JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF YOUR COLON

[Guest guest]

JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF YOUR COLON

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/newwest/index17.html

By Tim O'Shea

This chapter has a few specific applications:

1. for those who have reached that certain crest between self-loathing and

self esteem where they can no longer endure the condition of their body and

are prepared to do whatever it takes to reverse the tide

2. for those who have begun a nutrition or supplement program with no

results, or else may have reached a plateau in their progress.

3. for those with long term allergies which years of shots and pills have

not cured

4. for those who suspect that they're not eliminating normally

5. for those who have been diagnosed with one of the following dead-end labels:

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Spastic Colon

Crohn’s Disease

Chronic Colitis

Leaky Gut Syndrome

Regional Ileitis

Esophageal Reflux

Malabsorption Syndrome

Candida albicans

This is not a discussion for the improvement of the above conditions. We’re

talking about resolution: the return to normal operation of the systems. If

1–4 above apply to you, and you grasp the principles cited in the medical

sources at the end of this chapter, your problems may well be over.

Many doctors have noted the pivotal importance of the colon in the body’s

health, from the ancients to the moderns. Physicians from ancient Rome and

Greece felt that " death begins in the colon. " (Hippocrates) These healers

regarded the colon as a life-center of the body - one of its most important

organs.

The colon's importance seems often to be glossed over and patronized by

today's mainstream approach, in which the colon is thought of simply as the

body's sewer, without regard for its many critical, dynamic biologic

functions. Consequently, rates of death from colon cancer are at an all

time high in our country’s history. Colon cancer is now the #3 cancer in

the U.S.

The above list of “diseases” are experienced today in epidemic proportions,

and with standard treatment are almost never cured.

The irony is that to return to a normal state is simplicity itself. The

biggest obstacle seems to be finding that out.

Let’s begin with some

BASIC PLUMBING

The digestive tract can be thought of as a long tube from one end to the

other. Food goes in one end; waste exits the other. The tube is divided

into sections we know:

Mouth

Throat

Esophagus

Stomach

Small intestine

Large intestine

The large intestine is also called the colon.

That’s the whole tube, top to bottom. It’s important to remember one odd

fact: the inside of the tube is still considered the outside of the body.

No misprint. The food sitting there in your intestines is still outside the

body. Reason: it hasn’t been absorbed into the bloodstream yet.

Let’s follow a grape through the tube.

You pop the grape into your mouth. Chewing releases the grape’s enzymes,

which are going to help break it down into its component parts.

You swallow the chewed grape. It goes down the esophagus and ends up in the

stomach. There the grape gets churned around some more, and has some of the

body’s digestive juices break it down further. After about an hour of this,

the stomach spits the chewed grape particles into the next section of the

tube, the small intestine.

The small intestine is about 22’ long. After more enzymes are added, this

is when the grape particles first get inside the body. Happens like this:

the inside of the small intestine is lined with a velvety layer of tiny

fingerlike projections called microvilli. It’s kinda like a microscopic

version of one of those pieces of mattress foam rubber with the bumps on

it. The microvilli increase the absorptive surface area of the colon to the

size of a football field. Absorption of the nutrients contained in the

grape particles happens through the microvilli. The nutrients are passing

from the inside of the small intestine through the intestine wall, into the

bloodstream.

After several hours of giving the small intestine enough chance to absorb

all nutrients, the undigested waste, whatever’s left over of the grape that

wasn’t absorbed, gets moved along and propelled into the final section of

the tube: the colon.

The colon is a muscular tube about six feet long. All along the walls are

infoldings called haustrae, which mark off sections of the colon.

By the end of adolescence, the passage through the colon should be about

two inches in diameter. Adolescents should have little trouble eliminating,

because the process of undigested layers of waste sticking to the lining of

the colon wall is not that advanced. With an unrestricted diet high in

rancid fats and excess protein, the inside passageway gradually becomes

smaller and smaller, requiring more force to push everything through.

Straining at stool is an obvious sign of a blocked colon and is not normal.

Elimination should be effortless, no matter what the person’s age.

Producing rabbit pellets with great effort is a sign of serious

obstruction, as well as a toxifying lifestyle. Adolescents who are educated

to eat lots of raw live foods may never experience the buildup of sludge

layers at all. Here we see the distinction between average and normal.

The average American teenager has a bad diet and little dietary advice,

eating about 125 grams of protein a day with only about 25 grams being

sufficient. The normal American teenager likely has been shown what to eat

for optimum health, and knows the indigestibility and absence of nutrients

in most foods available in the cafeteria.

