How Doctors Avoid Digestive Problems

Dear Friend,

With the holidays quickly approaching, many people will be eating more, trying new dishes, and giving food a lot more attention than usual.

So I’m bracing myself for the onslaught of calls I always get from people experiencing digestive distress at this time of year. Occasional abdominal pain, excessive gas, constipation, all of those gastric things we’d rather not talk about, can be uncomfortable, annoying side effects of enjoying the season a little too much.

Some of this is “normal,” but did you know that chronic indigestion can be a symptom of impending heart problems? It’s true! It’s sometimes a signal that the body is struggling to break down fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and even alcohol.

When that happens, blood is shunted to your “gut” organs to aid digestion, which leaves less blood and oxygen for the heart, making it more vulnerable to ischemia (lack of blood flow) and arrhythmias (irregular heartbeats).

Chronic indigestion can be caused by insufficient numbers of digestive enzymes needed to break down food particles and absorb nutrients properly. When your enzyme supplies are insufficient to meet demand, excessive free-radical stress and a weakened immune system result, leaving you wide open to disease. I’ve treated so many patients with cardiovascular problems as well as digestive problems that the connection is clear to me.

Click here to learn about the problems of one particular patient, Harry. His story will likely help you.

How We Eat Is Critical to How We Digest

In order to maintain a healthy digestive system, my doctor friends and I strive to be extremely careful about what we eat, and I encourage you to do the same.

You should eat a lot of raw foods, such as raw fruits and vegetables containing live, vital organic elements, particularly enzymes that help digest proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and soluble fiber.

While Americans are more conscious about diet now than in the 1970s, we still eat far too many overcooked, microwaved, and irradiated foods. Gamma radiation or high voltage X-rays used to kill microorganisms also kill live enzymes.

Green Foods

I recognize that it’s difficult to eat the recommended three to five servings of the green leafy vegetables and fresh fruit every day, which are such a wonderful source of life-sustaining nutrients.

So what’s the solution if you want to eat well but just can’t get enough vegetables and fruit every day? The answer: Green Foods.

Green foods can increase and maintain your stores of enzymes. Green foods or superfoods are concentrations of nutrients from the juices of highly nutritious foods like broccoli, carrots, beets, parsley, and celery, as well as young shoots from grains like barley, wheat, and alfalfa. The concentration of nutrients helps support your immune system, cleanse your GI system , give you energy, promote bowel function, and even helps control weight.

When you look for a green product, check to see that it contains at least the following:

• Barley greens, wheat grass, and spirulina, which are loaded with chlorophyll that stimulates metabolism, boosts immune function, and helps detoxify your body.
  
  
• Alfalfa, which has unique trace minerals that are hard to get from other foods.
  
  
• Sea vegetables, which are one of nature’s richest sources of immune-boosting proteins, phytonutrients, and enzymes.
  
  
• Cilantro, which has been known to chelate mercury, thus reducing stress on vital organs.
  
  
• Fructooligosaccharides, which support healthy bacteria like Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, and neutralize bad bacteria.

Juicing—the Great Detoxifier

Juicing allows you to take in enzymes that support digestion. While solid foods require many hours to digest, juice extracted from fruits and vegetables is digested and assimilated within minutes. Juicing simultaneously improves your energy and regenerates cells, tissues, glands, and even organs. It is also great for detoxifying the body and cleansing the bowel. The benefits of juicing will be apparent immediately and will last as long as you continue to juice.

Probiotics

A healthy gut starts with a healthy population of intestinal flora—beneficial bacteria that live on the intestinal walls where they set up a favorable environment for normal digestion, nutrient absorption, electrolyte balance, and a healthy immune system.

One of the best ways to nurture your gastrointestinal tract is to make sure that the good bacteria in your gut, called probiotics (meaning pro-life), outnumber the bad. Probiotics have many benefits. They can:

• Help reduce occasional gas, bloating, and other minor digestive issues;
  
  
• Help promote normal and regular bowel movements;
  
  
• Support a healthy immune system; and
  
  
• Help promote overall digestive health.
  
  
• One probiotic strain (Lp299v) has even been shown to help support normal cholesterol levels.

One way to promote colonization of the intestinal tract with beneficial bacteria is to eat some of the newer yogurt products that contains friendly bacteria such as Lactobacillus acidophilus and Streptococcus thermophilus. While I’m typically not a big fan of most dairy products, I do endorse organic yogurt with live cultures because they can give you much needed good bacteria to keep the bad bacteria in check.

I also recommend eating other cultured or fermented foods such as tofu, tamari, sauerkraut, and miso, the latter of which contains several strains of bacteria that can combat E. coli and other harmful bacteria.

You can also take a probiotic supplement. They are available in health food stores, or you can order Probiotic Solutions from Advanced BioSolutions by just clicking here.

Ginger Helps

For centuries, traditional Chinese medicine has valued ginger as a tonic for digestion. It is commonly used for indigestion today because it absorbs and neutralizes toxins in the stomach. As it eases the transport of substances through the digestive tract, it decreases irritation to intestinal walls. I try to drink a cup of ginger tea daily.

You can buy ginger tea in health food stores or make it yourself. Click here for an easy recipe and make it yourself.

Ginger can also help relieve motion sickness and nausea. I drank ginger tea while deep-sea fishing in rough water in the Kodiak Straits of Alaska recently and did not experience my usual seasickness. And it’s so safe that I even give ginger tea to patients in my coronary care unit who have nausea following a heart attack.

What NOT to do

Click here to learn what NOT to do when trying to treat digestive disorders.

In Conclusion

If you want to maintain good digestive health during this holiday season, and throughout the year, I recommend you do the following:

• Eat 3–5 servings of fresh fruit and vegetables daily
  
  
• Juice at least twice a week
  
  
• Take digestive enzyme supplements
  
  
• Consume green foods
  
  
• Drink eight glasses of filtered water per day
  
  
• Limit antacid drugs
  
  
• Avoid alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco
  
  
• Eat cultured and fermented foods and take a probiotic supplement.

To Your Health,

Stephen Sinatra, M.D.

P.S. I call my probiotic supplement a “dream probiotic” because not only does it help to maintain the proper balance in your gut, but it also supports normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Click here to learn all about it.