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.

There is a delicate balance found within your digestive system. 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. For this reason, I have many patients who say they have no digestive problems.

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. I want to emphasize again that these changes typically happen at a slow rate and we learn to ignore them. Do not ignore them. If you have any digestive symptoms, I urge you to address them right now. You may be sitting on a ticking time-bomb.

A great place to start would be to perform a Digestive Cleanse. Go to the Digestive Cleanse section of this site for more information.