Fuel Your Body Right: Say Goodbye to Nutritional Gaps!

Nutritional gaps cause weak joints, tendons and ligaments, excessive inflammation and muscle tears. So let’s close the gap on prescription drugs that weaken tendons and ligaments and deplete nutritional elements.  Cipro, for example, carries a warning that its use can result in the rupture of tendons.

Nutritional balancing can help avoid injuries by maintaining stronger ligaments. It can also help reduce the need for antibiotics and other drugs by improving the immune system and general health.

Causes of Digestive Problems

Most people today experience some degree of digestive difficulty. Several reasons for this problem include:

Stressful lifestyles and poor eating habits: Diges­tion requires parasympathetic activity. Eating on the run, eating when anxious, deficient chewing and eating too fast suppress parasympathetic activity.

Widespread use of antibiotics: These destroy normal bowel flora. These chemicals are perva­sive in our environment – used in human medi­cine, added to animal feed and residues in all our food and water supplies.

Candida albicans and other intestinal parasitic infections, such as steroid use, alkaline colons, weak immune systems and copper and other nutritional imbalances also contribute.

Antacid medications: These include over-the-counter anti-acids like Maalox, Mylanta, Gaviscon and Ryopan, alkaline calcium supplements such as Tums and anti-acids like Zantac and Tagamet. All these may impair diges­tion.

Diets deficient in zinc and other trace elements: These deficiencies can lead to a reduced produc­tion of digestive enzymes.

Constipation due to stress, low-fiber diets, lack of exercise, improper flora and many medica­tions. This can drastically affect one’s health.

Use of coffee, spices, other stimulants and poor food combinations impair digestion.

Food sensitivities: The most severe sensitivities are gluten allergies which cause sprue. Many milder food reactions can also impair digestion and elimination.

With increasing age, digestive enzyme produc­tion and bowel motility often decrease.

Correction

Improving digestion should be your first priority. Seemingly unrelated symptoms like gas, bloating, constipa­tion, diarrhea, food reactions and abdominal pain will improve when digestion and elimination improve.

Simple measures to improve digestion are to avoid acid-decreasing drugs (Tagamet), alkaline calcium supplements like Tums and constipating medication whenever possible.

Use antibiotics only after natural methods such as vitamins A and C, manganese, zinc, copper, echinacea, goldenseal, astragalus, olive leaf extract and colloidal silver have been tried first.

Correct the diet if it is excessive in sugars, carbohydrates, stimulants, too many spices or other damaging foods.

Improve eating habits: Chew each bite 10 times, sit down for meals, and relax at mealtime and for at least five minutes after meals. Reducing liquids at meals and simple food combinations can also help weak digestion.

Lifestyle is very important. Adequate rest, some daily exercise, deep breathing and positive attitudes have a great influence on digestion and elimination.

Supplements

Digestive aids are often needed for a period of time. These may include probiotics such as acidophilus products. Quality varies and one product may work better than another. One must usually take several acidophilus capsules per day, preferably before breakfast, for several months.

Digestive enzyme products include hydrochloric acid and pepsin, liver and pancreas enzymes and vegetable‑based enzymes. Extra dietary fiber composed of psyllium husks and fruit pectin may be very helpful for some people and may be taken on a long‑term basis.

For constipation, extra magnesium is safe, help­ful and may be used indefinitely. In addition a product containing black radish root, ox bile and pancreatin is also excellent. It acts on the liver to improve bile produc­tion which has a slight laxative effect and helps digestion as well. Cascara sagrada and sena leaves are sometimes used for constipation. However, they can be irritating and habit-forming.

Exercise and deep breathing are also helpful for constipation. Herbs such as aloe and slippery elm are soothing to an inflamed digestive tract. Bentonite and azomite are sometimes used for colon cleansing programs. Use only when needed, as they contain a lot of aluminum. Mechanical procedures such as colonic irrigation, enemas and castor oil packs over the abdomen are excellent to help restore a toxic colon.

The gall-bladder flush with olive oil may also assist digestion and elimination. For heavy infesta­tion of candida albicans, or if someone does not respond to simpler measures, candida may be con­trolled with caprylic acid, grapeseed extract, tannic acid or medications like Nystatin and Nizoril. At times, parasite medications or herbs are needed. If heavy infestation with parasites, or candida are suspected, a comprehensive stool test may be helpful.

Other supplements sometimes used to restore the digestive tract include L- glutamine, medium chain triglycerides, butyrates and herbs for the liver.

Other supplements sometimes used to restore the digestive tract include L- glutamine, medium chain triglycerides, butyrates and herbs for the liver.

At Home Tests

Products

Mineral Transporters

References

• https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12793
• https://doi.org/10.3945/jn.113.182527
• https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.12438