Grey Power June 2016

Why
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» june 2016
some foods
well – and what to do about it
Article by David Coory
You might not have heard too much
about it yet, but there’s a huge
medical revolution going on – health
researchers are having to rethink their
old ideas on how our food is digested,
how our immune system works and
why we get sick.
It’s to do with the massive role of
friendly strains of live bacteria that
live in our intestines (or gut) called
probiotics.
Probiotic means ‘pro life’ which is the
opposite of antibiotic, which means
‘anti life’.
Our health begins (and ends)
in the bowel
Probiotic bacteria are first colonised in
our intestines when we’re born, mostly
from our mother’s birth canal and also
from the colostrum in her breast milk.
These strains of essential probiotics
continue to live in our gut (and mouth)
and ideally multiply and reproduce
themselves for the rest of our lives.
We have trillions of friendly digestive
probiotics living in our gut. They live in
our 7-metre (20 ft) long small intestine
and 1.5-metre (5 ft) long large intestine
and weigh about a kilogram.
But there is a major problem –
antibiotics, but first let’s look at why
probiotics are so critically important to
our health.
Probiotics are essential for
optimum health
Probiotics are absolutely essential for
optimum health. Their first role is the
digestion and absorption of nutrients
from our food. Nutrients in our food
cannot be used until they enter our
blood supply.
The only way they can do this is to be
converted into a fluid and seep through
our intestine walls – there’s no other
entry way into our blood supply. It’s
the same with plant life – look at the
smooth roots of a tree or plant – only
liquid food can be absorbed.
Probiotics pre-digest our solid
foods
So how do non-liquid foods like
vegetables, breads, meats, etc, become
fluids? Well it’s almost unbelievable, but
the non-fibre parts are converted to
liquids by being ‘eaten’ or pre-digested
by our probiotics (which are living
organisms) – and in the process are
turned into a colloidal liquid. A colloidal
liquid is one in which microscopic size
particles are dissolved – like seawater
or tea.
However sugar and salt dissolve
naturally in water and therefore don’t
need probiotics – once dissolved they
are already colloidal liquids and pass
quickly through our intestinal walls
into the blood, often within minutes of
eating or drinking.
However solid foods have to be first
consumed by probiotics and turned
into a liquid, apart from coarse fibre
which passes on into the lower bowel
to be discarded. This conversion of solid
foods into liquid can take hours.
Different strains of probiotics
required to pre-digest
different types of food
But here’s an important fact to
remember – different foods require
different strains (or families) of bacteria
to pre-digest them – there are about 30
main strains. Dairy, wheat, eggs, nuts,
meats, etc, all require different strains
of probiotics – if any of these strains
are missing, that type of food does not
get converted to a liquid. The nutrients
remain bound up in our food and pass
through and out of our bowels, still
containing most of its nutrients, leaving
us under-nourished.
We can also get allergic reactions like
bloating and bowel discomfort from
these undigested nutrients, resulting
from a lack of an important strain or
several strains of probiotics.
We can still retain weight, often
too much, because sugar and salt,
being water soluble are still being
fully absorbed – but vital minerals
like calcium, magnesium, zinc and
potassium are not absorbed except
for small portions that happen to be
naturally water soluble.
On-going health problems
In other words, although we may
be eating a good diet, if we lack
some strains of probiotics, we are
malnourished and miss out on most of
the vitamins, minerals, proteins and fats
contained in our food. Also our immune
system is severely weakened.
Common symptoms of lack of one or
more strains of probiotics are – low
energy, food allergies (especially with
wheat, dairy, eggs and nuts), bowel
discomfort, irregular bowel motions,
bloating and wind.
Plus numerous obscure health
disorders with no apparent cause, like
chronic fatigue, Low mood, lack of
mental clarity and foggy thinking.
Now back to the major problem
resulting from antibiotics.
