Natural Health Products Canada
 


FULL SPECTRUM DIGESTIVE SUPPORT

Herbal Medicine Research Report: Volume 2 No. 2
1999
    by Udo Erasmus, Ph.D.
According to research and clinical experience, poor digestion can cause a multitude of seemingly unrelated problems. Malnutrition, gas and bloating, cramping, toxicity, inflammation, food and other allergies, compromised immune function, migraines, poor healing, susceptibility to infections, skin problems, restless leg syndrome, growing pains, and some very serious problems including auto-immune conditions, cardiovascular problems, glandular deterioration, collagen diseases, kidney self-destruction, and even epilepsy. No wonder that healers have said that death begins with poor digestion.

Why do they say that? Because every part of the body is constructed from foods, which must first be broken down to the simple building blocks:

• amino acids from proteins;

• fatty acids (and monoglycerides) from fats;

• glucose from starch;

• nucleic acids from DNA and RNA;

With these monomers our body builds what it needs.

If the process of breaking down foods fails, every part of the body suffers. For example the immune systemwould then get involved in digestion. When this happens, the immune system begins to neglect its other vital function, and in some cases, the immune system can even over-react and attack and damage tissues, glands, and organs (autoimmune).

So, how do we ensure optimum digestion?
There are several ways to deal with the problems that occur in our digestive system. One obvious option is to remove from the diet all foods that cause us digestive difficulty. This makes sense on the surface, but can be counter-productive. The offending food must first be identified, which can be a daunting task, especially if the problems caused by a food do not show up in the body for several days. Removal of food from the diet does not fix the digestion problem, but just avoids — only for a time, usually — having to address the real source of the problem.

An alternative option, for the long term solution, would be to find and fix the cause of the problems in an individual person's digestive process than to remove foods from their diet. So, how do we find and fix this cause?

Digestion is so important to life that nature gave it a great deal of attention to create a superb design. Things most likely go wrong with digestion if we are out of line with what the digestive system was originally intended to do. Most of our digestion problems come from changes we have made in our foods through processing. Let me list these changes.

We have removed important essential nutrients from our foods. Most damaging is the removal of good fats that we cannot live without. Second, heating foods destroys the enzymes present in foods while they are raw, and doubles the load that our digestive system must carry. Third, cooking kills friendly micro-organisms that help to keep our gut healthy and protect us from disease-causing micro-organisms. Fourth, the removal of fiber from foods disturbs bowel function and leads to many problems. Finally, many phyto-nutrients and essential nutrients are lost when foods are processed, and their absence or deficiency makes it impossible for our tissues to function at optimum levels. Let's look at all of these briefly.
 


Improving Gut Integrity
When the w3 and w6 essential fats are missing, cell membrane integrity is lost. So is gut integrity. This loss of integrity results in leaky gut, inflammation (which causes even more leakiness), proneness to invasion by yeast, fungus, candida, and other micro-organisms that should remain outside of our tissues.

When essential fats are processed by methods inappropriate to their delicate nature — such as by hydrogenation, frying, bleaching, and deodorization — gut integrity is further impaired. The result? More of the same problems listed above.

What to do?
We improve gut integrity by optimizing our intake of essential fats. They help because they are necessary to the cells and tissues that make up the intestinal tract. They are absolutely essential for gut integrity. They help prevent "leaky" gut that leads to food allergies.

Essential fats slow down stomach emptying time, giving more time for digestion to take place, and slowing the absorption of sugars that can lead to candida overgrowth and insulin regulation problems.

Beyond optimizing the amount of essential fats we eat, it is important to get the ratio between the two competing essential fats right. We have found, consistently, that a ratio of twice more w3 than w6 works best in practice. Both essential fats are necessary (so w6s should not be neglected), but w3s have specific benefits. Research shows w3s to be powerfully anti-inflammatory. Inflammation is one of the key factors leading to leaky gut, which sets the condition for the absorption of undigested food, which then causes the problems of bloating, allergies, and more.

Research also shows that w3s have anti-fungal, anti-candida and anti-yeast effects. Yeasts are also implicated in food allergies and bloating.

Further, w3s dampen the over-response of the immune system that leads to auto-immune conditions, in which the immune system destroys our own body tissues.

W3s suppress appetite, preventing us from eating more than our digestive system can handle.

But remember that, as good as w3s are for gut integrity, w6s must also be present for optimum gut integrity.

Healthy adults require about 2 to 5 tablespoons (of 15 ml each) per day. Ratio should be about 2:1 (more w3 than w6). We prefer essential fat-rich oils packaged in amber glass, boxed to protect them from light, and stored in the refrigerator in natural food stores. They can be used in cold, warm, and hot foods, but should never be fried. Frying makes them toxic. Essential fats go with vegetables, with proteins, with starches, and even with fruit.

We recommend using Udo's Choice Perfected Oil Blend, which contains 9 premium ingredients that give you everything you need for optimum gut integrity, and contains nothing you should avoid.

Completing Digestion
Digestive enzymes rich in protein-digesting protease enzymes can be very helpful. Why? Because enzymes ensure the complete digestion of food. This means that all nutrients can be absorbed, and that there are no undigested food molecules that can escape the gut and get into the bloodstream where they can cause problems. If foods are completely digested, there is very little chance of them causing allergic reactions.

