damage your health.

So keeping a healthy balance of bugs in your intestines is one factor
to good gut health.

Second, there is your gut-immune system. Your entire immune system --
and the rest of your body -- is protected from the toxic environment
in your gut by a lining that is only ONE cell-thick layer. If spread
out, this lining would take up a surface area the size of a tennis
court, and the entire thing is covered by a sewer!

If that barrier is damaged, you can become allergic to foods you may
normally be able to digest perfectly well, you will get sick, your
immune system will become overactive, and it will begin producing
inflammation throughout your body.

Filtering out the good molecules from the bad molecules and protecting
your immune system is yet another important factor in gut health.

Third, there is your second brain -- your gut’s nervous system. Did
you know your gut, actually contains MORE neurotransmitters than your
brain? In fact, the gut has a brain of its own. It is called the
“enteric nervous system” and it is a very sophisticated piece of your
biology that is wired to your brain in intricate ways.

Messages constantly travel back and forth between your gut-brain and
your head-brain, and when those messages are interfered with in any
way your health will suffer.

Fourth, your gut also has to get rid of all the toxins produced as
byproducts of your metabolism, which your liver dumps into bile. If
things get backed up when you are constipated, you will become toxic
and your health will suffer.

And last but not least, your gut must break down all the food you eat
into its individual components, separate out the vitamins and
minerals, and shuttle everything across the one cell-thick layer
mentioned above so it can get into your bloodstream and nourish your
body and brain.

Your gut has quite a lot to manage. Even in perfect world it is hard
to keep all of this in balance. But in our modern world there are
endless insults that can knock our digestive systems off balance; it
is that much more difficult to maintain excellent digestive health.

How to Know if Your Gut is Out of Balance

To fix your digestion, you first need to understand what is sending
your gut out of balance in the first place. The list is short:

· Our low-fiber, high-sugar, processed, nutrient-poor, high-calorie
diet, which causes all the wrong bacteria and yeast to grow in our gut
and damages the delicate ecosystem in your intestines.
· Overuse of medications that damage the gut or block normal digestive
function --things like acid blockers (Prilosec, Nexium, etc.), ant-
inflammatory medication (aspirin, Advil and Aleve), overuse of
antibiotics, steroids and hormones
· Undetected gluten intolerance, celiac disease or low grade food
allergies to foods such as dairy, eggs, or corn.
· Chronic low-grade infections or gut imbalances with overgrowth of
bacteria in the small intestine, yeast overgrowth, parasites, or even
more serious gut infections
· Toxins like mercury and mold toxins, which damage the gut
· Lack of adequate digestive enzyme function, which can come from acid-
blocking medication use, or zinc deficiency
· Stress, which can alter the gut nervous system, cause a leaky gut,
and change the normal bacteria in the gut
What happens then is obvious. You get sick.

But what’s important to understand is that many diseases that seem to
be totally unrelated to the gut -- such as eczema or psoriasis or
arthritis -- are actually CAUSED by gut problems. By focusing on the
gut, you can get better. Here is an example …

Can Eczema Start in the Gut?

Allison, one of my patients who suffered from eczema -- a weepy, red,
oozing, scaly, itchy rash -- all over her body is perfect example of
what can happen when your gut is out of balance and the extraordinary
level of healing that can occur when you fix your digestion.

This woman, who saw doctor after doctor, put salves, lotions, and
potions on her skin and gave her steroids and antibiotics. But none of
them ever addressed the underlying cause of her problem.

Allison was 57 years old and had been suffering from severe,
unrelenting eczema for eight years. She ate a high-sugar diet and had
a history of frequent vaginal yeast infections.

When I saw her, I checked her gut and found she had a leaky gut --
that one-cell thick lining in her intestines was breached and wasn’t
working properly. She had developed 24 IgG food allergies, and her
stool had no healthy bacteria and an overgrowth of yeast from years of
taking antibiotics. She also had very high blood levels of antibodies
against yeast.

So I helped her heal her gut. I asked her to stop eating the foods she
reacted to, told her to stop feeding the yeast in her gastrointestinal
tract by cutting out sugar and refined carbohydrates (which they
thrive on), and killed the yeast in her gut with antifungal
medications and herbs. Then I helped her rebuild her ecosystem of
healthy bacteria with probiotics and provided here with healing gut
nutrients that allowed her intestinal lining to resume its normal
function.

The result?

Her eczema disappeared for the first time in eight years -- and it
stayed away!

You can experience the same thing Allison did. You may be able to heal
from many of your chronic symptoms simply by fixing your digestion.
Here is how you do it.

7 Steps to Optimal Digestive Health

To heal your inner tube of life you simply need to:

Eat whole unprocessed foods. Make sure to include plenty of fiber from
foods like vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds, and whole grains.
Eliminate food allergies. If you think you have food sensitivities,
try an elimination diet. Cut out gluten, dairy, yeast, corn, soy, and
eggs for a week or two and see how your gut feels and what happens to
your other symptoms.
Treat any infections or overgrowth of bugs -- Parasites, small bowel
bacteria, and yeasts can all inhibit proper gut function. You must
treat these infections if you want to heal.
Replenish your digestive enzymes. When you don’t have enough digestive
enzymes in your gut, you can’t properly covert the foods you eat into
the raw materials necessary to run your body and brain. Take broad-
spectrum digestive enzymes with your food to solve the problem.
Rebuild your rain forest of friendly bacteria. Take probiotic
supplements. They will help you rebuild the healthy bacteria so
essential to good gut health.
Get good fat. Take extra omega-3 supplements, which help cool
inflammation in the gut.
Heal your gut lining. Use gut-healing nutrients such as glutamine and
zinc to repair the lining in your gut so it can resume its normal
function.
Fixing your digestion may take some time, but it can be done. And it
is absolutely essential if you want to achieve vibrant health. So
work on your inner tube of life using the steps above and watch as
your symptoms (and those extra pounds) disappear.


Now I’d like to hear from you…

Did you realize how important your gut is to your overall health?

What steps have you taken to fix your digestion? How have they worked?

Why do you think the pharmaceutical industry develops and actively
advertises drugs that are known to inhibit proper gut function and
thus compromise health?

Please let me know your thoughts by posting a comment below.

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