There are three primary reasons for rotting food persisting in the

digestive tract:

1. We kill our friendly bacteria

2. Acidification of the body decreases enzyme production

3. Mucoid plaque in the intestinal lining halts peristalsis

Let’s do them one at a time.

1. FRIENDLY BACTERIA

Wrongly described as the body’s sewer, the colon is actually buzzing with

life activity. Millions of friendly bacteria are hard at work in the colon.

Their job is the final stage of digestion, leaving only what is absolutely

of no use to the body to be eliminated. The friendly bacteria, weighing as

much as three pounds in the normal colon, more than 400 species, also

function to keep bad bacteria in check. (Shahani) It seems that most

bacteria in the world and in the body are actually beneficial to our

health. Bacteria are the janitors of the world, disposing of decaying and

diseased cells. Think of a beach with no bacteria. What would happen to all

those dead fish that wash up there? Wouldn’t be much of a Club Med spot,

that’s certain.

How do the friendly bacteria, called probiotics, keep the bad bacteria in

check? Well, think of a crowded theatre. You walk in, and there’s no place

to sit; all the seats are taken. So you can’t stay. Same thing with

bacteria. There’s only a certain number of “seats” in the colon. If they’re

all taken by friendly bacteria, then there’s no chance for the bad bacteria

to set up shop and start to duplicate themselves. According to most

researchers, like Simon , normal probiotics should be more numerous

than the cells of the intestinal lining itself.

Here’s why probiotics are so important. Normal people generally have some

cancer cells, Candida yeast, HIV, staphylococcus, strep, and any number of

other potentially bad organisms you can think of in their tract most of the

time. But they don’t get any disease. Researchers know, for example, that

50% of men over age 75 actually have prostate cancer, found on autopsy, but

only 2% die from it. Why? The body encapsulated the cancer: limited and

controlled its growth, walled it off. The discoverer of the HIV virus

himself, Dr. Luc Montagnier, said that HIV alone cannot cause AIDS. (The

Coming Plague) Depressed immune environment is also necessary. Same with

Candida or most other bacteria; normally they’ll be held in check by

sufficient friendly bacteria. E. coli is actually a probiotic when held in

check by normal friendly flora. It’s only when the friendly probiotic

bacteria get killed off that the potentially bad organisms get a chance to

get a foothold and take over. The bad bugs are then called opportunists.

So probiotics (friendly bacteria) are extremely important. The whole key is

balance. Problem is, our friendly bacteria are constantly being killed off.

How? Same culprits as cited in the ALLERGIES chapter:

antibiotics we take

antibiotics given to the animals whose meat we eat

antacids, like Zantac, Tagamet, Prilosec, etc.

NSAIDs, like Advil, Tylenol, Excedrin, Motrin, etc.

other prescription and over the counter medications

white sugar

carbonated drinks

antihistamines

chlorinated water

fluoridated water

coffee

Without friendly probiotics, the final stage of digestion can’t take place

in the colon. Debris rots in there. Opportunistic bacteria and Candida

albicans start taking over. Bernard Jensen, on the relation between the bad

bacteria and the undigested food

“…bacteria and viruses, which are cell scavengers, are not there for lack

of something better to do. They’re there because there is malnourished,

enzyme-depleted, diseased, and necrotic tissue. Functioning as nature’s

biological sanitation department, they must break down and eliminate the

sick tissue to prevent further poisoning of the body. If you stop their

action, you allow continuous poisoning by the decaying tissue…”

- Empty Harvest p 113

Jensen makes a point here that should not be missed. He’s talking about

rotting food in the colon as well as diseased living cells of the colon

itself, both attracting bacteria. It’s an identical situation in the two

separate instances:

¨ Undigested food in the colon

¨ Bacterial infection in a diseased organ of the body (the colon)

In neither case are the bacteria causing illness. They are trying to

prevent illness by breaking down the dying tissue. Whether it’s rotting

yogurt in a blocked colon, a dead coyote in the forest, or infected liver

cells in the body of an alcoholic, bacteria are just doing what they do

best: cleaning up. When the bacteria are “diagnosed” as the cause of the

illness, rather than a sign of the illness, the medical approach is to try

and kill them. But that’s like killing the garbagemen. The garbage remains.

Understanding such a simple concept is pivotal in arriving at a holistic

outlook toward health.

Chronically undigested food is often present in quantities too great for

any bacteria to scavenge. The debris then becomes plastered onto the inside

lining of the colon, eventually making it smooth and shiny, like the inside

of a new shotgun barrel. When this happens, absorption is blocked. ()

2. ACIDIFICATION OF THE BODY

The rest of this story is here:

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/newwest/index17.html