DIGESTION
by Dr. Lawrence Wilson
©
December 2020, LD Wilson Consultants,
Inc.
All information in this article is for
educational purposes only. It is
not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health
condition.
DEFINITION
Digestion is the process by which our
bodies take in food, break it down into its basic components, and then absorb
the nutrients from the food.
Digestion very weak today. In most people today, digestion
is very weak. The reasons are:
1. Nutritional deficiencies.
2. Toxic conditions such as too
many toxic metals and toxic chemicals in the body.
3. Eating irritating and even
poisonous food.
4. Improper eating habits such as
overeating, eating standing up, eating while driving, drinking liquids with
meals, eating too many food combinations, eating too fast, not chewing enough,
eating when upset, and eating while talking on the telephone.
5. Fatigue.
6. An autonomic nervous system
imbalance called Sympathetic Dominance.
Strengthening digestion. This is one of the primary goals of all
development programs. It always
takes a few years, and often longer.
Anyone who
says it can be done faster, in our view, is incorrect. It cannot be done quickly. One may feel quickly better with an
improved diet, a digestive enzyme or a probiotic supplement. One may experience less bloating, gas
or stomach pain, but rebuilding the digestive system is complex and usually takes
at least five years of following development program.
THE
DIGESITON PROCESS
STEP
1. DIGESTION BEGINS IN THE MOUTH
Chew your
food at least 20 times for healthy digestion. Digestion begins
in the mouth with chewing. Chewing
mechanically breaks down food, and mixes it with several starch-digesting
enzymes.
This is why bolting your food, or not chewing
thoroughly, is a very bad habit and always leads to malnutrition. Only the mouth has teeth to
mechanically tear apart the food.
Many people do not realize that some food
components including some vitamins and minerals, sugars and others, can be
absorbed directly from the mouth into the body.
Chewing each bite at least two dozen times or so is
most helpful for good health. It
may feel odd at first, but it quickly becomes a healthful habit.
An
excellent weight loss method.
Chewing your food at least two dozen times each bite is also a simple and very
healthful way to eat less and lose weight. Everyone else will be on their second or third portion and
you will still be on your first portion.
If you chew your food two dozen times, you will also feel full a lot
faster.
If you absolutely cannot chew food thoroughly for
some reason, then puree your food with a hand blender. This device is not too costly, and
looks like a large stick with a motor at one end and a blade at the other
end. The reason I suggest it
rather than a blender is that one need not add water to the food, as is needed
if one uses a blender. Adding
water to food dilutes the mouth and stomach enzymes and prevents proper
digestion.
STEP
#2. DIGESTION IN THE STOMACH
From the mouth, food passes down a tube, the
esophagus, into the stomach. Here,
the food is mixed with powerful acids and other chemical enzymes such as
pepsin, trypsin and chmotrypsin.
The stomach is designed to handle these powerful
chemicals, which further digest your food. Digestion should have begun in the mouth, and it continues
here. While the mouth is helpful
to break down starches, the stomach is very important to digest proteins. They are torn apart chemically,
breaking them down into polypeptides and some isolated amino acids. Starch digestion from the mouth also
continues in the stomach, but less intensely.
The stomach also mechanically churns the food and
thoroughly mixes it with the acid and the enzymes, just like in a chemical
factory. The stomach also stores
the food so that it enters the small intestines slowly and surely, and only
when it is digested enough.
Eating
simple meals makes digestion in the stomach and elsewhere much easier. I
suggest eating only one or at most two types of food per meal.
I suggest eating one or more vegetables at every
meal, and this counts as one type of food. This may be all you eat. However, you could add a second type of food – either
one starch or one protein food.
Do not eat more than this, as it is hard on
digestion. It is like asking your
body to break down many chemicals at the same time, and this is much harder for
everyone.
Digestive
aids. In addition, I suggest everyone take a digestive aid
containing ox bile and pancreatin with each meal. This further enhances digestion, and most everyone needs all
this help to get enough nutrition out of our food today.
For best
digestion, do not drink any liquids with meals. This
includes milk, nut milks, carrot juice or even soup water. Drinking more than a few sips of water
or tea with meals dilutes the powerful stomach chemicals and makes the stomach less
able to digest your food. Drink
your water one hour or more after meals, and up to about 15 minutes before
meals only.
