Gut Dysfunction
by Dr. Reese
Having a gut problem can absolutely ruin your life.
If you're just meeting me, my name is Dr. Kevin Reese and I'm the only head-to-toe healer in the world. Gut dysfunction is a root cause of many chronic symptoms. This can manifest into things like colitis or acid reflux or Crohn's, the list goes on... but understanding why you have a chronic gut dysfunction is key to healing and so that's what I'm going to do with this webinar.
We're going to go through all the root causes of why your tummy is not your friend right now.
Any health practitioner worth their salt is going to address the gut. It's one of the seven root causes of disease. Your gut is ground zero for your health and must be corrected no matter your symptoms. Here are the four brief reasons why.
Number one, in order to function optimally you need proper nutrition which is processed through the gut first before its distributed throughout the body. Nutrition can be blocked by an inflamed gut which can create up to 900 symptoms.
Number two, if the backs up then toxic waste is accumulated which will create symptoms.
Number three, if the soft tissue of your intestines is compromised due to nutritional deficiencies you may also end up with leaky gut syndrome which contributes to skin, autoimmune, and brain conditions.
Number four, gut dysfunction can create conditions of its own that can flip your life upside down.
From ulcerative colitis to acid reflux, your life on this earth can become miserable, real, fast.
So in order to simplify the gut for you, I separate it into an upstairs and a downstairs.
The upstairs is your mouth, esophagus, and stomach. The downstairs is your small intestine, large intestine, and rectum. The upstairs and downstairs have different functions. If you go to the medical monopoly with digestive issues, they are going to look at your upstairs through what is called an endoscopy. That is where they stick a little camera in your mouth and go all the way down to look at your esophagus and stomach.
In order to view your downstairs, it is done through a procedure called a colonoscopy. This is where they take the same little camera and stick it up your booty to look at your intestines. At some point, they are going to want to perform surgery on you, more than likely.
When the stomach expands, it triggers a hormone called gastrin. The gastrin then triggers your stomach to make hydrochloric acid and pepsinogen.
There is a chain reaction that happens here. The hydrochloric acid and the pepsinogen come together and create a digestive juice called pepsin, which breaks down proteins into amino acids. If you do not have pepsin, you are going to have a problem. All this digestive juice in the stomach is acidic. In a healthy body, it should be under the pH of 3.
This is what the medical monopoly doesn't understand. With proton pump inhibitors being the most prescribed drug in the USA, that means there are millions of people walking around with alkalized stomachs. This is a huge root cause of dis-ease. Now I refer to the stomach as a preparation chamber because its job is to break the food down through its produced acid.
If you ever want to see it in action, just place a chicken wing in a cup of white vinegar which has a pH of about 2.5. In just about 20 to 30 minutes you'll see it start to digest. Now imagine if that was a 6 pH. The chicken wing would sit there and start to ferment or putrefy. If it happened in your stomach it would cause bloating, cramps, and or acid reflux.
So how does reflux happen? Well if your stomach has weak acid the food sits in the stomach for a longer period of time and your body will overproduce the hormone called gastrin. This opens the esophagus valve at the top of the stomach and that allows your food, or the gases of your food, to go upward right up the pipe, and of course, it's hot. So even though your stomach's pH might be too high, let's say it's 5.5, it'll still burn the esophagus because the esophagus doesn't have a protective lining like the stomach does. So what's coming up is too hot. Furthermore, if you eat starches or sugar in general, and you have weak stomach acid, your sugars will ferment.
What happens when sugar ferments? That's right, it turns to alcohol. This is where people get the beer bellies from. Even if they don't drink beer, they will get what we call wheat belly. The starch and sugar can also manifest into candida, which will create a whole other set of symptoms including rashes and white tongue.
People with weak stomach acid are severely compromised in four ways. First, as already described, the volcano effect will happen and your esophagus will get burnt up, leading to ulcers, barrettes, and eventually the dreaded C- monster. Secondly, when you can't break down your food properly, you don't get the proper nutrition being absorbed through the villi in the small intestine. So now, nutritional deficiency comes into play.
Thirdly, if your food is not broken down properly, this can also create a leaky gut which then turns to dirty blood which then turns to immune disorders.
And finally, you can't sanitize your stomach and there's all sorts of bugs and parasites that can live on the walls. This includes bacteria which we call H. pylori.
