An exceptionally important cycle in our bodies to maintain health is that we must be able to digest our food, we must then be able to absorb into our blood the digested nutrients, vitamins and minerals, which must then be circulated by the blood throughout our bodies for cellular absorption, and then we need to be able to excrete – at cellular and intestinal level – what is toxic and no longer required.
Digestion, Absorption, Circulation and Excretion. If there is a breakdown in this continuum, diseases will eventually manifest themselves |
There is little doubt that, of the whole body, the digestive tract is the most important and influential health promoting part, through which most people’s present, past and future overall health and wellbeing has been and will be deeply affected.
Its poor or optimal function is responsible for much, much more than simply indigestion, wind and burping or reflux, the most commonly spoken of digestive problems.
A less than optimally calibrated digestive system will affect our immune system, our circulation, our heart muscle and its operation, and virtually every other organ in our bodies including our bones, hormones, brain and moods. In over three decades of naturopathic practice, I have never seen a patient in my clinic whose digestive tract could not be improved and who did not derive, sometimes to their surprise, measurable overall health benefits from my having done so.
The irony of it all is that most people are unaware of having any real digestive problems. They may normally agree that they may occasionally get some constipation, or diarrhea or wind or some burping, “but everyone gets that”.
Unfortunately the digestive tract is not always forthcoming with useful and accurate information as to its real condition and state of affairs. I have seen patients who thought that, sometimes with the help of the occasional antacid, their digestive tracts were working perfectly well, a conclusion sometimes derived from enjoying regular bowel movements or simply lesser reflux. And then one morning they noticed some blood in the toilet bowl, had it checked out by their doctor, had tests carried out, and all of a sudden are diagnosed with bowel cancer. The point is that most people are greatly unaware of what is going on in their digestive tracts and the very influential part that it plays in our good or poor health and our ability to recover from all forms of other diseases or conditions that may be presently affecting our physical bodies.
Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases, poor digestive tracts functions will of course not manifest themselves in the form of bowel cancers. They will, however, play a very prominent role in the starting and the supporting of a very large variety of diseases and health conditions.
It makes therefore a lot of sense for every health practitioner to ensure, in order to obtain better results for their patients (and sometimes the only way to do so), that the taking care of the digestive organs and functions should always be their first priority. Sad to say this hardly ever happens in conventional medicine, nor as often as it should even in complementary medicine.
When was the last time that you or someone you know or have heard of, went to see their doctor because of skin problems or allergies or tiredness or insomnia or headaches or blood pressure or cholesterol problems or colds or irregular hormonal functions or virtually any other condition you can name, and got told by their doctor that they are going to help them by first working at improving their digestive tracts? Probably not very often. If a conventional doctor ever said that, you would probably look around and feel prompted to leave the room, wondering if you have walked in somewhere wrong by mistake. Or, you may not believe your ears and feel the urge to hug and thank them for the unexpected but intuitively logical advice and interest they have just demonstrated.
Case Study no. 5 – Rebecca’s personal testimonial. Since I can remember, I would feel quite bloated after eating certain foods. Over the years my symptoms worsened and I began to feel nauseous after most meals and would be in a lot of pain after eating. I was constantly going between being constipated or having diarrhea. My anxiety sky-rocketed and began to control my life.
After giving birth to my third child at age 33, who was my third reflux baby, I initially sought Bruno’s expertise to try and help my baby, as his reflux was causing him to choke at times. During my very first consultation, Bruno explained to me that my baby’s reflux should improve if I fixed my own health issues, as my three month old son was surviving solely on my breastmilk at the time. Reluctantly, I took Bruno’s information on board and walked away with my first lot of supplements and powders. I have never looked back since that day. I can honestly say that my life has been changed forever since that day.
I stuck to Bruno’s diet and even though the initial first three weeks were extremely tough for a sleep-deprived mother of three to completely detox her body before the rebuilding could begin – the six kg I lost in those weeks helped me stick at it.
As the weeks went on, I felt like I had become a new person. I no longer felt bloated, I no longer had any pain and I didn’t feel nauseous anymore after eating. I also had regular, normal bowel movements every day. Most importantly to me at the time though, was that my baby no longer choked! He was not only reflux free but he was sleeping longer, more soundly, and he was generally a much more settled and calm baby. What I didn’t expect from following Bruno’s diet and supplements was the rest of the benefits that would make me never want to return to the ‘old me’.
