Date: June 29th 2001

Online Health & Nutrition Newsletter Vol. 5 Issue 6e
Spirit of Health

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This is the One Hundred and Seventh issue of our online newsletter,
"Spirit of Health." We bring you articles which are always beyond the
mainstream medical school of thought, and may be educational to the
alternative minded, as well.

An online version of this Newsletter, plus records of all
of the back issues of the Newsletters, can be viewed by clicking -
http://www.healthfree.com/health/newsletter/index.html

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Indigestion is a situation with almost everyone. Tagamet, Tums,
Pepsid AC and similar drugs are the largest selling pharmaceuticals
in the world! "Epigastral reflux" is becoming a household word.
Excess gas, ulcers and aches are all too common, even in the young.
So, indigestion (dyspepsia) is too frequently experienced. What then
is proper digestion?

In order to digest food, stay immune from disease and avoid other
ailments such as candida, you must have plenty of hydrochloric acid
(HCL) in your stomach. Your stomach is an acid machine and this acid
is not the arch-villain portrayed in the antacid commercials. On the
contrary, it is vital to your good health. To neutralize it with antacids
is the exact wrong action to take, though it delivers temporary relief
of the symptoms (pain).

When the stomach digests, it churns the food and mixes it with the
HCL, juices, pepsin and enzymes. If there is no HCL, or the HCL is
not acid enough, the food begins to rot and ferment. As it deteriorates
in this abnormal form, it develops unusual acids that sting and burn
the tissues of the digestive system. When this occurs in the stomach,
these deviant acids, along with what weakened HCL may be present, can
get backed up into the esophagus.

What is really needed is more & stronger HCL. To take an antacid at this
point is to make sure you have a mass of undigested food in the
stomach and the rest of the digestive tract. This also puts a burden on
the liver and pancreas since they can't cope with such an unnatural state
of affairs. As more and more of these meals go through, the poisons
from this undigested matter accumulate in the body.

The body is designed to split open food molecules and break them down
into vitamins, minerals, trace elements, fatty acids, amino acids and
enzymes. Once this is done, the remainder is eliminated from the bowel.

An undigested food mass, decaying and moving through the thirty odd feet
of gastro-intestinal assembly line, will cause many kinds of undesirable
bacteria, viruses and fungus to scavenge such a large volume of waste.
Parasites, which ordinarily would have been eliminated by strong stomach
acids, are allowed to continue and thrive on a toxic bonanza. Candida Albicans,
a fungus your body has in place to kill undesirable bacteria, starts to multiply
to handle the escalating numbers of bacteria.

Sounds terrible and it is! The body is starting to break down do to this
continuous poisoning.

"If you have a concentration of, say, bacteria living in a particular area of
the body, you have a staph infection or strep in the throat, for instance,
it is there because of the unhealthy, devitalized tissue and unprocessed
metabolic waste...disease is not the presence of something evil, but rather
the lack of something present which is essential for vitality."
Dr. Bernard Jensen, "Empty Harvest"

Eating correctly is important and being able to digest it is just as important!
One could take a digestive enzyme with each meal to ensure an extra boost
to one's ability to digest. The best we have found is called "Beyond Organic"
and comes in 300 gram bottles for the same cost as others sold in
90 gram amounts.

In addition to diets containing too much cooked food, processed food, meat,
dairy and poultry, there is another factor which is normally not addressed
adequately in all cases of indigestion - hydration.

Next to oxygen, water is the most vital substance for survival and better health.
When we refer to water here, we always mean uncontaminated, plain drinking
water. The water found in soft drinks, bottled teas, coffee and other processed
forms do not count at all and, as a matter of fact, are found to contribute to
dehydration in the body! The following is quoted from the material of Dr F.
Batmanghilidj, author of "Your Bodies Many Cries for Water"

"I have treated well over 3000 persons with dyspeptic pain...They all responded
to an increase in their water intake, and their clinical problems associated with
the pain disappeared. The report of my new way of treating dyspeptic pain with
water was published as the editorial article in the Journal of Clinical
Gastroenterology in June of l983.

