Digestion

     I know you are not taught this in school, maybe they don't want to freak you out, but you live in a massive symbiotic relationship with the inhabitants of your gut.  In a symbiotic relationship each organism gains something of value from the other.  In this case the bacteria in your gut benefit from your gathering food and eating it so it ends up in your gut where they live.  You benefit because the bacteria break the food down into something your gut can absorb into your blood stream providing you with nourishment in return.

     Remember, in the Basics chapter, I mentioned that I couldn't loose weight unless my diet scored an A or A+.  That is because I was getting the nutrients I needed without overeating.  However, if my gut is in bad condition, even scoring an A+, I could still end up deficient in the nutritiants I need and the metabolic problems that would ensue would most likely cause my weight to increase and my health to decrease.

     A poorly functioning gut can harbor pathogens that produce toxins that can leak into our blood stream overtaxing our livers, inflaming our arteries and even poisoning us.  An inflamed intestinal lining can cause undigested food particles to enter into our blood streams resulting in food allergies.  And because our guts are a major factor in supporting our immune systems, a poorly functioning gut can hamper our ability to fight off diseases and fight cancer.  It can lead to diarrhea and constipation.  None of this is good.

      It can take years to repair a damaged gut, so it is best not to damage it in the first place.  Unfortunately, many prescription medications, especially antibiotics, can kill the good bacteria in the gut and may be unavoidable.  So I'll concentrate here in on how to re-establish a healthy gut.  Following these simple practices will also keep a healthy gut in good health and help restore a damaged gut.

     My wife, Monica, wrote a paper that was published in the prestigious Journal of Heredity called "The Genetic Modification of a Wild Plant Species".  The first part dealt with an expensive method of replacing one species with another, namely, dumping new members of the new species into the biome of the old species.  Even if the old species is more fit, the new one will eventually win out by sheer numbers.  The key is that the difference in fitness would result in the loss of a percentage of the new members in each cycle.  If the number being reintroduced in each cycle is greater than the number lost, the old species is doomed.  This has become the basis of a technique for introducing "probiotics" into the gut.

     Probiotics are the good bacteria found in the gut.  You can buy these in pill form, but you can also get them from a good live culture yogurt.  The thing is, you must eat FRESH yogurt every day.  Here is all that you need:  a yogurt maker, canned condensed milk, filtered water and a good yogurt culture.  Here in the Northwest US we used Nancy's Plain Yogurt for the starter.  Pour one can of condensed milk in a clean container.  Refill the can with filtered water from the hot water tank (run the hot water a bit, but not long enough that the water comes out hot) and pour it into the container with the milk.  Add one half teaspoon of starter, stir and poor it into the yogurt cups.  Put it into the yogurt maker and leave it for about 10-12 hours.  Then cap and refrigerate the yogurt cups.  Next time, use some of the yogurt you made for the starter.  Eat some of the yogurt every day, or as we do, about three tablespoons twice a day.

     The problem with store bought yogurt is that even thought it is live culture, the bacteria start dying the moment it is cooled.  Over a few days almost all of the bacteria will be dead.  By making your own, you know you are getting the greatest possible number of live bacteria to your gut.  And it costs a lot less than store bought yogurt to boot.

     Here is something very new.  A company called Diamond-V has for years been making food additives for farm animals including one called XP that is used to improve animal digestion.  It seems that in humans it feeds the good bacteria in the gut while actually killing bad bacteria.  It also causes the lining of the gut to heal and increases the number NK-cells (Natural Killer cells that are part of our immune system) in the gut's lining.  NK cells not only protect us from pathogens but are instrumental in fighting cancer.  Diamond-V has recently spun off a new company that is making the supplement using processes approved by the FDA for making supplements for human consumption.  It is just a slightly different standard than the FDA requires for animals.

     Diamond-V XP is made from ground yellow corn, hominy feed, corn gluten feed, wheat middlings, rye middlings, diastatic malt, corn syrup, and cane molasses by fermenting them with baker's yeast and then drying the resulting metabolites.  Apparently the good bacteria in the gut love the stuff and multiply.  But to bad bacteria, like E-coli, it is pure poison.  Now, a 50 pound bag of Diamond-V XP costs less than $35 and since you only need 1/2 teaspoon a day, well, you can't beat that for inexpensive - less than a penny a day.  I'm not so stuck-up as to claim I'm not an animal, so I'm giving it a try.  At this writing I've been using it a month.  I took a test last year that showed I had 35 food allergies, so I guess my gut had been in pretty bad condition.  So far, I've seen a lessoning of allergy symptoms; but the verdict is still out.  Of course, the yogurt, mentioned above is necessary for this to work, since it is the bacteria in yogurt that are being fed by the Diamond-V XP.

     I'm willing to try new things to see if they work for me as long as there is little chance of doing harm.  This is not the first time I've heard of fermented wheat being used to improve the immune function.  A product called AveMar invented by the Nobel Prize winner, Albert Szent-Györgyi, and manufactured in Hungary, is used in many countries, including Australia, as a adjunct to radiation and chemotherapy in cancer treatment with great success.  It appears AveMar prevents metastasis - the spreading of cancer throughout the body.  If cancer can be held in check, other treatments have a much greater chance of succeeding in killing the cancer altogether.  AveMar's website is funny and sad in a way.  If says if you are from the US, go away; you are not allowed to read the material on their website.  This, our US government says, you are not allowed to read.  But do it anyway.