Appendix A

More Digestive Explanations

Reflux, Heartburn And GERD

Now that you understand the benefits of both acid production and bile flow working correctly, let’s talk about issues that can pop up when one side is not working optimally. I’m referring to the fiction that is the billion dollar industry of reflux, heartburn, and GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease). The marketing surrounding these issues may mislead an individual more than just about any other current health information out there. First of all, there are many different causes of reflux; but very few cases, if any, are actually caused by “too much acid,” as advertisers explain when marketing their products.

At the bottom of your esophagus, there is a little valve called an LES, or lower esophageal sphincter. This valve opens to let food enter the stomach and then it closes, so that the food doesn’t go back up your esophagus and burn you. Sometimes, people have a small hiatal hernia where part of the stomach is pulled up above the diaphragm. This can keep that valve from closing and can result in an acid reflux problem. That is one possibility.

However, the most common cause of reflux problems involves the acid level of the stomach. The LES is actually HCL sensitive, meaning that when the stomach makes enough HCL, it activates that valve to close so digesting food doesn’t reflux back up. I’ve already mentioned that some people don’t make enough HCL on their own. So doesn’t it make sense that, if there isn’t enough HCL in the stomach to trigger the valve, the valve would stay open and they would get reflux? People aren’t having reflux because of too much acid; they’re having reflux because there is not enough acid.

Pharmaceutical companies sell us drugs that turn the acid off, so that when we experience reflux, we can’t feel the burning and we assume the originating issue has been dealt with. The problem with that is twofold. First, the stomach also contains digestive enzymes that can come back up with reflux. These digestive enzymes are made to break down protein. What is the esophagus made of? Yes, protein. Therefore, using these drugs stops the burning sensation, but it doesn’t stop all the damage that reflux can cause. A reduction in acid coming up could certainly reduce damage. However, it’s important to understand that the enzymes coming back up the esophagus still have the ability to cause damage as well. The second problem created by turning off the acid is… you just turned off the acid. I’ve already covered how important your stomach acid is, how it is the safety barrier for your entire body and how it’s an ignorant idea to turn it off.

When you hear about a drug being a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), this refers to the hydrogen proton pump in the human body. These drugs restrict the body from producing hydrogen. Hydrogen is required for the body to make its own HCL, so by turning off the hydrogen, you turn off the acid. Not only are the proton-pump-inhibitor-type drugs another punch in the mouth to your liver (I already discussed how all drugs work by overwhelming the liver enough to be able to stay in the system and do their job), they also turn off your digestion. Now, any food you eat not only doesn’t nourish your body like it is intended to, but also this undigested, rotting, fermenting food becomes another problem for your body to try to remove or to store in fat cells. Pretty good little pill, huh?

To reduce reflux, most reflux sufferers can actually increase the amount of stomach acid they have which will trigger the LES to close so they no longer experience reflux. This also allows the body to fully break down its food, pull out the minerals and then use those minerals to make the proper amount of stomach acid. Look forward to reading more about how to improve these issues in Kick Reflux, Heartburn & GERD, or search for Kick It Naturally in the iTunes store to hear our reflux episode for free.

Crohn’s, Colitis, And IBS

What about the other end of digestion? What about the bile side of the action? If bile is not flowing well enough to neutralize the acid product coming from the stomach, now there is acid going through the intestines. And why does the stomach make acid? The primary job of stomach acid is digesting protein. It’s the hydrochloric acid that breaks down food and allows protein to become accessible to the body. Think about it; if you don’t neutralize that acid, what do you think it’s going to do to your intestines? Your intestines are made out of protein, just like your esophagus. How about that? Does anybody you know have symptoms that were diagnosed as IBS, Crohn’s, or colitis? Don’t you think this could just be the acid that has been produced in the stomach, that has not been neutralized sufficiently in the duodenum by the proper amount of alkaline bile? Now this acid product goes through the intestines like “Zingo!” Why? Because the acidity of this product is making the intestines burn and the body is going to respond to this acidity and march that product right through the person in a big damn hurry. With this understanding, doesn’t it make sense that it comes shooting out the back door in such a rush?

