GI lining
This month we are initiating a three-part series of newsletters dedicated to the overall defense strategy for Your Body Nation. What do we mean by Your Body Nation? Well, the human body can be compared to a nation in many ways. A nation, according to the dictionary is a group of people in a land area under a single government. Here in the nation called the United States, we all live and work within the same defined physical perimeters and we work together with the goal of prosperity, unity and happiness within our borders. Our government’s duty, in good part, is to secure the borders and protect our people from harm. Similarly, Your Body Nation is a large group of microbes and cells that live and work within the same borders. It is safe to say your thoughts and plans emanating from your brain are the government. So like a nation that builds a military force, then protects it from destruction and invasion, and maintains it when some of the force is lost or more force is needed, so too you must have a military/protective strategy for Your Body Nation for the long term so that you will be safe, healthy and functioning optimally. So do you have a clear defense strategy in place for Your Body Nation? Our goal over the summer months is to help you develop a well-balanced and intentional strategy so that you can defend your borders well.
This month we will focus on how to build your own internal military force. What can you do to create a strong, formidable military force to protect Your Body Nation? In July we will focus on ways to protect Your Body Nation from everything trying to cross your borders illegally and inflict damage on your military force. Finally in August, we will tie everything together with protective, proactive ways to maintain your health and be prepared for all the unknowns that life can bring.
Defending The Borders (Part I)
Building A Strong Defense for Your Body Nation
Our regular readers and patients have heard this before, but it ALWAYS bears repeating that 80% of your total immune system is made up of a very large population of microflora in the gut which includes your small and large intestines and your colon. The other 20% of your immune system is composed of white blood cells, many of which also reside in the gut as well as other mucosal linings throughout the body. So it stands to reason that to build a strong fighting machine, you will need to start in the gut. Your gut is the superhighway that carries all necessary resources into the body for delivery into the smaller artery and vein roadways that disperse nutrients all over the body. But what if the superhighway is not well maintained? What if it is full of potholes, sinkholes and weeds overgrowing the asphalt? What if your superhighway has been taken over by bad forces that are preventing valuable resources from even getting into Your Body Nation?
Optimizing gut health is fundamental to optimizing overall health. Open to the outside world from the top of it (your mouth) and again at the bottom (your bottom!), this long tube is a perfect entrance for harmful things. We certainly eat and drink plenty of microorganisms, chemicals and toxins everyday. Your gut microflora provides the natural physical barrier of protection from harmful things. This protective barrier secretes substances that kill harmful bacteria, fungi, viruses, as well as creates just enough acid to discourage the growth and prosperity of pathogenic microbes. This beneficial microflora is also responsible for neutralizing toxic substances, chelating heavy metals and other poisons as well as inactivating carcinogenic substances. And lastly, but also very important, our gut microflora digest some of our food and in turn feed the cells which make up the gut lining, keeping it healthy and able to complete the digestion of our food.
Without our gut microflora we are fully open to invasion from incoming harmful bacteria, fungi, viruses, carcinogens, toxins, poisons and heavy metals. We are also unable to protect our gut lining from damage nor can we properly nourish our gut lining which then becomes inflamed thus leading to not only digestive issues but almost without fail, nutritional bankruptcy, health issues and disease.
Our first step in building a strong Body Nation is to build your military force. Starting with the digestive tract, the goal is to heal, restore and build a big, strong, well prepared military force. This is best done using a formal, therapeutic diet with a three pronged approach: 1) destroy bad microbes 2) starve them by choosing foods that do not feed them and 3) replace favorable microflora. With rare exception, everyone can benefit by a focused, gut restoration program because no matter how you feel, most of us are not at 100% in terms of our healthy microflora. Because of stress, antibiotic use, steroid use, Splenda (aka sucralose), sugary and high carbohydrate diets and exposure to a toxic and electrical world, it is very difficult to maintain a healthy quantity of gut microflora unless you are fully aware of how to do it and you are intentional and organized about your strategy.
The second step in building a strong Body Nation is to provide the best tools and resources to the Body Nation to get the job done. In this day and age, we know better than to send our military men and women to the battle front with clubs, bows and arrows. The same is true for your Body Nation. White blood cells, as well as all of the cells that make up your Body Nation, require very specific macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates) to be made and maintained as well as very specific micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients) to function optimally. Good health cannot be achieved without a whole real food diet. By eating food the way Nature provides it to us in an undamaged, unprocessed, un -“man”ufactured state, our Body Nation is able to find all of the necessary tools and resources to make, feed and maintain healthy cells which, in turn, do their assigned jobs well, whether that is to be a heart cell, a blood cell, a brain cell or a white blood cell.
Trying to get healthy? Wanting to feel good? Trying to figure out where to start? All disease begins in the gut. Cleaning up the gut and the diet are the first two steps in defending the borders of Your Body Nation.
Click here to test yourself (questionnaire) for abnormal microflora.
Next month we will talk about how you can actively work to protect Your Body Nation from external forces and destruction of your newly established military force.