Learning from experience
Once you realize that your body is a collection of highly organized cells, designed by the forces of nature, adapting to the changing environment over millions of years, it becomes natural to give that body what it needs, with the tangible benefit of health. Experience is, of course, the greatest motivator. If something you eat makes you feel good, you are likely to continue eating it, while if something makes you feel bad, you are likely to stop—unless you have become addicted. But in order to learn from experience, we must first understand something called the general adaptation syndrome. It was first described in 1956 by Professor Hans Selye, who proposed three basic stages of reaction to any event. This can be applied to a cigarette, a food, a stress, or a physical activity. Let’s see these stages, using your reaction to a stimulant such as caffeinated drinks or cigarettes as an example.
The general adaptation syndrome.
Stage 1: the initial response. Your first response to any event or substance is the best indicator of whether or not it suits you. Remember your first cigarette, your first alcoholic drink, or your first cup of coffee? You are unlikely to remember your first taste of sugar, meat, or milk or other foods introduced when you were very young.
Stage 2: adaptation. Very quickly your body learns to adapt. Gone is the pounding heart after a cup of coffee or coughing after a cigarette. An example of this stage is the rise and subsequent fall to normal levels of the blood pressure of country dwellers, not normally exposed to air pollution, who move to a city. The cells in the lungs of a smoker change form to protect themselves from smoke. Plaque develops in the arteries to repair damaged tissue. What is going on behind the scenes in all these cases? The body is trying to protect itself and in so doing is in an unseen state of stress.
Stage 3: exhaustion. Continue the insult for long enough and one day you are sick. Your energy is gone, your digestive system is not functioning properly, your blood pressure is raised, and you develop anything from chest infections to cancer. The body cannot cope; it cannot adapt any more. This is the stage at which most people seek help from a health practitioner.
We could add two further stages to this process.
Stage 4: recovery. To enable the body to recover, it is usually necessary to avoid or greatly restrict the initial insult and other undesirable substances. This means being as puritanical as possible for a period during which you may have to wean yourself off all sorts of things to which you have become addicted or allergic. Generally, these are the substances of which you would say, “I can give up anything but not my …” This is the nature of addiction. To help the body recover, much larger amounts of vitamins and minerals are needed than would normally be required just to maintain good health.
Stage 5: hypersensitivity. Once you have recovered and your body is basically healthy, which can take years, you are effectively back to stage one. But this time, because your diet and lifestyle are much improved, you may seem to be hypersensitive and react to all sorts of things that you never reacted to before: certain wines that contain additives, ordinary foods like wheat or milk, fumes, and so on. This is healthy because, just as in an initial reaction, your body is telling you what suits you. The more you follow this guidance, the healthier you will become. In due course, as your reserve strength builds up, you can tolerate the odd insult without such hypersensitivity, but by then it is to be hoped that you will have learned (or suffered) enough not to indulge those old bad habits!
Once you understand this cycle and why it is that you can sometimes apparently abuse the body without noticeable ill effects, and at other times react strongly to small insults, it is easier to interpret what happens to you and alter your diet or lifestyle accordingly. Think about the substances that you have suspected may not suit you. What do they have in common? Perhaps there are subtle signs that you have chosen to ignore. Here is a list of the most common suspects that my clients have found they react to.
CHEMICALS THAT COMMONLY CAUSE REACTIONS
Wheat and other grains Yeast-based alcohols (beer and wine, but
Milk and dairy products not champagne)
Chocolate Additives in alcohol
Sugar Cigarettes
Coffee, including decaffeinated Fumes
Tea Vehicle exhaust
Food additives Gas fires
Alcohol Grass pollens
Yeast in bread and processed foods
It is interesting that our ancestors, who until relatively recently in evolutionary terms were not cultivating grains or milking animals, were not exposed to any of these substances.