Why rich in protease? Because proteins cause most of the need for immune system involvement that leads to digestion-related allergies and environmental allergies as well.

Also, research shows that protease enzymes help prevent, as well as digest, immune complexes.

But why do we need these enzymes when our body can make enzymes? In nature, foods are raw. They contain enzymes in every cell. These enzymes are part of the normal cell functions of all plant and animal tissues. The problem is: enzymes are destroyed by the heat used to cook and process foods. Research shows that almost half of the digestion can be done by the enzymes contained in raw foods (ref Howell). When we eat cooked foods, our body must do twice the digestive work that it was set-up by nature to do. Sooner or later, this catches up with us, the problems begin, and get worse with time.

By replacing the enzymes that were destroyed when foods were cooked, we take the extra burden off our digestion and free the immune system to pursue its first love: the destruction of virus, fungus, bacteria, and cancer cells.

We recommend Udo's Choice Digestive Enzyme Blend, high protease, full spectrum blend of 9 different kinds of enzymes for the complete digestion of foods. The enzyme blend is in Vegicaps™, which can be pulled apart so the enzymes can be evenly mixed in foods. Enzymes should only be added to cooked foods once they have been  cooled to body temperature.

How much to use? That varies from person to person. One or two capsules with each cooked meal may be just right for some, while others may need as many as 4,6, or even 10 capsules with meals. How does one know? By results. The most common indicator is cessation of gas and bloating, but the discontinuation of food sensitivities, tiredness after eating, and allergy symptoms can also be signs of effectiveness. Use as many capsules of enzymes as you need to reap results.

The Friendly Bowel Critters (Pro-Biotics)
Pro-biotics keep candida and unfriendly bacteria from gaining a foothold in our digestive system and causing digestive problems that can lead to inflammation, leaky gut, and the host of digestion-related problems these can cause.

We recommend taking them after the meal when stomach acid is lowest, because low acid means much better survival of these nice, little guys. We offer you a raspberry flavored product containing 5 of the best pro-biotics (hence called Super 5), embedded in a tablet made of their own growth medium.

Take one or two of these tablets instead of dessert, and dissolve it slowly in your mouth. This gives the pro-biotics, which are freeze-dried (asleep) time to wake up and start multiplying. In the growth medium (fuel), which is made of peptones and dried organic cane juice (amino acids, sugar, and minerals), they multiply phenomenally fast. By the time they reach your stomach your bacterial alliance will have expanded to a size much larger than you started out with.  Super 5 is a delicious, non-dairy chewable yogurt supplement that provides a wonderful delivery system for pro-biotics. One of the rare healthy desserts.

Friendly Fiber
Water-soluble mucilage fiber is also helpful to optimum digestion, because it helps stabilizes blood glucose by regulating the rate of its absorption. That prevents sugar-loving yeasts, bacteria, and fungus from proliferating and causing inflammation, leaky gut, and other problems. Mucilage also feeds the friendly bowel bacteria that help to humble the yeast population naturally present in our gut — keeping them from getting out of control.

We recommend two products for friendly fiber. They are the Wholesome Fast Food Blend and Beyond Greens. Both contain over 30% fiber, and are rich in mucilage from flax, psyllium, and slippery elm. These three sources of mucilage work synergistically together for best results.

And More
Besides all these, there are several other kinds of products that may be useful. These include minor ingredients from oils including lecithin and phytosterols, alkalinizing greens and minerals, and herbs such as dandelion, artichoke, and other bitters.

Summary
In summary, several keys to optimum digestion, all put together, can ensure that our digestive system continues to serve us without problems all our life into old age.

For more information, you may want to listen to an audiotape available from Flora Inc., or from health food stores, entitled: Udo's Choice Perfected Health Plan, which goes into more depth about the products described above, and explains how best to use them to improve your health.


References:
 
1. Howell, E., 1980. Food Enzymes For Health and Longevity, Omangod Press, Woodstock Valley, CT

2. Erasmus, U., 1993. Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, Alive Books, Burnaby, B.C., Canada

3. Howell, E., 1985. Enzyme Nutrition, The Food Enzyme Concept, Avery Publishing Group Inc., Wayne, NJ

4. Gottschall, E., 1986, Food and the Gut Reaction, The Kirkton Press, Kirkton, Ontario, Canada

5. Carper J. 1993. Food, Your Miracle Medicine: How Food Can Prevent and Cure Over 100 Symptoms and Problems. Based on more than 10,000 scientific studies. Published by Harper Collins Publ., Inc., 10 East 53rd Street NY.

6. Holman, 1996. Deficiencies of Essential  omega 3 fatty acids in humans are not rare. Proc. 56th Flax Institute of the USA, J.F. Carter, ed. North Dakota State Univ., Fargo, ND pp 1-8.

About Udo Erasmus, Ph.D.
Udo Erasmus is an internationally recognized authority on the role of fats, oils, and cholesterol in human health. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Honours Zoology with a major in Psychology from the University of British Columbia, followed by graduate studies in biochemistry and genetics. Several years of research in the field of nutrition led to him write his first book, Fats and Oils, which earned him a Ph.D. in nutrition and was later expanded and republished as Fats That Heal Fats That Kill.
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