A few sips of water are okay to take your
supplements, but that is all. If
you drink a large glass of water to swallow your supplements, try to change
this and learn to get by with just a small amount of water.
Water.
However, water is needed in the body, so be sure you drink two to three
quarts or liters, or about 96 ounces of water daily – preferably natural
spring water or carbon-only filtered tap water.
Do not drink soda pop, coffee, Kool aid, Gatorade,
nut milks, regular milk, or any sugary drinks, reverse osmosis water, or
alcohol. These make digestion much
worse.
For best
digestion, separate your meals by 4-5 hours. Also, if possible, do
not snack. This allows the stomach
to empty thoroughly between meals, and to rest and rebuild itself.
Stomach
pain. Many people report stomach pain after eating. The usual causes are eating the wrong
foods, overeating, too many kinds of food at a meal, not chewing enough,
drinking water with the meal, eating irritating foods, or not eating relaxed,
sit-down, quiet meals.
Step
#3. DIGESTION IN THE SMALL INTESTINE
One to three hours after one eats, partially
digested food passes from the stomach into the small intestines.
Bile and
pancreatic enzymes. Bile from the liver and digestive
enzymes from the pancreas are soon added to the food mixture.
The pancreas is a very interesting organ. The name means all special. The word pan means all in Latin.
Doctors sometimes speak of a pandemic, which means an epidemic that affects
all people. Many other words use
the word pan such as pandemonium and panorama.
The word creas is related to the word Christ. In Greek and Latin, the word means
special or anointed. Pancreas
secretions are very special, especially chymotrypsin, which kills all cancer in
the body.
These secretions add more digestive enzymes to the
food mixture to complete the digestive process. The new enzymes help do the following:
1. Fats are broken down into fatty acids and
glycerine.
2. Starches are broken down into simple sugars
3. Proteins are broken down into amino acids.
This is the essence of digestion!
The digestion process continues as the food winds
its way through about 30 feet of small intestine. This is where most digestion and absorption of nutrients
takes place.
The
flora. The small intestine is home to a myriad of bacteria
that ideally greatly assist the digestion process. These together are called the intestinal flora or microbiome.
Sadly, in most people, the intestinal flora is either
incorrect, or mainly missing. This
causes symptoms such as gas, bloating, stomach and intestinal cramps, smelly
bowel movements, constipation, and/or diarrhea.
Reasons
why the intestinal flora is incorrect or weak in most people are:
- Toxins in the food that kills the
proper bacteria. This can be antibiotic
residues found in meat and dairy products. It can also be pesticide residues found in all types of
food. It can also be residues of
medical drugs that are in food and in our water supplies today. It can also be toxic chemical additives
in prepared foods.
Most governments stupidly allow over 3000 of these chemicals
to be added to prepared foods.
Stay away from all of them if you want good, strong digestion.
- Improper food, such as sugar,
sweets, or too much meat. These dietary errors feed aberrant ÒbugsÓ in the small and large
intestines that crowd out the good ones.
Infected or contaminated food. This sometimes introduces the wrong bacteria into
your intestines. Please do not eat
a lot of raw food, and never eat spoiled food. Always wash all food thoroughly to remove surface bacteria
and parasites. Cooking food helps
a lot to avoid most poisons found on and in foods.
A low level of digestive enzymes. This
permits harmful organisms to survive in your body, and impairs proper
digestion, as well.
Impaired body chemistry such as too
much copper in the body. This damages the acidity, and other features of the environment in the
intestines. It is very common and
often causes the wrong ÒbugsÓ to grow in the intestines.
Taking antibiotics, and perhaps other
medical and over-the-counter drugs like Aspirin, Tylenol, Aleve, Excedrin and
many others. These chemicals
either kill the normal ÒbugsÓ, or damage them in some way. They can severely impair digestion.
Antibiotics are often the worst, and are not
needed, in my experience. Please
use natural methods to fight infections, instead. To learn about how to handle infections, read Boosting Your Immunity and Beyond
Antibiotics on this site.