The delayed effect
Another noteworthy phenomenon is the delayed effect. The general adaptation syndrome describes a long-term delayed effect, but with many foods there is a short-term delay of up to twenty-four hours before you notice their effect on you. For example, if you eat something very sweet, you may feel fine as your blood sugar level rises. But when it plummets four hours later, you may fall asleep. And alcohol has its worst effects many hours later. This is largely because, once the liver’s ability to detoxify alcohol is exceeded, the remaining alcohol is changed into a toxic by-product, which is what induces headaches and nausea. Many substances that are not good for you show an initial reaction within twenty-four hours.
A hairy bag of salty soup
Scientists believe that we, like all other mammals, evolved from the sea. We carry our “sea” around inside us: we have many of the same constituents as the oceans from which we came. We are 66 percent water, 25 percent protein, and 8 percent fat, the rest being carbohydrate plus minerals and vitamins. Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair, Siegfried and Roy, you, and I are all just 66 percent water. “Hairy bags of salty soup,” said Dr. Michael Colgan, a British-born scientist who has pioneered the optimum nutrition approach. Yet if you were to throw all these compounds together, you would not end up with a human being. So what is it that makes life happen?
The answer, as explained in chapter 22, is enzymes. They turn the food we eat into fuel for every single cell, be it a muscle cell, a brain cell, an immune cell, or a blood cell. Further enzymes within these cells turn the fuel into usable energy that makes our heart beat, our nerves fire, and all other bodily functions take place.
Everything in this universe is part of a vast ongoing chemical reaction. Our part, as temporary living organisms, is to provide ourselves and others with the best possible components to allow this process to continue in such a way that we all have a good, long, enjoyable life. And what makes our life-giving enzymes function at their peak? The answer is vitamins and minerals. Nearly all the thousands of enzymes in the body depend directly or indirectly on the presence of vitamins and minerals. Once you understand that the body and health itself depend on this vast and complex interacting network, you will appreciate that there is little point in taking extra quantities of a single vitamin. That would be like replacing only one dirty spark plug and expecting your car to run smoothly. Yet most medical research into nutrition has done just that, by taking one nutrient and measuring its effect on one aspect of health.
As you will see, the research that has produced the most astonishing results in improving energy, mental performance, longevity, fertility, and resistance to disease has involved a multinutrient approach that recognizes the fact that nutrients interact. Parts 4 and 5 of this book explain the kinds of results that can be achieved and the conditions helped by applying the optimum nutrition approach.
22
Improving Your Digestion
Like all other animals, we spend our physical life processing organic matter and producing waste. How good we are at it determines our energy level, longevity, and state of body and mind. A lack of nutrients and the wrong kind of food can result in faulty digestion, faulty absorption, abnormal gut reactions including bloating and inflammation, gut infections, and poor elimination. The side effects disrupt every body system—immunity, the brain and nervous system, hormonal balance, and our ability to detoxify.
Stomach acid—the right balance
Digestion starts in the senses. The sight and smell of food initiate chemical reactions that get us ready to assimilate and digest food. Chewing is particularly important because messages are sent to the digestive tract to prepare different enzyme secretions according to what is in the mouth.
Food then passes into the stomach, where large proteins are broken down into smaller groups of amino acids. The first step in protein digestion is carried out by hydrochloric acid released from the stomach wall, which is dependent on zinc. Hydrochloric acid production often declines in old age, as do zinc levels. The consequence is indigestion, particularly noticeable after high-protein meals, and the likelihood of developing food allergies because undigested large food molecules are more likely to stimulate allergic reactions in the small intestine.
The nutritional solution for too little stomach acid is to take a digestive supplement containing betaine hydrochloride, plus at least 15 mg of zinc in an easily absorbable form such as zinc citrate. Some people, however, produce too much stomach acid, a possible cause of “acid stomach,” experienced as indigestion and a burning sensation. This is usually rectified by avoiding acid-forming and irritating foods and drinks: alcohol, coffee, tea, and aspirin all irritate the gut wall. Meat, fish, eggs, and other concentrated proteins stimulate acid production and can aggravate overacidity. The minerals calcium and magnesium are particularly alkaline and tend to have a calming effect on people suffering from excess acidity.