So after the first preparation chamber, the stomach, the food slips down into the duodenum, which is where the alkalization takes place. This is done through what I call the three amigos, which are the liver, the gallbladder, and the pancreas. This is also what I call the second preparation chamber. The liver, being the leader of the three amigos, produces alkaline bile which flows to the gallbladder. The gallbladder stores the bile, concentrates it, and then methodically squirts it into the duodenum when it's needed. While this is happening, the pancreas is dispersing essential digestive enzymes. I'd like to provide you with an analogy to make it all make sense to you. Think of a glass mason jar that you want to sanitize. In order to sanitize it, you are going to place it in a pressure cooker of some kind to heat it up and kill the bacteria, germs, and such. When you finish sanitizing it, it's in your best interest to take the glass jar out with tongs, place it on a towel, and wait until it cools down before you can touch it.
If you touch it, you will burn the skin right off your hand. Now this is the same thing with your two preparation chambers. You see, stomach acid is very hot in order to break down your food. However, in the duodenum, it is being alkalized and cooled down so it will not burn your intestines when it starts flowing through your small and large intestines.
If there is not enough stomach acid, the upstairs gets burnt and if there is not enough bile to cool down the downstairs, your intestines get burnt. This is why most people who have had their gallbladder removed end up with chronic pain in their intestines. You see, they no longer have the gallbladder to concentrate the bile and methodically squirt it into the duodenum. So they're not alkalizing their food properly and it's flowing into the intestines very hot. They are burning themselves. Not to mention, without a gallbladder, you're now going to drip bile continuously into your digestive system. In other words, the bile isn't controlled anymore. You've taken an essential mechanism out of your machine.
Sometimes your gallbladder can develop stones. This comes from inferior bile and enzymes being created by your liver and pancreas. This is why a supplement with quality enzymes and bile is needed to dissolve the stones. Plus, one must get off of the poor 4 foods. Otherwise, you will end up at the medical monopoly and they will remove your gallbladder.
Even if you've never had your gallbladder taken out or had gallstones, the other two amigos could malfunction. An example of this is pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is the inflammation of the pancreas, which happens from its own digestive enzymes being activated before being sent off to do their job. This burns the pancreas, and of course creates inflammation.
The bottom line is if any of the three amigos malfunction, then the alkalizing process becomes compromised and your intestines can get burnt up. If it gets burnt up enough to create ulcers, it's called ulcerative colitis. If it's a chronic inflammation, it's typically called Crohn's disease. When small bulging pouches develop in your digestive tract, it's called diverticulosis. If the bulging pouches become inflamed or infected, that's called diverticulitis.
The root causes of all these gut dysfunctions are the same, they just manifest in different ways and different locations. If you have a group of symptoms that occur together including repeated pain in your abdomen and changes in your bowel movements, this is typically called irritable bowel syndrome. With IBS, there is no visible signs or damage of dis-ease in your digestive tract. It's more of a mind-body connection, which could be neurological. It could also be candida hanging out in the intestines causing a fuss.
Another disorder that can happen is called small intestinal bacteria overgrowth or SIBO. This is fermentation of food which is not moving fast enough through the small intestine. Therefore, starchy sugars are fermenting and blowing you up like a balloon. This causes bloating and discomfort. If this overgrowth flows back up into the stomach through the duodenum, it's called gastritis. Gastritis is the downstairs version of acid reflux.
On top of the flow of digestion, you also have your microbiome which is the collection of all the microbes such as bacteria, fungi, viruses, and their genes that naturally live in your gut. Now in a healthy state, the microbiome is positive. It helps you with energy recovery from metabolism and it protects from a host of pathogenic invasions. It also contributes to your immune system.
So you see, digestion is kind of like a factory line. First, the food must be broken down through acid, and then it needs to be alkalized so it doesn't burn your intestines.
The stomach is divinely designed to not burn because it has a protective lining. However, the esophagus and intestines do not have this protective lining. So if your food is not alkalized correctly by the three amigos, then you will have bad news in the downstairs of your GI tract.
Then there's the microbiome to help digestion and protect you from your invaders. Here are the root causes of gut dysfunction from my head to toe healing perspective.
So there's a reason I check for stomach acid levels in my head to toe analysis. It's that big of a deal. If your stomach acid is weak, it will continue to create symptoms in your body as your food will not be able to be broken down properly. Besides acid reflux, you can also get parasites, candida, H. pylori. Weak stomach acid will also contribute to leaky gut syndrome.
Soft tissue deficiencies are most certainly a root cause of gut dysfunction.
Having your intestinal soft tissue compromised is going to allow leaky gut which can contribute to autoimmune and brain conditions. You see there are 90 essential nutrients that the body needs to import every day. That's 16 vitamins, 60 minerals, 12 aminos, and 2 or 3 EFAs. Plus, soft tissue needs a specific set of nutrients on top of the 90.