Antibiotics are like using
weed killer on your
vegetable garden
Antibiotics, when taken by mouth
(as capsules, pills or fluids) have
devastating effects on our probiotic
bacteria – they can totally kill off
important strains. This is because
antibiotics are designed to kill all kinds
of bacteria – whether good or bad, they
can’t tell the difference.
Antibiotics can be effective drugs for
killing harmful bacteria, but when
they’re taken by mouth, instead of
the far more effective way of injecting
them into our bloodstream, they can’t
help but kill essential food-digesting
probiotics in our gut.
It’s like spraying an entire vegetable
garden with weed killer just to destroy
a single weed growing in the centre.
Modern research has now discovered
that the destruction of gut probiotics
by antibiotics is far more serious than
formerly thought. Because probiotic
bacteria play such an enormous
role in the digestion of our food and
absorbing of nutrients, they have a
profound effect for good or bad, on our
health, vigour and the immune system
of our body.
Role of our appendix
Fortunately, strains of probiotics
destroyed by antibiotics can often be
eventually recolonised from our body’s
storehouse of probiotics – the appendix
(provided it hasn’t been removed).
In the meantime it is common for
bad forms of aggressive bacteria like
candida to move in and dominate our
healthy balance.
How to replace missing strains
of probiotic
We can replace hardy strains of
probiotics like acidophilus by eating
fermented foods such as yoghurt, kefir,
sauerkraut, pickles, fermented beans,
fermented corn and some cheeses.
However our stomach acid is very
strong (about pH 2.0) and typically kills
100% of most strains of bacteria – it
even kills around 70% of acidophilus,
a hardy probiotic which is needed to
digest dairy foods.
Our probiotics can only survive,
work and multiply in the non-acid
environment of our small and large
intestines.
The most reliable way to recolonise
our probiotics is to take a high quality,
live, multi-probiotic supplement that is
fully protected from being killed by our
stomach acid.
Unique ‘capsule in a capsule’
stomach acid protection of
Probiotic Multi 9
This now brings us to the highly
effective, Health House Probiotic Multi
9. This unique probiotic supplement
contains the nine strains of the most
commonly destroyed probiotics.
Acidophilus, Casei, Rhamnosus,
Salivarius, Bifidum, Lactis, Longum,
Bulgaricus and Infantis.
Most important of all is that these
living probiotics are fully protected
from stomach acid by the ingenious
and unique ‘capsule-in-a-capsule’
technology.
This patented system has an inner
capsule containing billions of
probiotics, surrounded by an outer
capsule containing a pre-biotic – a
honey-based fluid to protect the outer
capsule and provide additional food for
the probiotics to begin multiplying.
Outer capsule
contains pre-biotic
Inner capsule contains
9 strains of probiotic
The capsule material is also moisture
resistant to keep the freeze dried
probiotics ultra dry, so they will not be
activated prematurely, so they will be in
top quality condition when taken.
NEED MORE INFORMATION?
This book by Dr Shaun Holt analyses the latest scientific research
Probiotics are live micro-organisms
that, when ingested in adequate
amounts, produce a therapeutic or
preventive health benefit.
The first commercially available
probiotic product was released in 1935
and now millions of people around
the world take a probiotic supplement
each day.
Research into the health benefits of
probiotics is one of the fastest growing
areas of medical research.
There have been dozens of medical
research studies completed over
the last few decades and there are
currently around 700 ongoing studies
at various stages.
Studies are looking at whether
probiotics can help gastro-intestinal
problems, promote weight loss or even
stop you getting as many colds.
Dr. Shaun Holt has Pharmacy
and Medicine degrees, over 160
publications in medical literature
and has previously written six books
on health topics. His comments on
natural products are often sought by
the media and he was runner up in the
Innovator category, in the 2015 New
Zealander of the Year Awards.
$ 19ea
82 pages
0800 140 141
www.healthhouse.co.nz
Health House, Private Bag 12029, Tauranga Mail Centre, 3143, New Zealand
1 Whakakake Street, Tauriko, Tauranga, 3171, New Zealand