Beyond that, sodium likes to follow chloride. Water likes to follow sodium. So there’s also going to be sodium that is attracted to this chloride in the hydrochloric acid (the hydrochloric acid that didn’t get neutralized). Then more water will go to the bowels since chloride from HCL that has not been neutralized will draw the sodium with its water into the bowel. It would be like the boy band One Direction showing up to your cookout because they wanted hot dogs. Not only would you have five less hot dogs, you would also have a yard filled with thousands of screaming little girls. The good news is, the water rushing to this guy’s bowels will help dilute this acid product that is burning the intestinal walls. The bad news is, he just crapped his pants. This guy is going to have diarrhea and he is going to wonder why, when he sits on the John, it’s like he was shot from rockets. It’s because his body is saying, “Get this acid product that is burning the daylights out of my little intestines out of here!”

Probiotics and gut flora are a hot topic these days. The people that experience these diarrhea-type issues need help in this arena because that un-neutralized acid scorching through their intestines just fried their gut flora. The terrain needs to be right for gut flora to flourish. As you can imagine, the towering inferno from hell is not the right terrain. This is a very vague explanation, and you will better understand this scenario when I release Kick Crohn’s, Colitis, & IBS in the Nuts, but it’s a great visualization to help explain the balance that is required in order for digestion to function correctly. Both ends of the process are important. It’s clear that trouble arises when one side or the other isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.

Birth Control Medications

Most birth control medications contain synthetic estrogen. It appears that synthetic estrogen has the ability to sludge up bile, therefore restricting proper bile flow. The liver is made to excrete all the estrogen that a woman produces each day. When a liver is overwhelmed and not functioning properly, estrogen excretion may not be optimal and the woman can become estrogen dominant. Therefore, the level at which excess synthetic estrogen may sludge up the bile can vary greatly from woman to woman, depending on her liver function. In any case, bile that is too thick and sticky can’t flow correctly, and I’ve already covered how much that can blow.

When bile can’t flow correctly, you can’t properly digest your food and break it down into its elemental components. You may also get nauseous because bile is the main method that the body uses to remove toxins out the south gate (bowels). If your bile flow reduces because of birth control meds, those toxins can build up and you can experience nausea. It’s your body’s way of telling you, “Look, we can’t handle the food you’ve put in here, do you really need to keep adding more?”

In addition to turning off the body’s main path of junk removal, birth control medications are a synthetic drug. In order for the dose to stay in the body long enough to do its job, it has to be a dose high enough to overwhelm the liver. Otherwise, the liver would just remove it from the body before the drug had a chance to perform its intended purpose. So, any drug can’t work unless it first punches your liver in the mouth. Now, the drug occupies the liver and the liver can’t do its normal job of removing toxins, or properly removing estrogen. As the toxins get backed up, you get nauseous or you can gain weight since your body is forced to store those toxins in fat cells. That’s one of the reasons so many women gain weight on the pill. If a birth control drug was overwhelming the liver, reducing the ability for the liver to remove extra estrogen that was contained in that drug, that could result in the bile thickening more and more as time passes. The thicker the bile gets, the harder it is for the liver to do its job and this cycle could continue to snowball.

Birth control meds are also believed to kill all, or most of, your intestinal flora. If birth control medication stops a woman’s bile from flowing correctly, there is nothing to cool off the acid product coming from the stomach and the intestinal flora can burn up. Without the beneficial bacteria, bad guys start to take over, creating an overgrowth of harmful bacteria and yeast, like candida.

Just in case you didn’t catch my drift here, birth control medication can be one of the worst things a woman can do if she wants to have a healthy body. I realize pregnancy has the potential to wreak havoc on the body as well; at least with pregnancy, 10 years later you have someone to take out your trash for you. However, there is a freedom of choice in these matters, and there are birth control options available that will allow you to continue digesting your food properly.

Gallbladder Removal / Gallstones / Olive Oil-Lemon Drink

When I see a client with health issue after health issue, one of my first questions is, “Do you still have your gallbladder?” Doctors are taught that the gallbladder really doesn’t do anything anyway; so, if there are stones or blockages, why not just yank it out? The problem is that your gallbladder is where your body stores bile, and without the proper amount of bile, you can’t digest your food completely. The gallbladder also concentrates the bile and makes it stronger, so that when its alkalinity drops down on the acid product from the stomach, there is a good digestive sizzle. You’ve already learned how proper digestion is needed to obtain nutrients from your food. Eventually, without proper digestion, all the mineral and nutrient deficiencies will cause problems and even imbalances. The majority of health issues lead back to digestion in one way or another. You can digest food correctly only if you have enough acid in your stomach, enough bile from the gallbladder, and bicarb and enzymes from the pancreas dropping down into your duodenum. Without a gallbladder there is no bile storage, so you rarely have enough bile.

