Gut Feeling: Understanding Digestive Disorders
Noreen Khan M.D.
Gut Feeling: Understanding Digestive Disorders
Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, and Prevention for
Common Digestive Problems
Noreen Khan M.D.
Copyright 2010 by Noreen Khan M.D.
Smashwords Edition
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Digestive System 101
Common Digestive Problems
Causes of Diarrhea
Getting Rid of Gassiness
Understanding Heartburn
Treating and Preventing Heartburn
Causes of Stomach Ulcers
Treating and Healing Stomach Ulcers
What is Irritable Bowel Syndrome?
What is Inflammatory Bowel Disease?
Understanding Food Intolerance
Food Intolerance or Food Allergy?
Diagnosing Food Intolerance and Food Allergies
Probiotics or Prebiotics?
Vitamin B-12 Deficiency
Strengthening Your Digestive Muscles
Preventing Digestive Disorders
Foods That Trigger Digestive Problems
Tips to Improve Digestive Health
When to See a Doctor
Introduction
Every year more than 50 million people visit their doctor for digestive complaints. Stomach problems can affect everyone from infants and children to the elderly. You don’t usually have to think about the inner workings of your stomach and intestines, but when they don’t function as they should, it can cause considerable discomfort and pain.
Digestive problems can also be a source of embarrassment and stress, particularly if you feel queasy and bloated due to gassiness. Many individuals suffer in silence or try temporary fixes with over-the-counter medications. Understanding common disorders and how to treat and prevent them can help you achieve balanced digestive health.
The digestive system is affected by factors in your surroundings such as stress, emotions, pathogens, and even the climate. It is also affected by the body’s internal environment; hormones, protein enzymes, and messages from the brain and nervous system all affect how your digestive system functions.
What you eat directly impacts your digestive system as well as everything from your moods, emotions, and energy levels to the health of your skin, immune system, and brain. Prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and herbal supplements can also cause unwanted side effects that temporarily imbalance digestive function.
The food you eat provides essential nutrients for the body to function properly and to grow, develop, maintain itself, and heal. The digestive system is a portal for food nutrients to gain access to the circulatory system, which consists of the heart and blood vessels. The circulatory system absorbs nutrients and transports them to each of the body’s billions of cells where they are used to produce energy, as building blocks or stored.
Before the nutrient transfer can take place so that the body can use them, the ingested food must be broken down to very simple molecules by a combination of mechanical and chemical degradations. The resulting molecules are the building blocks of life: sugars, amino acids, and fatty acids. These are transported across the lining of the intestines into the bloodstream. This complex, finely-tuned process is digestion.
The Digestive System 101
The digestive system is a carefully managed factory that keeps your body running smoothly at optimal capacity. Digestion is meticulously orchestrated by the body’s head office: the brain, spinal cord, and endocrine (hormonal) system.
It is also internally managed by the digestive system’s own nervous and hormonal control.
It contains complex functions of motility or movement, production and secretion of digestive fluids, absorption of nutrients, and the excretion of wastes and excess substances. All of these processes work efficiently and seamlessly together in precise timing and sequences. However, in digestive disorders, imbalances and obstructions can cause pain, stomach cramping, nausea, gassiness, bloating, and other familiar gut symptoms.