The digestive system.
Digestive enzymes
The stomach also produces a range of enzymes, collectively called proteases, to break down protein. Protein digestion continues in the first part of the small intestine, the duodenum, into which flow digestive enzymes produced in the pancreas and liver. The pancreas is the primary organ of digestion, and special cells in it produce enzymes for breaking down carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. These enzymes are called amylases, lipases, and, once again, proteases. Again, there are many different kinds.
The production of digestive enzymes depends on many micronutrients, especially vitamin B6. Suboptimum nutrition often results in suboptimum digestion, which in turn creates suboptimum absorption, so nutritional intake gets worse and worse. The consequence is undigested food in the small intestine, which encourages the proliferation of the wrong kind of bacteria and other microorganisms; symptoms can include flatulence, abdominal pain, and bloating.
The easiest way to correct this kind of problem is to take a broad-spectrum digestive enzyme supplement with each meal. This can make an immediate difference. You can test the effects of these enzyme supplements by crushing them and stirring them into a thick porridge made from oats and water. If the product is good, the porridge will become liquid in thirty minutes. While there is no harm in taking digestive enzymes on an ongoing basis, correcting their levels with supplements paves the way for increasing nutrient levels in the body. Once this is achieved, digestion often improves of its own accord and the supplements may no longer be necessary.
Before being digested, fat has to be specially prepared. This is achieved by a substance called bile, produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder. Bile contains lecithin, which helps emulsify large fat particles and turn them into tiny particles with a greater surface area for the fat-splitting lipase enzyme to work on. Supplementing lecithin as granules or capsules improves emulsification and can help people with poor tolerance of fat—for instance, anyone who has had the gallbladder removed and therefore cannot store bile.
Digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes, such as amylase, protease, or lipase, help turn large food molecules into tiny molecules that your digestive tract then allows to pass into the bloodstream.
Probiotics
Probiotics are your digestive tract’s best friend for a number of reasons. First, they help digest your food. Both proteins and fats can be broken down into amino acids and fatty acids by lactobacilli bacteria. The sugar in milk, lactose, is also broken down into glucose and galactose. This is especially helpful for those who are lactose-intolerant, lacking the digestive enzyme lactase that would normally do this. Probiotics also improve the absorption of calcium and other minerals; manufacture vitamins, primarily the vitamins K, B12, and folic acid; relieve constipation; and are important healers in a wide variety of digestive disorders.
Among these disorders are Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, diarrhea, and irritable bowel syndrome. In one study in Poland on irritable bowel syndrome, one hundred people were given lactobacilli, a placebo, or antispasmodic drugs.1 Three-quarters of those taking lactobacilli had significant improvement, compared with 27 percent taking the drug and 0 percent taking the placebo. Twenty-two patients who had no relief on the drug were then given probiotics plus the drug. Seventy-seven percent reported improvement. Clearly probiotics were much more effective than antispasmodic drugs. It has been estimated that about half of all people diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome have abnormal bacteria balance and therefore are likely to benefit from probiotics.2
Inflammatory bowel disorders such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis have also been proven to respond favorably to probiotics. Lactobacillus salivarius, a strain of lactobacilli, has proven particularly effective for colitis sufferers. One of the ways in which probiotics may help is by promoting healing and repair of the digestive tract. When the digestive tract is inflamed, perhaps owing to these diseases, infection, or irritation by alcohol, painkillers, or antibiotics, it can become abnormally permeable, which is a major cause of the development of food allergies and detoxification problems. This sequence of events can also cause other inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, which has also been shown to benefit from probiotics.3 The digestive tract can be restored to health by short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), which are naturally produced by lactobacilli, bifidobacteria, and eubacteria. (Eubacteria are generally not used as probiotics because supplementation makes little difference to their numbers in the gut.)