The digestive system is a crazy, complex, miraculous machine. With so many bits and pieces at play, the system is vulnerable to problems that would cause it to function below par. Do you really think a system will work the way it is meant to if you take out part of it (i.e. the gallbladder) and chuck it in the garbage? When any part of the digestive process is not functioning, troubles can show up for months, decades, or even a lifetime. You may not even know you’re having digestive concerns because you feel okay when you eat (or you’ve forgotten what it feels like to feel good). But the lack of nutrients coming into the system, which can be created by a lack of digestion, is always going to come back to bite you in the ass. They may even literally bite you in the ass. (That was a parasite joke for those who didn’t keep up.)

There is one technique that can simulate bile production from the gallbladder. Many people who have lost their gallbladder use this technique with success to improve their digestion. You can buy ox bile supplements in most health food stores. However, remember that bile is alkaline. If you take an ox bile product with your food, you’re going to neutralize your stomach acid while it’s still in your stomach. That’s not fun. The trick is to take the ox bile product about two hours after a meal, or at least an hour before a meal. I like the hour before a meal best, but it can be difficult to remember that all the time. By moving that bile through your intestines between your meals, you can neutralize the acid product coming from your stomach and almost simulate the sizzle that all the cool kids have in their digestion. This ox bile really isn’t going to work as well as true digestion, but without a gallbladder, this ox bile schedule can be one of the most effective options for any type of improvement.

Many people who have had their gallbladder removed will eventually end up with some type of loose stool issue. Since there isn’t enough bile storage to neutralize the acid coming from the stomach, that acid just keeps trucking through the intestinal tract. The hitch is that this issue usually arises months or even years after they’ve had their gallbladder removed, so they never connect the two events. Using an ox bile product (as I described in the previous paragraph) is the most effective method I know to improve or prevent these loose stool issues, outside of buying a used gallbladder from someone at a garage sale (though I’m not sure how that would work with all the haggling that goes on at garage sales).

If you have gallstones and you’re thinking about having your gallbladder removed, you might want to try smashing yourself in the face with a hammer instead. You may indeed prefer a nice hammer smashing over some of the troubles I have seen from people who have had their gallbladder removed. There are things you can do to improve your gallbladder function and help soften those gallstones without cutting out the whole package. If someone told you that your big toe needed to be removed, you would make sure he knew what he was talking about; you would also be careful that you did not get a “second opinion” from some crony of the guy who gave you the first opinion. We know that because of gangrene or something very grievous, some big toes do need to be removed. But if you went into the doctor’s office with toenail fungus and the doctor said the answer was to cut off your toe, you would probably find somebody else to help you. It seems a person would value his gallbladder at least as much as his big toe. I think internal organs generally eclipse appendages in value, but that’s just me. If doctors were educated on how digestion really works, it would eliminate the billion dollar industry of antacids and acid-stopping drugs. Since doctors are not educated on how digestion works, doesn’t it make sense that they view the gallbladder as if it were a disposable Ziploc baggie that can just be dumped in the trash?

There is an old-school remedy for a gallbladder attack that still holds true today. Instructions were even printed right on the label of every carton of epsom salt. The label said, “Take 4 tsp of epsom salt mixed in warm water.” This will clear most gallbladder attacks because it can squirt the bile through and clear out the blockage. Be warned that this little trick can give you some crazy diarrhea since epsom salt is magnesium sulfate. Both magnesium and sulfur products can push more water to the bowels, so a large dose of magnesium sulfate can create a bit of a show shooting out the back door. But an episode of diarrhea beats a lifetime of diarrhea every time. You would still need to do the work to get your bile to flow better so you can soften up those stones and keep more stones from forming, but this is a great little trick that has worked for over a hundred years for those suffering from gallbladder attacks.

There are some great recipes on the Internet for olive oil and lemon drinks that can help clear out a gallbladder. However, if you do any cleanses like this that can also clear out a liver, and your bile isn’t flowing well, you’re just dumping all these toxins into the body while the body has no way to remove them. This can trigger some crazy rashes as a result of the body trying to push junk out through the skin, or you can really overload and hurt your kidneys as they try to handle the whole load. With this in mind, be sure you learn how to thin your bile and get it flowing better with specific beet leaf products before you try any of those liver/gallbladder-type cleanses. They can bring about some big trouble if you don’t. Are you listening to me right now? This is important, so please don’t ignore what I’m saying and go straight for a heavy duty liver cleanse without first addressing your bile flow with the beet leaf products described in chapter three.