The connection to disease development

When considering the maintenance of proper health, no system in your body is more important than the digestive system. The importance of this system is illustrated by the fact that up to 60% of your body’s immune system is concentrated around your digestive tract. Malfunction of this system can lead to a decrease in the ability of nutrients to enter your body and an increase in the ability of toxic substances to gain entrance.

The changes that take place within the digestive system are typically slow in nature and the initial symptoms can be mild or nonexistent. Symptoms that are eventually experienced seem to come from nowhere and are not associated with the digestive system at all. These include Fatigue, Headaches, Joint Pain, Muscle Spasm/Pain, Rashes/Skin Changes, Depression, Forgetfulness, and Autoimmune Diseases, to name only a few. Diseases potentially associated with long-term digestive system malfunction include Arthritis, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Parkinson’s Disease, Alzheimer’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and Cancer.

So, how does this all take place and how does it make any sense at all? Digestion starts in your mouth as food is chewed and mixed with saliva. It is then transported to your stomach where it is mixed with a number of substances including acid and enzymes that start the breakdown of mostly proteins. The food then enters your small intestines where it is mixed with other enzymes and substances to aid in the digestion of the nutrients within the foods. What is left enters the large intestines where water and some nutrients can enter your body. Along the way, trillions of bacteria that call your gut home influence the workings of digestion.

This is, of course, a gross over simplification of digestion. The description only begins to illustrate how many factors working together in concert and in balance allow certain substances to enter the body while expelling the rest. When things get past this incredible filter, the immune system is there to destroy and to protect.

The main point in the above description is balance. This balance can be thrown off in a number of ways. If it happens quickly due to the ingestion of “bad” bacteria, symptoms arise immediately and forcefully. We typically call this food poisoning. More commonly, though, this balance is changed slowly over a period of months or years. These changes can be induced by the ingestion of toxins found in our food chain (pesticides, insecticides, lead, mercury, etc.), a poor diet, parasites, bacteria, yeast, taking antacids, prescription drugs, or even stress.

Symptoms experienced due to this imbalance can be very mild in nature. They include heartburn, belching, bloating, stomachache, flatulence (always a favorite), and irregular bowel movements. None of these symptoms are typically debilitating so we tend to take a medication to overcome the annoying symptom. Moreover, we learn to live with the annoyance and eventually consider it to be normal for us. I have many patients who say they have no digestive problems because of this reason.

As the imbalance continues a change can occur in the kinds and ratios of bacteria that live in your gut. Also, the health and proper function of the cells lining your intestinal tract can begin to deteriorate. The end result is a change, for the worse, in the environment of your digestive system. The system begins to let substances pass that would not regularly enter your body. The immune system becomes hyperactive sending signals of alarm to all parts of your body, including your brain. As your body begins to deal with the increased toxic workload, symptoms in areas not associated with the digestive tract can begin to appear. These include those listed at the beginning of this article.

You need to know that the basis of what I just described has been shown to be true in numerous studies over the years. It is not fantasy.

The important question of what can be done has to then be answered. Luckily you can have a profound effect on your overall health by controlling the factors that influence digestion. Unfortunately, since the negative changes usually take years to develop, the changes that you make to correct the problems can also take a while before benefits are seen. This is not, however, always the case. I have seen profound changes in patients’ health in the matter of weeks or months. The process of changing digestion calls for lifestyle changes on your part. The good news is that it is not that hard to do and the changes will not be so demanding that they become unrealistic. To begin the process of change I strongly suggest that you read all of the information found in the Digestive Cleanse section of this site.

Heartburn Mistreatment

Heartburn is one of the most commonly mistreated digestive conditions that I see in my clinic. If you go to your Doctor with heartburn complaints, you will more than likely receive a prescription for an acid blocking medicine. Otherwise, you may take an over-the-counter antacid. I am here to tell you that you may be doing your health a disservice by following this course of treatment.

After reading the main article in this newsletter you will understand how important proper digestion is for proper health. Blocking the production of stomach acid may, in fact, be a very bad course of action to undertake.

The common medical view is that heartburn is caused by too much stomach acid. In many cases the opposite is true. I can illustrate this point by simply discussing the lack of logic behind the common approach of administering antacids for heartburn.
Most symptoms of heartburn happen when a person goes to bed. This event typically occurs 4-6 hours after the last meal of the day. The food that you consumed should be long gone from your stomach within 2 hours. The food stays in your stomach due to the lack of proper amounts of stomach acid, not because of too much. If your stomach was producing too much acid, the heartburn would occur immediately after your meal.

The fact is that many of us have low amounts of stomach acid. Food stays in our stomach longer than it should and tissue irritation follows. The solution, as crazy as it sounds, is to take acid with your meals, not antacids! Lest you think I have lost my mind, I have successfully treated numerous patients for heartburn by using acid. If my line of thinking had no merit, someone would have to explain how a patient could get better taking additional acid if they were producing too much in the first place.

It is important for me to point out that not everyone with heartburn has low acid. There can be other reasons for heartburn and other appropriate treatments. There is, however, a very simple test that you can do at home to determine whether or not supplemental acid may be right for your condition. If you or a loved one suffers from heartburn, please do yourself a favor and perform this simple acid test. If you have an interest in learning more, please download Dr. Zimmer’s  free MP3/CD “Heartburn Hell: Putting the fire out naturally” which can be found in the CD & Audio Download section of the Learning Center.