Over the next few months I lost even more weight (nine kg all up) and I have never had more energy in my life! I don’t feel the 3 pm slump anymore and my head has never felt so clear. My sleep has also improved greatly and I have been anxiety free since beginning Bruno’s diet. Anxiety that I have struggled with daily for ten years prior to seeing Bruno. Gone!
My new found wellness has also had the most positive effect on my family. I no longer have mood swings and find myself to be a very calm mother and wife. I have not yelled at my children in months! I’m loving the newfound energy I have to chase after my three children, as well as the happiness I feel in general.
Who knew that treating my digestive tract’s health could give me all of these positive effects? I certainly didn’t. I cannot thank Bruno enough for giving me a whole new lease on life. I have no hesitation in recommending Bruno. He’s been a lifesaver to me. Rebecca S |
COMMENTS: Rebecca’s eye diagnosis suggested low hydrochloric acid production in her stomach, damaged villi in her intestine and also hypoglycaemia or metabolic syndrome. By treating these causative factors, not only did her almost lifelong digestive problems practically disappear, today Rebecca feels happier, less anxious, even trimmer than she was already and more capable of enjoying her beautiful young family. From a medical standpoint her treatment may have generated the prescription of long courses of antibiotics and antacids to relive her tummy symptoms, which would have been unlikely to really fix the problem and perhaps hindered her digestive performance severely as well as antianxiety drugs. And what would have happened to the baby’s reflux? Rebecca is following The Marevich Way and is happy not to have had to take any drugs. |
So why, you may ask, are our digestive tracts so important?
Measuring some eight to ten metres – approximately five times your height – the digestive tracts start at our lips, travel through the insides of our bodies and terminates at the anus.
The digestive process often begins even before any food crosses our lips. Knowing that it is almost time for a meal, and thinking about and looking forward to consuming some delicious food, is often sufficient to get the digestive process started. Our brain, prompted by the alluring thoughts or sights or smells, assumes that there is a pretty good chance that we will be succeeding with obtaining some of what we are longing for, and proceeds to stimulate our salivary glands to start watering our mouths. Saliva, which contains a whole host of factors, not only water, and which softens the food for easier digestion later on down in the stomach, also contains its own form of a very important enzyme called amylase which is also found in a different form in the pancreas. Amylase helps digest some 30% of the simple sugars in our mouths before they even cross our throats.
The vagus nerve, which travels from our brain’s medulla to our viscera, carries the messages instructing the stomach to begin releasing some hydrochloric acid. This is nature’s own way of ‘pre-warming the oven’, so that some digestive enzymes in our saliva, as well as some hydrochloric acid in our stomach, are already on standby to begin the digestive process as soon as the food has entered our mouths.
The importance of reminding ourselves, our children or our patients that digestion begins in our mouth should never be considered underrated. Of course we all already know this, but honestly, given the pressures of time constrains and sometimes simply the instinctive habit of getting the food off our plates in a hurry, how many of us are consciously focused through most of our meal to eat slowly, chew well and only swallow when we have a mouthful of watery substance?
How often will we put the fork or spoon down after a mouthful and spend quality time pulverising and liquefying our food, whilst at the same time reflecting upon the content of what is in our mouths, tasting the flavours, enhancing the textures and linking these to good memories, happy feelings and a sense of gratefulness and appreciation? Probably not often enough.
And yet, isn’t this what eating is meant to be about, and not just a process of feeding our intestines with the intention of being reminded by a full stomach that we are now ok, because we cannot stash away any more, and should thus stop eating until more space becomes available?
So, as our slowly and thoroughly chewed food, which has now been through maceration by our teeth and preliminary digestion by our salivary enzymes, gets swallowed, it travels down the oesophagus into the stomach, where the most important phase of our digestion is about to take place. This is also where a lot of confusion occurs, not only in our minds but also with modern medicine’s evaluation and treatment of the problems that can arise from the stomach.