Malabsorption is a root cause for sure. You can get all the nutrients you want. If you're not absorbing properly, you're in trouble. It's like a 7 foot center in the NBA blocking your shot. In the small intestine, there are these shag-like structures that absorb the nutrients into the bloodstream for distribution. They can get caked up because you were eating the poor 4 foods for decades. Nutritional deficiency and gut dysfunction go together hand in hand. Sometimes gut dysfunction can cause nutritional deficiency and sometimes nutritional deficiency can cause gut dysfunction.
Interesting, right?
A weak microbiome is a contributing factor to gut dysfunction too. If your friends living in your gut environment are pathetic, then digestion will be altered. Not only that, but your immune system will be weak and you will get sick often.
Muscle dysfunction is a root cause that brings on a slew of surprising symptoms. The pelvis is the centerpiece of the musculoskeletal system and it can be tilted anteriorly or posteriorly. Whichever way the pelvis is tilted it will compromise the digestion of your food. Your pelvis is like a bowl of fruit, holding your organs and glands in place. So when you have poor posture and misalignment, you are changing the position of those three amigos, the liver, gallbladder, and pancreas. Now you are also changing the position of your small intestine and large intestine. Through the years, I've noticed a correlation with swayback posture, which is when the hips are so weak they bail out in front of the plumb line of the body.
This posture will cause your intestines to become misaligned which can create fermentation, constipation, or intestinal pain. Furthermore, muscle dysfunction compresses nerves which will alter neurological function. We need the proper neurological function to create enzymes to help break down food and have peristalsis, which helps with the transit time. If you have a slow transit time, the food can burn the intestines and contribute to inflammation.
The nervous system at its root is coming from the spine in odd positions such as lordosis or thoracic flexion, it directly affects your digestion. Muscle dysfunction can compress the vagus nerve too, which is the tense cranial nerve coming from your head all the way down to your gut. If that nerve gets compressed, then the signal between your brain and digestive system can be disrupted. Osteoporosis of the skull could be a culprit of a compressed vagus nerve as well.
This can lead to gastroparesis, which is when food sits in your stomach for too long due to peristalsis. At the root, nutritional deficiency would be at play here, creating the osteoporosis.
Inflammation is always going to be a cause when we are dealing with soft tissue. In this case, it is the stomach, esophagus, intestines, and blood vessels that deliver nutrients to them.
Besides physical trauma, there are three ways that inflammation happens in the body. First, your soft tissue can become inflamed through free radical damage. All that oxidative stress coming into your body from the poor 4 foods, and or environmental stressors needs to be neutralized before it bonds with cells. Once it bonds with cells, it creates damage and your body goes into a state of inflammation. The other cause of inflammation of soft tissue is high blood sugar. If you are not processing sugar properly, then the sugar is staying in your blood for too long of a time and it is creating inflammation. At the root, this is nutritional deficiency because certain minerals are needed to process sugar. If you are deficient and you keep eating and drinking sugar, you're in trouble. The third cause of inflammation is lymphatic stagnation. Our lymph fluid is our sewer system.
It brings our waste out of the body through the kidneys. If it stagnates and slows down, waste can burn the soft tissue. You can get lymphatic stagnation from wearing too much tight clothes or you can get lymphatic stagnation from your posture. Posture as I taught you is the position of your musculoskeletal system and when you become out of alignment you can get kinks in the hose. It's very significant to note that, unlike the blood which has a pump called the heart, the lymph doesn't have an automatic pump. It has to be pumped with the movement of your joints. This is why we like to do postural therapy.
Now spicy food could be somewhat of a root cause too. When you are consistently eating hot sauces and spicy foods, you are burning up your intestines. This is especially true if you don't have enough stomach acid in your stomach and or, you have soft tissue deficiencies and your intestines are weak and/or you have muscle dysfunction which has slowed down your transit time.
Perhaps the most surprising root cause is the Mind-Body Syndrome or TMS. This is a lack of mindfulness where your negative thinking directly affects your body. Please understand. You have a computer in your skull. Your brain spits out data that operates in patterns or algorithms. If your computer is pumping out negative thoughts, then your frequency goes down and your body suffers. Keep in mind that your brain is connected to your spine and your spine acts as a circuit breaker that sends electricity throughout the body. Negativity kills the human spirit and it kills the human body.
So there you have it. There's all the root causes of why you have a gut dysfunction. Now if you want to take this further, I recommend you hop on the phone with my coaching team. All you gotta do is click the button below.
I'll talk to you soon.
-Dr. Reese