Antibiotic residues are now found in many city
water supplies, and in some foods such as commercial meats and some dairy
products because they are fed to cows and chickens.
Infections in the intestines such as
parasites, viruses, or yeast problems. These either kill off or
upset the proper bacteria that should be in the intestine. They go away, in most cases, when you
eat properly, rest enough, and balance your body chemistry with a nutritional
balancing program.
I do not recommend using drugs, herbs or other
supplements to kill parasites and infections in the intestine. I find these unnecessary, in almost all
cases. The trouble is they often
leave the body more toxic, and they can damage the intestine, as well as the
bad bugs.
Rarely,
but only rarely, the problem is that a person needs to ingest the right bugs to
replenish the supply in the intestines. This is done by taking a
probiotic supplement or by eating fermented foods. Probiotics are tablets, capsules or liquids that are loaded
with the good bugs.
Fermented foods include sauerkraut, miso, cheese,
yogurt or kefir. Butter is also a
somewhat fermented food. I do not
recommend the other fermented foods.
For details as to why not, read Fermented Foods
on this site.
Absorption
of nutrients. The final step in digestion in the small intestine
is the absorption of nutrients.
This is discussed later after we discuss the appendix and the large
intestine.
STEP
#4. THE APPENDIX AND LARGE INTESTINE
After
food passes through the small intestine, it goes through a valve called the ilio-cecal valve into
the large intestine or colon. Very
close to this valve is a small gland called the appendix.
The
appendix. The function of the appendix is
somewhat of a mystery in modern medical care. However, it is really not very mysterious. It secretes chemicals that further help
digest food. Rarely, the appendix
becomes inflamed and filled with bacteria that the body is unable to
remove. If it is very infected,
one must have surgery to remove it quickly or it can burst, spreading germs
throughout the abdomen.
Fortunately, in the past 100 years or so, surgery was developed and
removal of the appendix is not a difficult operation, in most cases.
NOTE: During a nutritional balancing program, usually
within the first year on the program, several clients have had a flare-up of
pain in the appendix. Those who
called me were saved from an operation.
In all cases, it was just a retracing reaction, and
not appendicitis. However, it is
important to know that this type of retracing or healing reaction can occur,
and feels just like appendicitis.
THE
LARGE INTESTINE
The large intestine or colon is about two feet long and is a thick
tube of tissue that starts in the lower right corner of your abdomen. It runs straight up the right side of
the abdomen to the bottom of the ribs, and then it makes a sharp 90-degree
turn.
Then it goes across the belly, underneath the belly
button, roughly, and over to the bottom of the ribs on the left side of the
abdomen. Then it makes another
90-degree turn downwards on the left side of the body. It goes straight down, more or less,
and ends in the rectum and anus.
Functions
of the large intestine. These are:
1. To finish up digestion of your food
2. Some vitamins and other chemicals are produced
in the colon by bacteria that should live there.
3. To absorb nutrients.
4. To absorb most of the water in the stool so it
converts to a semi-solid bowel movement.
This mostly contains undigested vegetable matter called roughage or
fiber. It also contains other
chemicals and tissue the body does not want.
The water
or fluid. This is recycled into the body, if
everything works right. However,
if too much water is absorbed, or the food sits too long in the colon, you will
become constipated. If not enough
water is absorbed, you will have diarrhea, or watery stools.
The most
diseased organ in many people. The large intestine is one of the most
diseased organs in most people today.
The reasons why are:
Drinking too
little water and/or the wrong kinds of water. This
is a big cause of constipation.
The large intestine can become stretched, saggy and infected due to
constipation. See Constipation on this site.
We recommend adults drink two to three quarts or
liters daily of either carbon-only filtered tap water, or preferably natural
spring water. All other types of
water are not as good for hydrating the body, in my experience.
Fatigue and
stress. All stress
tends to affect the digestive system.
The large intestine is particularly sensitive to stress, which tends to
slow or even stop its activity.
This is a major cause of constipation and other problems such as
irritable bowel syndrome
Hurried
lifestyles and not heeding the call to evacuate. This also stresses the colon. Please always answer the call to have a
bowel movement quickly. Also, when
having a bowel movement, do not push a lot. Instead, sit and wait.