Contrary to popular opinion which has taught us that the cause of many digestive problems such as reflux is because of the stomach’s excessive acid production, with few exceptions, the truth is just the opposite! |
Most digestive problems are actually present with people whose stomachs have produced hardly any good acid in years. Too little hydrochloric acid, also referred to as either hypochlorhydria or achlorhydria, is a condition officially recognised by medicine but normally, incorrectly, not perceived to be the real cause of most digestive problems for most of the patients walking into a doctor’s clinics – other than perhaps those with cancer of the intestine. In reality, hypochlorhydria is almost always present whenever there is a negative imbalance between good and bad bacteria in the intestine.
Case Study no. 6 – Caleb’s personal testimonial. My previous history: Up until the age of 19 I had always been a relatively healthy teenager. It wasn’t until I was struck with a severe case of gastroenteritis that I lost a significant amount of weight (approximately ten kg). Over the course of the next two years I remained unable to put any of the weight back on. This was concerning to me as my appetite was immense and I would often eat two to three servings at every meal, and yet never put any weight on at all. In addition to this, my immune system was virtually non-existent. I would get sick at least once every two or three months. I’m not talking about getting a little sniffle or a cough every once in a while. I’m talking about getting full on vomiting and diarrhea, often complemented by a sore throat, headache and fevers. This constant barrage of illness soon manifested itself into a form of chronic fatigue. I had started suffering at university and my grades were slipping. I knew something had to be done and so I started my quest to finally get to the bottom of why I was so ill all the time. I persisted with multiple visits to my GP, had numerous blood tests and was even referred to a gastroenterologist at one stage. None of these tests ever found anything conclusive. The doctors kept insisting that all of my results were ‘normal’ and that I was simply suffering from the ‘flu’ or some other virus that was going around. It wasn’t until I was referred from a close friend to see Bruno that I finally got some positive results. Bruno’s treatment: (Month 1): I was sceptical about seeing a naturopath at first. Today’s media often represents the practice as being far from evidence-based, often adopting a less than scientific approach to health and wellbeing. However, during my first consultation with Bruno all my doubts were cast aside. The initial consultation involved a brief medical/health history and an explanation of the treatment approach that would be used. After hearing of my health history Bruno readily identified that my gut health was not up to scratch and decided to start me on his vitamins/medications. He also, after performing a quick iridology review and pulse tracing/ECG, identified that I possessed a small heart murmur in one of my valves. The man had basically told me more about my health in a single one hour consultation than any of the other doctors I had consulted with for the past two years. I’m not going to lie. The first few weeks of treatment were rough. I assume this was my body going through the ‘detox’ stage of my recovery. By the end of the month I had friends and family commenting that I looked thinner and more tanned in the face. I personally didn’t feel or see any different to when I had first started Bruno’s course, but I was determined to continue the treatment program to see if my health would finally improve. (Month 2): During the second month I started to notice that my concentration was better throughout the day. I attributed this to both the vitamins/medications Bruno had given me as well as the strict diet Bruno had me following. In addition to this, my stools had now become so regular that I could predict when they would occur right down to the hour. During this time I also noticed I didn’t get sick once (quite a remarkable improvement for someone as prone to illness as me). (Month 3): By the end of the third month I FINALLY had my energy back. I would get anywhere between six and seven hours sleep a night and the moment that I woke up in the morning I would be full of energy, ready to take on the day. My concentration and energy soon translated over to my studies at university, which was quickly reflected in an improvement in my grades. I also noticed that my skin had become slightly tanner (I no longer looked pale and anaemic) and I was in a much happier emotional state than when I had first started Bruno’s program. My health today: I continue to take Bruno’s vitamins/medications to this day and am truly convinced of both their safety and efficacy. Thanks to his program I am now able to enjoy a happier, healthy life full of energy, focus, and most of all, a much more robust immune system! To say that Bruno has helped improve my health would be far from adequate. He is a life saver! My only regret is that I hadn’t started his program sooner. It would have been far less expensive than all the medical costs I paid just to have doctors experiment on me with numerous diagnostic studies (none of which ever produced any helpful conclusion). Thank you Bruno! |
COMMENTS: The fact that Caleb is completing his university studies to soon become a registered nurse may not be very surprising to the reader, given Caleb’s well-accounted observations and conclusions. We are fortunate to see many nurses in our clinic who, like Caleb will soon be, are exposed every day to the suffering and other problems that illness generates and are thus gifted with empathy and a strong desire to see real healing take place, rather than only symptomatic relief.