The most proven benefit of probiotics is in cases of diarrhea, especially those brought on by bacterial infections. In most cases, provided the right strain of bacteria at the right strength is used, probiotics can halve recovery time from a bout of diarrhea. Hence, probiotics are an exotic traveler’s best friend.
If you suffer from food allergies, the chances are probiotics will help you too. Many food reactions may not be solely due to food allergy, but may also be due to the feeding of unfriendly bacteria, which then produce substances that activate the immune system in the gut.4 Probiotics have been shown to help reduce inflammatory reactions in food allergies by lessening the response in the gut to allergenic foods.5 (There’s more on probiotics in chapter 17.)
Gut reactions
While indigestion can be caused by a lack or excess of stomach acid, a lack of digestive enzymes, or a lack of probiotics, these are not the only possibilities. Many of the foods we eat irritate and damage our very sensitive and vitally important interface with the inside world. One such food is wheat, in which a protein called gluten contains gliadin, a known intestinal irritant. A small amount may be tolerated, but most people in the U.S. consume wheat in the form of crackers, toast, bread, cereals, cakes, pastry, and pasta at least three times a day. Modern wheat is very high in gluten, and baking increases its ability to react with the gut wall. In cases of severe gluten sensitivity, the villi, tiny protrusions that make up the small intestine, get completely worn away. For those with gluten sensitivity, all foods containing gluten must be avoided. Rice, corn, quinoa, and buckwheat are fine, as all are gluten-free.
Gut infections
The best way to get a gut infection is to eat plenty of sugar, suffer from indigestion, and have regular courses of antibiotics. There are around three hundred different strains of bacteria in the gut, most of which are essential. They protect us from harmful bacteria, viruses, and other dangerous organisms.
Antibiotics wipe out all the bacteria in the body, good as well as b
ad, and are best not taken unless absolutely necessary. If the gut contains the wrong kind of bacteria, or perhaps an overgrowth of a yeastlike organism called Candida albicans, a high-sugar diet, including fruit, can exacerbate the problem. Feelings of intoxication, drowsiness, and bloating after consuming sugar are good indicators of a potential imbalance. In the same way yeast ferments sugar to produce alcohol, it is possible to check for the presence of yeastlike organisms by testing the blood, eating sugar, and then testing the blood again for the presence of alcohol.
A number of powerful natural remedies have been proven to help with gut infections. Caprylic acid, extracted from coconuts, and olive leaf extract are both powerful antifungal agents. Grapefruit seed extract, taken as drops in water, is antifungal, antiviral, and antibacterial, but does not destroy all the essential strains of bacteria. Even so, it is best not taken with meals. Another remedy, probiotics (see this page), aims to improve the strength of the beneficial bacteria in the gut. This is easily achieved by short (one-month) courses of supplements. Since bacteria are fragile, it is best to choose a high-quality product containing acidophilus and bifidobacteria bacteria.
Preventing gas and constipation
Indigestion is a cause of gas, as is eating foods that contain indigestible carbohydrates. These carbohydrates are found particularly in beans and vegetables. The enzyme alpha-galactosidase (sometimes called glucoamylase) breaks down these indigestible carbohydrates and reduces flatulence and is found in better digestive enzyme supplements.
Constipation has many causes, the most common of which is hard fecal matter. Natural foods stay soft in the digestive tract because they contain fibers that absorb water and expand. Fruit and vegetables naturally contain a lot of water. Provided they are prepared properly, whole grains such as oats and rice absorb water and provide soft, moist bulk for the digestive tract. Meats, cheese, eggs, refined grains, and wheat (because of its gluten content) are all constipating. While it should not be necessary to add fiber to the diet, oat fiber has particular benefits in that it has been shown to help eliminate excess cholesterol and slow down carbohydrate uptake, as well as prevent constipation. It is naturally present in oats, which are best soaked and eaten cold.
The New Optimum Nutrition Bible Page 20