It is slower, but it helps prevent hemorrhoids and rectal fissures.
Not enough fiber
in the diet. The usual cause
for this is eating refined white flour products and white rice. This can cause constipation and can
cause a buildup of slimy material in the walls of the colon.
When some people do enemas or a series of colon
hydrotherapy sessions, some people eliminate up to 10 pounds of impacted fecal
material that was just sitting inside of them, making them fat and sick.
Nested inside this material are often yeast
colonies, bacteria colonies, and often round worms or other parasites.
Chemicals added
to many foods, especially refined and prepared food items. Some
of these, such as sugars, are quite harmful for the large intestine and cause
the overgrowth of harmful bacteria, viruses and other organisms.
Improper flora in
the colon, which is the same as harmful bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic
infections. These are common, especially if you eat
mainly raw food, which I do not recommend. Traveling to nations that are not too clean is another way
to get parasites. Raw fish, sushi,
and not washing food thoroughly is another way to pick up these infections.
Unfortunately, eating any pig products can also
cause parasitic infections, even if it is thoroughly cooked. Some will disagree with this, but this
is my experience.
Some medical
drugs and over-the-counter remedies. Some
of these damage the large intestine.
Again, among the worst for the colon are antibiotics, which often damage
or destroy the natural intestinal bacteria, allowing bad bacteria to multiply
and take over.
Many medical drugs also slow bowel activity or
irritate the sensitive lining of the intestines. Diuretic drugs can remove too much water from the bowel and
cause constipation. Vitamin
tablets with iron can also irritate the intestines.
Nervous tension. This is also not good for the large intestine.
COLON
CLEANSING
Colon health is so important today that I suggest
doing one to four daily coffee retention enemas. This may sound dirty or painful, but they are not that
unpleasant and well worth the trouble.
You must follow the procedure given on this website.
When done properly, these are safe and not habit-forming,
as some doctors claim. They also
do not dehydrate the body or remove the beneficial bacteria from the colon.
Coffee enemas not only clean the colon, but also
help remove many poisons from the liver and have at least 10 other healing
effects. For more on this
excellent procedure, read Coffee Enemas on
this site. Many clients tell me
that coffee enemas Òsaved their livesÓ.
DIGESTION
VERSUS PUTREFACTION, ROTTING AND FERMENTATION
Excellent
digestion is the most important single process needed for health besides rest
and sleep. However, most
people have very poor digestion today, even though one may have no symptoms of
it at all.
Instead of digesting their food, most of their food
either rots, putrefies or
ferments. Let us compare these chemical processes
that go on inside the body:
Digestion. This
is a process whereby food is acted upon mechanically by chewing and then
chemically by acids and enzymes in the intestines. As a result, the food is broken down into simpler chemical
compounds.
For example, protein is broken into its amino
acids. Fats are broken into fatty
acids. Starches and sugars are
broken down to simple sugars.
Putrefaction. This is
a chemical process in which proteins from food are changed by certain
intestinal bacteria into very toxic chemical substances. Among the chemicals are cadaverine,
indol and skatol. Toxic gases such
as sulfur dioxide are also produced.
A small amount of putrefaction is tolerable and
common, but more is very harmful and toxic for the body.
Causes
for putrefaction include eating too much protein at one time, insufficient
chewing, bad food combinations, deficiencies of digestive enzymes such as
trypsin and chymotrypsin, improper pH of the intestinal tract, and the presence
of incorrect flora in the intestinal tract.
Rotting. This is similar to putrefaction. However, it occurs in the absence of putrefying
bacteria. Instead, other bacteria
destroy the food improperly. This
is what happens if you leave an egg or a piece of meat in the open air for a
few days.
The distinction between rotting and putrefying is
not great, and the words are often used interchangeably. However, technically they are not the
same.
Fermentation. This is a chemical process in which yeast organisms
change sugars into methane gas, alcohol, vinegar, acetaldehyde and other toxic
substances. This is extremely
common, especially in slow oxidizers.
Candida albicans is the most common fermenting
organism in most people, and it is found everywhere. A healthy body will not support it, but if there is a copper
imbalance, the body cannot get rid of it.
Other yeasts may be involved as well.