Caleb’s treatment with The Marevich Way focused primarily on repairing and regenerating his digestive tract and stabilising his glucose metabolism, and secondarily on supporting his immune system. As this started to happen, most of Caleb’s other problems, headaches, fatigue, low immune system and all the problems that often go hand in hand with it, started to vanish and Caleb is now well on his way to enjoying ongoing good health.
Caleb’s initial difficulty with detoxifying was to be expected giving his long history of poor health. Detox, or the getting rid of toxins, chemicals etc., etc. from our blood, intestines, liver and body’s tissues can on occasion be a challenging affair, which at times requires our close supervision. That is why we make no exception of explaining to each and every one of our patients the reasons for detox and what they could experience, even though the vast majority will go through this process with only very minor inconveniences, if any, and start to feel the real benefits of the treatment very soon. It is generally the patients who react to the detox who will eventually be the happiest, meaning that there probably must have been a lot of stuff in the body that should not have been there and now that it has gone, they can feel the clear difference. We also provide all of our patients for the first month with free telephone support access and encourage/insist that they call if they have any questions, concerns or unusual reactions. |
Higher than desirable levels of bad bacteria in the intestines are very, very common and I dare say that hardly anyone is totally immune from this problem in this day and age of refined foods, stress, and vast numbers of medicinal drugs, not limited to, but of course including, antibiotics. These medicines are sometimes very important, particularly in times of acute infections or emergency situations. They do however kill a lot of the good bacteria essential to good health as well as the infections causing bad bacteria, and the majority of doctors are becoming very aware of this. This leaves the intestines in a state known as dysbiosis where the natural biological terrain of the digestive tract has been thrown out of balance and there is not sufficient good bacteria left alive to limit the overgrowth of bad bacteria and other intestinal pathogens.
Imagine now the molecules in the food that you have just swallowed as a lump made of say many Lego pieces, held together by strong chemical bonds. These chemical bonds require breaking down so that the Lego pieces will separate and pass, separated, out of the stomach and into the first part of the intestinal tube, the duodenum.
The separation of these ‘Lego pieces’ from each other requires a good quantity and strength of hydrochloric acid. You may recall from your high school days that the strength of acids is measured on a pH scale where 7 is neutral (neither acidic nor alkaline). Pure water, or if you have a well-kept swimming pool in your backyard, should have a pH of 7.
A pH higher than 7, i.e. 8, 9, 10 or higher is considered to be alkaline. Lower than 7 is referred to as acidic, with 0 being the strongest possible acid and being able to put dents and holes through metal. The pH of our blood is tightly regulated to be between 7.35 and 7.45, slightly alkaline. Even slight departures from this range can be very serious and life-threatening.
The hydrochloric acid in a good stomach should get down to a pH of between approximately 1 to 2, very low pH, and thus highly acidic, in order to successfully break the strong chemical bonds that hold the molecules in our food tightly glued together. Only then should the food in our stomach be released through the valve or sphincter at the exit of our stomach and into the duodenum.
Sufficient amounts of high-strength hydrochloric acid (HCl) – which in my experience I have observed as desperately lacking in most of the thousands of patients both young and old who I have seen in my clinical career – play several vital roles:
- HCl is required to change a substance called pepsigen into pepsin which is required to help digest the protein in our food into smaller components called amino acids. A protein could be compared to a long train where each of its many carriages are a single amino acid. Each carriage must be detached or uncoupled from the rest of the train. That way, as an amino acid, it becomes capable of being absorbed through the villi in our small intestine into our bloodstream. The lesser the pepsin, the more is the absorption of the amino acids reduced. In general terms, there are at least 20 presently known amino acids and they are considered the building blocks of life. Almost half of these 20 are ‘essential amino acids’. Essential, because the body cannot manufacture them from other substances and they must therefore first be present in our meals. The protein in our food is at first digested via our chewing, then by copious amounts of concentrated HCl produced by the stomach, then further digested by pepsin and finally absorbed in the small intestine through the villi into our bloodstream for delivery to the trillions of live cells that make up our bodies and who we are.
