 We tend to mention the gastrointestinal tract (GI Tract) sotto voce, or with slang words, or “you know” kinds of words. This is unfortunate because your GI tract is one of the most important parts of your body. Consider how much of your body it traverses.
The GI tract starts in your mouth. Yes, if you look at your tongue, you are looking at a map of your GI tract. Is it pink, lightly coated, firm, intact, with abundant papillae (those bumps you see all over it)? Or is it cracked and sore, thickened, showing marks from the teeth on the side that look like scalloping, and are there no papillae visible or only the biggest ones in the back? Are there clefts in it? Where are those clefts?
If your tongue is like the first question, congratulations, because that means your digestive tract is in better shape. If, however, your tongue fits the latter descriptions, you had better do something to improve the health of your GI tract.
Why all of this fuss over a long tube?
Basically, our GI tract begins at our mouth, continues down the esophagus to our stomach where it gives way to the small and large intestines, and ends at the anus. The intestinal flow is contributed to by the liver, the gall bladder, and the pancreas. In other words, it goes all the way through your center, winding this way and that, and contains as much surface area as a football field.
You would not be alive without a functioning GI tract. It is how we take in nutrients.
It is an integral part of our first line of defense against infection. It is important for our enjoyment of life or for lots of misery if it is not functioning well.
There is a whole ecology in our GI tract.
- If you shrunk down to the size of a pin head and went flying through your GI tract, you would find hills and valleys of cells designed specifically to extract what you need from the food and to send what we don’t need on its way.
- You would find sophisticated communications going on between the different organs of the GI tract so that the body knows what kinds of food are being eaten, what chemicals are needed to digest them, what signals the brain needs to direct this, what other signals are needed so that each organ activates and participates at the right time, what to do with foreign invaders, what organisms should be encouraged and which ones should be combated- what a busy place!
Organisms? Encouraged? Yuck! Actually, you want those friendly organisms, principally bacteria, to be abundant and healthy and in their proper balance. When healthy, your bacterial count in your GI tract should be greater than the number of cells in your body by a factor of 10 to 100. The healthy GI tract contains enough beneficial bacteria to weigh between 2 and 5 pounds. That is a huge number of bacteria, considering how much each individual bacteria weighs. You need these bacteria to digest your food, to fight infections, to help you make the vitamins you need (especially some of the B vitamins), to keep the ecological balance, and to maintain regular bowel function.
All these reasons are why many alternative practitioners say “You are only as healthy as your gastrointestinal tract.”
Imagine, then, what happens when:
- You take antibiotics that kill almost all of those beneficial bacteria
- You eat sugary foods that feed opportunistic organisms (like yeast, as in Candida, or pathogenic bacteria) that overcome the beneficial bacteria
- You eat food that is empty in nutrients and does not supply the nutrients that the GI tract needs to maintain itself
- You don’t get enough sleep and thus don’t provide adequate energy to the GI tract to maintain itself
- You don’t get any exercise so there is not good circulation to the organs to provide oxygen and other nutrients for the GI tract to maintain itself
What happens when you don’t take care of your GI tract is that you don’t feel well, you may get sick often, your energy is not as dependable, different parts of your body may start hurting, you may get rashes, and your glands may even work less effectively. Over many years, this can have devastating effects on your health.
This is why the quality of food a person eats is so important. Good health begins with what you put into your mouth which is what provides your system with the nutrients it needs to function. Junk creates junky messages. Supplements, even good supplements, cannot make up for junk. However, nourishing food plus good supplements ah, just what the doctor ordered.
Book Nook
 Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, Phd is a wealth of information about eating well that will surprise many of you. It goes against current tradition that moved away from animal proteins towards more carbs. It makes very good arguments for the value that animal protein can provide in our diets. Having said this, there are some people for whom I recommend a vegetarian diet. The reverse also works, ie, some vegetarians I find do better when they eat animal protein. The point is to find out what is right for your own body. This book will assist you in that process.
Buy one for yourself and pick one up for a loved one.
Enjoy! |
