By Rosie Main
Digestive disorders can be extremely embarrassing and debilitating. Conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, yeast overgrowth, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and colitis are extremely common and can be hard to get under control. What most people don’t understand is that the gut plays an enormous role in brain and emotional health, joint support, skin health, immune function and so much more! Many individuals never deal with digestive symptoms, in spite of many health problems that originated with intestinal breakdown.
Reducing Gut Inflammation: It is vital to remember that when one has this sort of health condition, the intestines are inflamed. Think about this like a sprained ankle. If you are trying to walk on your sprained ankle, it will swell up even more and will never heal as it was designed too. The same pattern works with your gut. If we are constantly challenging our gut with foods that are tougher on the digestive processes, than we are only irritating the injured intestines even more and we can forget about truly healing. The only way to heal a sprained ankle is to stay off of the ankle. You need to rest it, ice it (reduce inflammation), maintain compression and keep it elevated. The best way to heal a damaged and inflamed gut is to reduce food stuffs that are going through it and use nutrients that help to soothe and de-inflame the gut lining.
The 3 Phase System to Help Heal the Gut
- ReSet Phase: This is a liquid fast that focuses on herbal teas, bone broth, essential oils, apple cider vinegar and coconut oil. Goal: starve out bad microbes and reduce intestinal inflammation. Duration: 3-5 days
- ReBuilding Phase: This uses easily digestible foods that provide key nutrients to rebuild the intestinal lining. Goal: rebuild the intestinal wall while keeping inflammation down. Duration: 10-14 days
- ReInnoculationPhase: We begin the process of using fermented foods and fermentable carbohydrates to repopulate the gut with healthy microbial species. Goal: help support the development of healthy microbial species in the gut. Duration: 10-14 days.
This is the basic 30-Day Program to heal the gut. After these 30 days, the goal is for you to be able to move into the probiotic lifestyle.
The Probiotic Lifestyle: This is a lifelong process where you focus on eating real foods that support the development of a healthy microbiome. You want to find the foods that are most agreeable to you and eliminate the foods that are not agreeable.
- Avoid all grain.
- Avoid sulfur containing foods such as beans and broccoli.
- Stop all hormone therapies, and especially do not take birth control pills, which interfere with gut flora.
- Avoid all products with soy.
- Avoid canola oil.
- Colloidal silver would be extremely beneficial in speeding up the process, especially in the beginning.
- Garlic is an anti-microbial and will help fight and killbacteria, fungus and infections in the gastrointestinal system. Use copious amounts.
- Use grapefruit seed extract.
- Use only gray-colored sea salt from a health food store, and avoid toxic table salt. Do not trust the white “sea salt” found at most retailers, because real sea salt is never white in nature. In fact, only buy supplements from regular retailers (instead of health food stores) when you arereally desperate. The sodium will make the body more alkaline, as well as help it to movefluids, which is necessary for the removal of toxins.
- Cayenne pepper can be found in capsule form.
- Use chamomile.
- Use wormwood.
- Consume a tiny amount of extra virgin, cold-pressed coconut oil daily, if it can be tolerated. If it cannot be tolerated, then try again when celiac disease becomes less severe.
Required Dietary Changes
- The ideal diet for intestinal inflammation has no sugar, limited alcohol (particularly beer), no mushrooms, limited yeast and reduced caffeine. Meat, vegetables, whole wheat carbohydrates, and non-homogenized milk products are fine, but flour products must be whole wheat. Foods should be organic whenever possible. All processed foods should be avoided, and artificial sweeteners should never be used as sugar substitutes. Natural sweetener substitutes such as honey and stevia are fine. Honey is especially beneficial.
- Yogurt will stimulate the existing beneficial intestinal flora and add good bacterial reinforcements. Use only plain yogurt without flavorings or sugars.Organic yogurt is best. Yogurt will also suppress the bad bacteria at the same time. Yogurt is absolutely critical. Use two tablespoons five times a day if possible.
- Avoid all potato-based foods.
- Supplement with essential fatty acids, such as those from flax seed oil (transforms into omega-3 during digestion) in combination with foods containing sulfur proteins, such as yogurt, eggs, fish, sesame paste, nuts, garlic, cottage cheese, and onions. Omega-3 works best when combined with sulfur proteins. Research theBudwigprotocol for information about this therapeutic and effective anti-cancer diet.
- No canned or processed meats. Organic is preferred.
- No canned or processed vegetables. Organic is preferred.
- Do not consume any undersea vegetation, such as kelp or seaweed.
- Avoid commercially-made mayonnaise.
- Vitamins A, E, folate (folic acid), and the mineral zinc participate in beneficial antioxidant functions to reduce oxidative stress in the cellular lining of the gut. In this manner, they assist in the overall repair process. Some of the gut barrier functions, such as IgA secretion, can be enhanced by these vitamins.
- Make your body as alkaline as possible. Reference our article, “Body pH and Disease”, and our pH food chart at Main Health Solutions at maxliving.com.
- Avoid all artificial sweeteners.
- Drink spring water, or water which has been filtered through a Berkey water filter having fluoride removal add-ons. Fluoride should be eliminated as much as possible, so in addition tofiltering the water, patients should use fluoride-free toothpastes. In order to neutralize fluoride in the body, iodine may be appliedtransdermally, as described in the iodine report.
- Avoid microwaved foods, because they are nutritionally depleted. People with celiac disease are already somewhat malnourished.
If you have any questions or want to see how we can help you, please don’t hesitate to call me at 208-859-6170, email [email protected] or visit me at DoctorMain.com.