- HCl is in my opinion important by association in its participation of the stomach’s secretion of another substance known as intrinsic factor. Without sufficient intrinsic factor, we cannot absorb vitamin B12 in our bodies. Lack of vitamin B12 can also lead to neurological problems, visual defects, weakness of the limbs, memory problems and even hallucinations and personality changes, as well as pernicious anaemia. Low levels of intrinsic factor are generally not considered by medicine to be caused directly with low HCl. In practice, I find that a stomach which is low in HCl is almost always, perhaps by association, also a poor producer of intrinsic factor. Many doctors regularly encourage some of their patients to have vitamin B12 injected directly into their blood. Many of these people will often report feeling better after receiving the injection. What neither party often realises is that the lack of B12 is very frequently due to, and a reflection of, the inadequate production of HCl in the stomach.
- HCl helps the absorption of iron in the intestine without which we can develop iron deficiency anaemias.
- HCl also acts as a barrier for unwelcome microorganisms which find it difficult to survive the passage through this acidic ‘minefield’. The stomach itself is protected from the acid by a layer of mucus which is constantly secreted by the walls of the stomach.
- Low HCl can lead to many other nutritional deficiencies of not only amino acids but also other important nutrients such as magnesium, zinc, vitamin C, and B complex vitamins, which all participate in a wide variety of conditions, ranging from mild disturbances to life-threatening diseases.
Therefore, too weak or too little HCl acid will fail to achieve the adequate digestion of most foods which will cause partly undigested food to empty from the stomach into the duodenum.
If these food molecules, or the ‘clumped Lego pieces’ that have passed into the duodenum have been well digested and separated in the stomach to form a liquid slur referred to as chyme, they will be better able to undergo even further digestion whilst in the duodenum which will make them more easily absorbed by the millions of villi which line the intestine, into the bloodstream.
The further digestion of the chyme, whilst in the duodenum and before the final substance can be absorbed into the bloodstream, occurs firstly with the help of bicarbonates secreted by the pancreas directly into the duodenum. Bicarbonates are alkaline and help reduce the acid that the chyme has brought from the stomach.
The now less-acidic chyme can be further digested by digestive enzymes also secreted by the pancreas into the duodenum, as well as by bile secreted by the liver and stored in the he gallbladder, a bile reservoir pouch tucked underneath the liver. Good quality bile from the gallbladder and digestive enzymes from the pancreas thus complete the digestive process which allows the now fully digested chyme molecules to be absorbed by the villi into the bloodstream.
Villi (plural) or villus (singular) are very clever little finger-like or hair-like protrusions that line up the small intestine. Think of them as hungry little straws that suck the nutrients through the walls of the intestine into the blood. The small intestine has several million approximately one millimetre long villi, and each villus carries thousands of absorbing microvilli. This vast array of villi and microvilli structures in our intestine dramatically increases the exposed area of the intestines available for absorption.
It is estimated that if all these folds in the digestive tract could be flattened and ironed out, our digestive tract could cover somewhere between an entire tennis court to a football field |
This is the level of importance that absorption plays in our bodies.
Inside of each villus there is a network of blood vessels which absorb the amino acids (digested proteins) and the glucose (digested sugars and carbohydrates) in the intestines, to channel these into our hepatic portal vein which then directs these nutrients to our liver for further processing before their end product is then transported to the cells of our body to satisfy their energy and nutrients requirements.
The inside of the villus also contains a network of lymphatic vessels which absorb the digested lipids (fats) from our intestines, and also transports them into our blood circulation.
The end result of low or inadequate HCl is that we may end up with poorly digested food regularly finding its way out of our stomach into the duodenum. If it cannot be absorbed, the food ferments, putrefies and encourages the overgrowth of bad bacteria and fungi. It is like throwing half-cooked food into the garbage bin – it will rot and attract flies, maggots and other disease causing organisms.