The odor
of the bowel movement. Bowel movements should not smell too
bad. Babies who are breastfed, for
example, usually have mild-smelling stools, as do healthy adults.
However, putrefaction and fermentation cause bad
odors, along with gas, bloating, stomach pain and other symptoms in many
people. Fermentation
cause a fairly mild smell and often some gas. Putrefaction produces a very foul-smelling stool.
THE
ABSORPTION OF NUTRIENTS
While digestion may seem simple, in fact it is
incredibly complex. Somehow the
body knows which of the thousands of chemicals in food that it needs. It is able, when healthy, to sift
through the food and absorb the nutrients, while rejecting the many chemical
poisons. These are eliminated as
the feces.
Most of the nutrients are absorbed from the small
intestine, though some absorption occurs in the mouth, and in the large
intestine as well.
Rebuilding the villi of the small
intestine. This is a critical part of improving
digestion. The villi are small
hair-like projections that stick into the small intestine and absorb the
nutrients in the small intestine.
Foods that specifically help the villi to rebuild
are rutabaga, provided it is cooked until soft, and sardines. If you have impaired digestion, eat a thin
slice or two of rutabaga with each meal.
Organically grown is better if you can find it.
The role
of the liver. A key to digestion is that all the blood
from the intestinal tract goes not to the body, at large, but directly to the
liver. The liver is like the
Supreme Court of the body. It
decides which nutrients to keep, and which items are poisons that must be
removed.
The liver is a truly amazing organ. It can sift through the absorbed
material and it retains toxic chemicals, toxic metals and other toxins that
have been absorbed in the intestines with the food.
The liver converts these to less toxic products, in
most cases. These then pass out of
the liver in the form of bile.
Interestingly, the bile is dumped back into the
small intestine, and some of the poisons such as too much cholesterol, can be
reabsorbed once again. However, in
most cases, the liver has transformed the toxins so that the body somehow knows
not reabsorb them. It is as though
the liver ÒtagsÓ the toxic metals and toxic chemicals in some way so they pass
harmlessly out of the body in the feces.
The liver has many other functions, as well. It further breaks down some nutrients,
transforms some amino acids into other chemicals the body needs, stores some
sugars, and puts some chemicals together to form proteins, starches, fatty
acids and millions of other chemicals we need to live.
Always love your liver! Never treat your liver badly by drinking alcohol or taking
drugs or any poison. You are just
ruining the most amazing organ in the body. It is also one of the more diseased organs in most people
thanks to all the chemicals in our food and water. Anger also damages the liver.
IMPROVING
DIGESTION
Here are the basic steps:
1. Follow
the nutritional balancing diets, and not others! This
means eat whole, natural foods, preferably organically grown, and cook most
food except a little dairy foods that may be eaten raw. This means do not eat salads, and do
not eat fruit or fruit juices.
The only juice allowed is up to 10 ounces of carrot
juice daily, or 1-2 ounces of wheat grass juice up to twice weekly, and have
these away from meal time so as not to dilute the digestive juices.
Only have a maximum of one cup of coffee or tea
daily, and no green tea. Do not
have any smoothies, shakes, powders, or green superfoods.
Also avoid all nightshade vegetables and all nuts
or seeds except for toasted almond butter. For many more details and the reasons for this diet, see the
Slow Oxidizer Diet and other articles about foods
and diet on this site.
2.
Develop very good eating habits. Eat sit down meals, chew all food very
thoroughly, eat meals 4-5 hours apart, do not skip meals, skip most snacks,
drink no liquids with meals, and have pleasant conversation during meals.
Always eat simple food combinations: cooked
vegetables with each meal, with either 1 starch or 1 protein food. The alternative, which is better, is to
eat only one type of food per meal.
This is the easiest to digest.
Also, do not eat on the run, standing up, in your
car, or in noisy environments.
Instead, learn to relax a lot, especially at mealtimes. Do not oversalt food and do not avoid all sea salt. Do not eat table salt and do not eat
food that is very spicy.
3. Other. Heed
the call of nature, use a red heat lamp on the abdomen daily, and ideally
follow a complete nutritional balancing program. This will heal many digestive imbalances at a very deep level.
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