"At a certain threshold of dehydration, when the body urgently calls for water,
nothing else can substitute. No medication other than water is effective."

"It has been shown experimentally that, when we drink one glass of water
on an empty stomach, it immediately passes into the intestine and is absorbed.
However, within one half-hour, almost the same amount of water is secreted
into the stomach through its glandular layer in the mucosa. It swells from
underneath and gets into the stomach, ready to be used for food breakdown.
The act of digestion of solid foods depends on the presence of copious amounts
of water. The acid is poured on the food, enzymes are activated, and the food
is broken down into a homogenized fluid state that can pass into the intestine
for the next phase of digestion.

"The mucus covers the glands' layer of the mucosa, which is the innermost layer
of the of the structure of the stomach. Mucus consists of 98 percent water and
two percent the physical "scaffolding" that traps the water. In this "water layer"
called mucus, a natural buffer state is established. The cells below secrete
sodium bicarbonate that is trapped in the water layer. As the acid from the
stomach tries to go through this protective layer, the bicarbonate neutralizes it.

"The outcome of this action is a greater production of salt (sodium from the
bicarbonate and chlorine from the acid). Too much salt alters the water-holding
properties of the "scaffolding" material of mucus. Too much acid neutralization
and salt deposits in this mucus layer would make it less homogeneous and sticky
and would allow the acid to get to the mucosal layer, causing pain.

"The natural design in the resecretion of water through the mucus layer seems
to be the process of "back-washing" the mucus layer and getting rid of the salt
deposits. This is a most efficient design for rehdyrating the mucus layer from
the bottom when new mucus is also secreted. This refreshed, thickened and
sticky mucus barrier is the natural protective shield against the acid in the
stomach. Obviously, the efficiency of this shield depends on a regular intake
of adequate water, particularly before the intake of different solid foods that
would stimulate the production of acid from the glands in the stomach wall.
Thus, water provides the only natural protection against the acid in the stomach,
from base upward. Antacids are designed to attach to the acid in the stomach
itself - an efficient protection.

"We should begin to realize that in the same way we have a "hunger pain"
signal, we also have a "thirst pain" signal in the body. It is unfortunate they
call it "dyspepsia" and treat it with all sorts of medications until there is local
duodenal or stomach tissue damage from the metabolic complications of
dehydration. The use of antacids for the relief of this pain is generally the
accepted form of treatment. These substances are non-prescription slow
poisons..."

"Some Reasons Why Your Body Needs Sufficient Water Every Day -

- Comparative shortage of water kills some aspects of the body.

- Water is the main source of energy after oxygen; it is "THE CASH FLOW"
of the body.

- Water generates electrical and magnetic energy inside each and every cell
of the body.

- Water energizes food particles which are then able to supply the body with
energy during digestion.

- Water increases the rate of absorption of essential substances in food.

- Water greatly increases the efficiency of the immune system (all its mechanisms)
including against cancer.

- Water increases the efficiency of the red blood cells in collecting oxygen in the lungs."

How much water per day is considered adequate for good health? According to Dr.
Batmanghelidj, one half one's weight in ounces per day. This assumes your kidneys
are functioning well enough to eliminate this amount per day comfortably. One can
determine this by observing the need to go to the bathroom more frequently within
an hour or two of consuming one quart or more of water. Drink this much water on
an empty stomach and avoid eating any food or consuming a beverage of any kind for
at least half an hour afterwards. Also, take in 1/4 teaspoon of Celtic Sea Salt per quart
of water consumed to ensure a mineral balance is maintained.

Try this folks! It is the most bottom line in natural health and healing. The benefits
are usually seen within a week, generally speaking, and hours, in cases of indigestion.


Digestive enzymes can be obtained at...

http://www.botanicals.net


Celtic Sea Salt can be obtained at...

http://www.healthfree.com/shops/celtic/index.html


The book, "Your Bodies Many Cries for Water" can be obtained...

http://www.healthfree.com/ord2.htm




Sincerely,

Ron Radstrom

e-mail: healthfree@healthfree.com

Health Freedom Resources may be contacted at:
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website: http://www.healthfree.com

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website: http://www.botanicals.net

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