In the digestive tract, the bacterial and fungal overgrowth encouraged by the poorly digested and rotting food will create an unhealthy and toxic environment, and these undesirable organisms, the by-product of poorly digested and rotting foods, may then proceed with damaging the delicate villi structures.
Once damaged by the overgrowth of bad bacteria, the villi can become impaired and fail to carry out their filtering and absorption activities properly. This often results with the absorption of substances and organisms that would normally not cross the villi barrier into the bloodstream, a condition sometimes referred to as a ‘leaky gut’, as well as the poor absorption of vital nutrients which trillions of our cells require for their functioning and survival.
These substances often consist of molecules of ingested food matter which may not have been fully digested by the stomach into smaller components, or some of the overgrown bad microorganisms, toxins or antigens colonising and prospering in a now inhospitable small intestine, within which the growth of healthy, good bacteria has been hampered .
This leaky gut is a poorly recognised, but extremely common problem. It could be the cause of food allergies resulting in your arthritis, headaches, asthma, tiredness, inability to concentrate, multiple chemical sensitivities, irritable bowel and much, much more.
The mucosal lining in the intestine, which separates the outside world from the inside world, is the most extensive and important mucosal protection barrier in our bodies.
When these not usually absorbed products have passed through this now damaged and leaking barrier of the intestinal lining and into the sterile blood, it now becomes the duty of our immune system to deal with it, and neutralise it if possible before this toxic matter can begin causing our bodies too much harm.
Case Study no. 7 – William’s personal testimonial. I wish to thank Bruno for the dramatic improvement in my health since I first came to see him. I am sure that there are many people who are in real trouble with their health and they are unaware of the existence of experts in naturopathy, or they are reluctant to try a new approach when conventional medicine fails to produce satisfactory results. I would encourage such people to do what I did and refuse to give up their search for good health.
Five years ago I suffered a stomach infection and I had to swallow 200 antibiotics in one month to kill the infection. Unfortunately, this killed off the good bacteria as well as the infection. I also developed high blood pressure and ended up on a very large dosage of blood pressure tablets.
The end result was that my stomach stopped working and this produced a very bad psychological effect. I could not sleep and my weight increased to 92 kg. I continuously consulted doctors and specialists to try to find a solution. I had one endoscopy and two colonoscopies but no solution was found.
Today, I have lost 12 kgs, I sleep well and I am on a very low dosage of blood pressure tablets i.e. 5 mg daily. I feel relaxed and healthy and, under Bruno’s continuing care, I look forward to getting back to excellent health in the near future.
I had given up hope when I came to see Bruno initially. I was referred to him by a friend who was already a very grateful patient.
Again, thank you sincerely, Bruno. Without your expertise I am convinced that my health would have been in a terrible state by now. I welcomed the opportunity to do all the things that were necessary once I realised that you held the solution to my problems.
I would have no hesitation in encouraging people with health problems to consult with Bruno. William M. |
COMMENTS: William’s case is a typical story where because of a really bad infection one has little option but to choose emergency medicinal drugs. Under the circumstances there was probably not a great deal of choice at that time when preventing the risk of greater harm with the infection being left untreated was the most important consideration.
Unfortunately, extensive use of antibiotics can have a dramatic unbalancing effect on our intestinal bacterial flora and in every other part of the body too. As well as killing off some of the targeted bad bacteria, the antibiotics will also bring extensive damage to the good bacteria which we require for our good health and a well-balanced immune system. Also, the more antibiotics we take the greater not only the damage but also the chances that we will be developing small pockets of bad bacteria which survive the antibiotics and eventually learn how to resist it. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is presently quite a worry in the scientific research and medical world, as the race is on to find new antibiotics before the current ones become practically ineffective.
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a report in 2014 stating: “This serious threat is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country”. Also, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these infections.”
What we can learn from Williams’s personal experience is therefore that taking care of our intestinal condition, including our intestinal flora and good bacteria should be a constant priority before infections or other type of health problems occur.
The advantage of doing so is that we will have a greater chance of avoiding infections that may routinely be treated with antibiotics, but also a greater chance of not needing too many antibiotics in case there is an infection. As most common infections are self-limiting and likely to get better by themselves anyway, if offered antibiotics, ask the doctor “do I really need them?” |
