After we have eaten a meal -- and often we do this in a hurry, without much chewing, under a lot of stress, or in the presence of negative emotions -- we give no thought to what becomes of our food once it has been swallowed.
We have been led to assume that anything put in the mouth automatically gets digested flawlessly, is efficiently absorbed into the body where it nourishes our cells, with the waste products being eliminated completely by the large intestine.
This vision of efficiency may exist in the best cases but for most there is many a slip between the table and the toilet. Most bodies are not optimally efficient at performing all the required functions, especially after years of poor living habits, stress, fatigue, and aging.
To the natural hygienist, most disease begins and ends with our FOOD; most of our healing efforts are focused on improving the digestion process. Digestion means chemically changing the foods we eat into substances that can pass into the blood stream and circulate through the body where nutrition is used for bodily functions.
Our bodies use nutritional substances for fuel, for repair and rebuilding, and to conduct an incredibly complex biochemistry. Scientists are still busily engaged in trying to understand the chemical mysteries of our bodies.
But as bewildering as the chemistry of life is, the chemistry of digestion itself is actually a relatively simple process, and one doctors have had a fairly good understanding of for many decades.
Though relatively straightforward, a lot can and does go wrong resulting in digestion problems.
The body breaks down foods with a series of different enzymes that are mixed with food at various points as it passes from mouth to stomach to small intestine.
An enzyme is a large, complex molecule that has the ability to chemically change other large, complex molecules without being changed itself. Digestive enzymes perform relatively simple functions--breaking large molecules into smaller parts that can dissolve in water.
Digestion starts in the mouth when food is mixed with ptyalin, an enzyme secreted by the salivary glands. Ptyalin converts insoluble starches into simple sugars.
If the digestion of starchy foods is impaired, the body is less able to extract the energy contained in our foods, while far worse from the point of view of the genesis of diseases, undigested starches pass through the stomach and into the gut where they ferment and thereby create an additional toxic burden
for the liver to process. And fermenting starches also create gas.
As we chew our food it gets mixed with saliva; as we continue to chew the starches in the food are converted into sugar. There is a very simple experiment you can conduct to prove to yourself how this works. Get a plain piece of bread, no jam, no butter, plain, and without swallowing it or allowing much of it to pass down the throat, begin to chew it until it seems to literally dissolve.
Ptyalin works fast in our mouths so you may be surprised at how sweet the taste gets. As important as chewing is, very few people actually make an effort to consciously chew their food.
More interesting facts about your body:
http://www.XTherapist.com
Exercise and too much water.
We are constantly reading articles and hearing in the news about drinking plenty of water to stay healthy. In fact, many of us don't drink enough water. It is recommended that the average person drink at least eight - 8 ounce glasses of water (64 ounces) per day to stay properly hydrated. One of the easiest ways to make sure you do this is to fill a large container (like an empty one gallon milk jug) with the amount of water you want to drink for the day and make sure you finish it by day's end. Half a gallon equals 64 ounces, so filling a one gallon jug at least ? way will help you meet your minimum daily goal.
But remember, you can get too much of a good thing. Believe it or not, there is actually such a thing as drinking too much water. When you drink too much water, it can reduce the level of sodium in your body. This condition is called hyponatremia. This situation usually arises when people drink too much water during heavy, prolonged exercise like a marathon or long, extremely strenuous hike. This phenomenon has been found in Grand Canyon hikers and Boston marathon racers.
What happens is that an exerciser takes in large amounts of plain water and sweats out a lot of fluid that contains sodium and other electrolytes needed in the body. In extreme cases this can cause a dangerous electrolyte imbalance. When that happens, water enters the body's cells, which causes them to swell. If swollen, brain cells start pressing against the skull. The result can be brain damage, paralysis, coma, and sometimes death.
This problem can also happen in people who are taking medications for hypertension (high blood pressure) or in people who suffer from hypothyroidism (under active thyroid). This happens because both of these situations can increase sodium loss.
So, make sure you drink plenty of water, but keep in mind that too much of a good thing can sometimes cause problems.
(c)2005-2006 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS
fitness-after-50.com
Cholesterol - the what and why.
Cholesterol is a substance we hear about almost everyday. It's in the news and it's often one of the items that our doctor talks to us about when we have a physical and/or blood test.
In simple terms, here's what it is and why it is important. Cholesterol is a form of fat that is produced by our bodies and also taken in from many of the foods we eat. For health discussion purposes, it is generally referred to as HDL's (high density lipoproteins) and LDL's (low density lipoproteins). HDL's are considered to be "good" fats, and you want to see blood test results that show your HDL's to be above 40 mg/dL. LDL's are considered to be "bad" fats, and on a blood test you want those to be under 100 mg/dL. An acceptable target for total cholesterol is under 200mg/dL, with numbers around 160 being considered even better.
LDL's can form plaque on the inside of our arteries, which can lead to various problems including stroke and heart attack. HDL's appear to help carry LDL's out of the blood to the liver where they can be disposed of safely.
Triglycerides are another type of fat found in the body. They are often talked about in relation to cholesterol. Generally, people with high levels of triglycerides have high levels of LDL's too. Triglyceride levels should be under 160 mg/dL.
(c)2005- 2006 Thomas D. Manfredi, MS
fitness-after-50.com
