Problems and diseases of the digestive tract are the most common health issue. Someone has a confirmed diagnosis – gastritis, duodenitis, cholecystitis, pancreatitis, ulcerative colitis, something else. But more often people have any symptoms indicating a disease of the digestive system, and they don’t seek medical treatment. It’s heartburn, air burps, heaviness after having a meal, bloating, hypochondrium pain, constipation, and diarrhea, decreasing appetite or aversion to any kind of food, bad breath odor, plaque on the tongue and teeth.
Like many diseases, gastrointestinal tract problems are primarily related to the lifestyle, eating habits, and lack (or excess) of any substance in the diet. Sometimes the slightest change is enough to improve your health.
Our nutritionist Elena Garagulya, a doctor with more than 25 years of experience, gave a brief summary of what to do in the most widespread gastrointestinal problem cases. Elena is a physician, herbalist, nutritionist, a member of the National Russian Association of Nutritionists. She is a doctor who has been trusted for many years by all the generations of the Megre family.
Elena’s short recommendations for the most common diseases are the following.
GASTRITIS
Gastritis is an inflammation of the stomach. The main reason of stomach pain is fried food. Especially if it is fried on bad fats, on bad pans, teflon, for example. Sunflower oil under high temperature oxidizes, produces aliphatic substances that give a lot of free radicals. These free radicals damage the stomach cells, and gastritis occurs. It is a well-known fact, that’s why fried food is officially forbidden in kid’s diet. Inflammation is also encouraged by candy, ice cream, various other desserts because of bad fats and sugar.
What to do if you already have gastritis?
If the case is not neglected, gastritis is relatively to treat. The first step is to remove all fried food and sweets from the diet. Secondly – add useful fats containing polyunsaturated fatty acids Omega-3. Be careful, not all types of Omega are suitable. We have an excess of Omega-6 and Omega-9. Omega-3 only removes the inflammation. If you follow two of these rules all the time, you don’t get gastritis. As a source of Omega-3, you can take fish oil capsules with or cold-pressed cedar oil, take 1-2 spoons before each meal.
PANCREATITIS
Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas. If you feel pain, it is an advanced stage of the disease. At the initial stage, the pancreas doesn’t show up at all. Its function is to digest carbohydrates. It produces a lot of enzymes. All the enzymes needed for carbohydrates and starch digesting are produced by the pancreas. Problems arise when the diet is overloaded with simple carbohydrates – baking, bread, pasta, potatoes, porridge, sugar, and confection. Pancreatitis itself is also related to the fact that people do not eat raw food.
What to do with pancreatitis?
Recommendation number one is to reduce sugar, or better to remove it from your diet at all. If you already got pancreatitis the best decision is to remove all carbohydrates from the diet. Take nut oilcake instead. For example, cedar nut oilcake is perfect. Flaxseed flour is also good, other kinds of seed and nut flour. The main task in dealing with pancreatitis is to remove even useful complex carbohydrates for a while.
Recommendation number two is to add raw vegetables, fruits, berries, greens to the diet. The raw food should take up to 70% of your meal in summer, 50% in winter and autumn.
BLOATING. GASED INTESTINAL
If there are no organic lesions, and this feeling is not a sign of gastritis, pancreatitis, or other diseases, the most often reason is an incorrect combination of products. The most common diet mistake that causes bloating is to eat sweets at the end of the meal. There can be one recommendation only – to create a cooking culture and learn the rules of dishes combination.
If you have eaten something that does not fit each other and got bloated you can chew on cumin seeds, fennel, dill, coriander. In general, not so many people think about eating combinations. Therefore, the best way is to add these spices to the stewed vegetables, soups, other dishes, it will prevent bloating.
WEAK BOWEL (CONSTIPATION)
A weak bowel is a malfunctioning bowel. Defecation is once a few days indicates the bile stagnation and lack of fiber in the diet.
What to do in the situation?
Cedar oil has a soft choleretic effect, one teaspoon is enough before every meal to improve bile outflow. Perfect thing is a berry and apple smoothie with honey and warm water, but you need to introduce it into the diet permanently. It improves both outflow and bile composition, and become a good fiber for the intestine.
GALLBLADDER INFLECTION
The official opinion is that the pathology has a hereditary reason. The inflection forms because the gall bladder’s wall becomes rigid like a dried capsule or aluminum foil. Some medical tests oа hair and nails can show the excess of aluminum or other heavy metals in the body. It is connected with the ecology and unhealthy diet of the mother during pregnancy.
What recommendations are for people with gallbladder inflection?
Relax it. You have to form the bile composition, to make it liquid and fluid, not thick. For this, you need to add berries and fruits to your diet and drink much before eating. You can drink teas without sugar and cookies, sweets will make the situation worse. Drinking peppermint, thyme, lavender, oregano teas will take off hypertension. Cedar oil can also help, it regulates bile flow and reduces inflammations.
IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME
It is a situation when the bowel is irritated and inflamed. It is often accompanied by pain, spasms, diarrhea, and undigested food. Different people can react to different kinds of products. The most frequent are reactions to excess calcium in the diet (cheese, dairy products), coffee or chocolate. There can also be environmental causes of irritable bowel syndrome. When living near factories or CHP, some chemicals accumulate in the intestine. The same if your work is connected with chemicals. Irritable bowel syndrome is always related to nervous system problems, stress.
How to deal with it?
First of all, you should exclude all the irritating products. It is dairy products, coffee, and all kinds of chocolate. Introduce anti-stress teas with mint, chamomile, thyme into your daily ration. Secondly, take every day Omega-3, it could be fish oil capsules or cedar nut oil.
Cedar nut oil contains pinolenic acid. It is a fatty acid that acts as an anti-inflammatory agent, it is even better than fish oil. Pinolenic acid is found in pine trees only; it is a rare one and has a very good impact.
BILIARY DYSKINESIA
It is a kind of bile flow disruption that is caused by hypertension or hypotension of the gallbladder. The most common reason for it is an unhealthy diet.
What recommendations are for people with biliary dyskinesia?
Take dairy products out of the diet, they can cause inflammation and they act as an anti-gall agent. Drink choleretic herbal teas. It can be ready-made pharmacy teas or herbals collected by yourself. Berry teas are also good.
GILBERT’S SYNDROME
It is considered to be hereditary, but recently it is diagnosed very often. Gilbert’s syndrome can be detected by blood tests. These people have high direct and general bilirubin. It is visible in yellow eyeball and skin. It indicates the extra bilirubin missing by the liver, and the yellow pigment that should inject into the intestine goes into the blood. People with Gilbert’s syndrome can help themselves only by a special diet, they should not eat some products. For example, spicy and smoked food, fatty meat and fish, coffee, cocoa, and chocolate.
SUMMARY. THREE STEPS TO GIT HEALTH
So, any disease or problem of the gastrointestinal tract is caused by three factors: diet style and excess of some products, stress that leads to internal tonus, and lack of good fats. Therefore, the steps are very simple.
- Remove from the diet all the products that caused the problem. The most common variations – fried food, sweets with white sugar, coffee, and dairy products. For the details about certain diseases see above.
- Make a habit to drink relaxing herbal tea in the evenings. It is tea with peppermint, chamomile, thyme, oregano. If you already have problems with the outflow and quality of the bile, take choleretic herbs or berry tea in the morning.
- Add Omega-3 to the diet. Cedar oil is one of the best options. Standard intake: а teaspoon 20 minutes before meals, three times a day. Take it for one month and more.
Food culture and diet style are very important for gastrointestinal tract health. It is a great room for creativity and it’s something that will definitely help.
