Digestion

Just recently I ran my 5 Day Advanced Nutrition course for the first time. Since running the course the feedback I have been getting is that the vast majority of people suffer from digestive troubles, particularly low levels of HCL or hydrochloric acid. To shed some information on the subject I will be posting a small excerpt from the manual to help who ever may read it.

Digestion

Digestion is the key to the healing process of almost any condition. We are not what we eat, we are what we absorb, assimilate, utilize and eliminate. A block in any of these functions will give sub-optimal health.

The first phase of digestion is known as Pre-digestion. This is a highly important phase and is often forgotten by the health care professional. The smell of food activated many centers of the brain and the digestive system. Smell in regards to digestion serves these main functions:

1. Excites the digestive system
2. Stimulates salivary glands
3. Stimulates the mucous glands

Smell activates the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, gallbladder and the pancreas. It initiates the redistribution of blood and sets the limbic system.
Some things that interfere with this include loss of smell. It is extremely rare when based on disease. It is more commonly attributed to lifestyle factors. These include smoking, drinking alcohol, medication, drug abuse and occupational exposure. It can also be due to a cranial fault that obstructs the nasal apparatus. If someone has a diminished sense of smell they will generally fall back on the sensation of taste. They will go for sweet first, sour and then bitter.

Another fault with smell can be a faulty cranial nerve. This could be Cranial Nerve 1 (the olfactory nerve) not working causing an interference with Cranial Nerve 10 (the Vagus nerve).

With digestion the second place we need to look at is the mouth. Optimal chewing is required for digestion. Lipase and Pytalin, which are enzymes for digesting lipids and carbohydrates respectively, are found in saliva. Proteins need to be adequately broken down so the HCL in the stomach can break them down efficiently and utilize their amino acid sequences. Food should be chewed around 30 times or until liquid.

Salivary states are of vital importance here. These include whether someone is a mouth breather or not, medical disease, emotional state, conditioned reflexes and the state of hydration. TMJ issues also need to be addressed as it could create an avoidance of chewing due to pain. The mouth also helps with the immune response. There is a Secretory IgA response in local tissues which is a non-inflammatory messenger.

Swallowing is an overlooked issue when it comes to food and digestion. It takes between 6-10 seconds for the food to travel to the lower esophageal sphincters. This is important because most people do not chew their food correctly, they shovel it down. This causes problems with digestion due to blockages. From a Kinesiology point of view Hyoid balances can be useful here. Problems in the esophagus are generally quite rare.

The stomach is next on the digestive pathway. This is the area that is most often a concern in digestive issues. The problem that plagues most people is HCL deficiencies or hypochlorhydria. This substance allows us to assimilate the majority of foods that we put into our mouths. This is why it is so important to look at digestion before other areas because if you aren’t absorbing nutrients the food becomes worthless.

Stomach acid breaks down food, chemically altering it so that the body can extract the required nutrients for proper structure and function, including muscle maintenance and growth. The acid begins the digestion of protein in the stomach and then triggers the pancreas to secrete digestive enzymes and the gallbladder to release bile into the small intestine. The acid is also responsible for killing pathogenic bacteria that enters the body via food. These functions and reflexes all need to be in working order for optimal health and are mostly dependent on adequate stomach acid.

If there is insufficient hydrochloric acid (HCL), proteins will pass into the intestine and putrefy instead of being digested. In addition, carbohydrates will also be left to ferment without adequate digestive enzymes from the pancreas. Fat digestion is also dependent on the acid’s influence on the pancreas to secrete lipase and the gall bladder to secrete bile. Poor digestion of these macronutrients means poor absorption of our basic energy sources. This consistently leads to fatigue and sub-optimal health.

Low stomach acid prevents adequate absorption of essential minerals such as zinc, manganese and calcium because they cannot be ionized for proper absorption. Cruciferous vegetables are known for their estrogen-detoxification properties through the production of Diindolylmethane from Indole 3C, but this extraction cannot occur without an adequate amount of stomach acid. These vegetables include broccoli and cauliflower. Excess estrogen is another huge problem with the amount of plastics in the environment. The average everyday intake of phthalates, as from every day plastic wraps is 210mcg a day. This is a dietary average!

The take home message with this information is to be aware of your digestion. Chew slowly, enjoy your food and relax. All these things contribute to optimal digestion. Drinking two glasses of water, with either lemon juice or apple cider vinegar can also stimulate the secretion of HCL. If digestion is still a problem, it would be a wise idea to see someone trained in the neurology and physiology of digestion to truly address the problem. Practitioners can be contacted through paulmeldrum@sportskin.net