Irritable bowel syndrome as a result of Stress
Who isn’t stressed? But if you have IBS or gut issues, you’re likely to experience symptoms as a result. Remember the gut – brain connection? The more stressed you are, the worse your symptoms...
Category: Digestive Disorders
Curbing GERD
Ever felt that burning sensation creeping up in your chest? More than 60 million Americans experience gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) at least once a month. But indigestion doesn’t have to have the last word....
The Pros of Probiotics
THE HUMAN BODY contains an estimated 100 trillion bacterial cells from at least 500 species, not including viruses and fungi. These bacteria are known as “friendly” bacteria, or probiotics, and are vital for many...
Take Digestive Enzymes
Not only does the kind of food that you eat have an influence in keeping your weight stables, but so does your ability to properly digest your food. Digestive enzymes that are created in...
A quick tour of the digestive system
To help you understand how your digestive system works, let’s take a quick tour. Like a winding tube, the digestive system carries food through your body, sending nutrients to the bloodstream and waste products...
Autoimmune Disorder
Constant overstimulation of the immune system can also lead to an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system can mistake the tissues of the body for an invader. The white blood cells and T...
The Development of Allergies and Sensitivities
When permeability increases, unprocessed substances can be passed on to the liver, completely undigested. This means that the liver would have to process undigested foods, bacteria, toxic chemicals, or whatever happens to be in...
Our Internal Ecosystem
Our bodies are constructed from the products of our digestion – we literally are what we eat. With that in mind, think of the digestive tract as an entire ecosystem, a self-contained environment supporting...
Anatomy of the Mouth
Why is it so important to chew our food well? Chewing well mixes our food with saliva to begin digestion and makes it easier to swallow. Chemicals in our saliva (enzymes) start breaking down...
The Liver
The liver is the Grand Central Station of our metabolism, handling an enormous amount of molecular traffic. The liver is the site of a huge variety of processing, whose vital roles include: Breaking down...
Nutritional Therapy
Deficiencies of vitamins and minerals are as individual as any other aspect of health and can be a major cause of illness. You may know, for example, that vitamin C deficiency can cause scurvy,...
Diverticular disease – the basics
Understanding the problem Diverticular disease is a common condition that affects many people. It is believed to be caused by increased pressure in the colon. The colon weakens with age, and, in some people,...
Fighting Malaria
Malaria is a parasitic disease caused by Plasmodium and results in more than 750,000 deaths annually, but what if there was a more effective approach to curing it? Malaria is transported from one person...
Treating Crohn’s Disease
Patients who have surgery for inflammatory bowel disorders such as Crohn’s disease recover quicker and have shorter hospital stays if they have laparoscopic surgery rather than traditional surgery. Doctors have been using laparoscopic surgery,...
Nausea Wristband
Many people get an upset stomach now and then. For some people, nausea is a constant torment. A new device helps soothe even the worst upset stomach. Janice, Nausea Sufferer: “The nausea in the...
Drug Helps Kids with Gastroenteritis
Given intravenously, the drug ondansetron decreases vomiting in children with gastroenteritis, according to the research. Gastroenteritis affects about 30 million children in the United States every year. It’s an acute infection in the stomach...
Treating Cholera
A commonly used antibiotic may be part of the answer to preventing 5,000 deaths annually from cholera. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports cholera is a major public-health problem around the world. Children are...
Eating Disorders: A Campus Concern
Although eating disorders are not limited to any particular age group of women, they are certainly more prevalent among college-aged women. Women who suffer from eating disorders have an intense fear of gaining weight...
Hypnosis and Irritable Bowel Syndrome – Doctor’s Interview
What is IBS and how many people does it attack? IBS is a set of symptoms that affects about fifteen percent of the population. It involves primarily pain and discomfort in the abdomen that...
Digestive Disorders
The National Institutes of health reports that 60 million to 70 million people in the u.s. are affected by digestive disorders each year, resulting in $141.8 billion in medical costs. Up to 25 percent...
Prebiotics
These have been defined as “non-digestible food ingredients that beneficially affect the host by selectively stimulating the growth and/or activity of one or a limited number of bacteria in the colon that can improve...
Leaky Gut Syndrome
A common but poorly recognized problem, leaky gut syndrome occurs when paces develop between the cells of the gut (the intestines), allowing bacteria, toxins, medications, and partially digested particles of food to leak into...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, is a “functional” disorder of the lower intestinal tract. This means that although no structural abnormalities can be found, the body’s function in terms of the movement of the...
The GI Tract: Understanding The Basic Plumbing
The gastrointestinal tract (GI) is responsible for processing food for absorption and expelling excess waste. Digestion first starts in the mouth where food is mechanically broken down and mixed with saliva, which begins the...
The Large Intestine (aka the Colon)
The large intestine is the last organ through which food passes, and its job is to absorb water and nutrients that were not absorbed in the small intestine and to form feces from the...
Why is the Gut so Important?
The gastrointestinal tract is technically outside the body. Similar to the way the skin protects the body from the external environment, so too does the lining of the intestinal tract, providing a barrier to...
CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS Leaky Gut
Leaky gut is the root cause of many chronic health conditions—including food allergies and autoimmune disease—as it allows unwanted organisms and larger antigenic moieties into the bloodstream. This causes the immune system to “react”...
Chew Your Food
The purpose of chewing is to masticate (liquefy) food, the first step in breaking foodstuffs down to the molecular level. Most people put food in their mouths, chew a few times and swallow. But...
Potential Relief for Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Researchers from California, Japan and Israel may have discovered a potential form of relief for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. More than 1 million Americans are estimated to have ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease...
Breath Test for Digestive Problems
Researchers from the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City are urging physicians to add fructose breath testing to their diagnostic strategy for patients with unexplained abdominal pain, gas, diarrhea, and intestinal rumbling...