Leaky Gut Syndrome: Twenty-first Century Epidemic?
The following is an excerpt from The Compleat New Age Health Guide Vol. 1. The information was gathered by Douglas James Cottrell in a Quantum Meditation™ research Reading on the topic of digestive health. Note: All information has been obtained through the use of intuitive or psychic sources and is offered for its informational value only. It should be used in a reasonable and practical manner.
If you would consider Western society (meaning mainly North America and Western Europe) as a “pie,” how much of that pie currently suffers from leaky gut syndrome?
It is best not to include the European with the Western, for the diets are greatly different. Toward the Western, you would find that it would be about sixty-six per cent, or two-thirds. To the European, you would find this would be about thirty-three per cent, or one-third. We are cross- examining here, and this should be considered only to certain age groupings; those who would be past puberty, even past the age of ascent (what would be towards the thirtieth to thirty-third year) or even in lesser cases. Depending on the amount of deep-fried foods that are taken in, and those foods that would be considered artificially-colored, and the diet being primarily prepared or artificial food (not that which would be made from scratch or made from real food, but processed food) then the age would drop lower even until the second cycle of seven, or twelve to fourteen years. If this would be the case, then this would increase in the Western world.
However, it is not simple. in judging the various conditions -- locations, climate, dietary habits, and types of preparation for food -- those who would eat primarily fast food diets, or prepared foods, or those foods that would be processed before ingestion, these would be in the higher percentile. But, as a rule of thumb, two-thirds in the West (the Americas), one third, the European (and this, too, would only be in countries in which there is a lot of use of butter and deep fried foods, or oil to cook).
You have attributed leaky gut syndrome to poor diet, in particular fried foods and processed foods. Are there any other contributing factors to this condition?
The condition as you have directed us towards takes into consideration much more than the diet. Understand when sustenance is given to the body, the intention would be for what is taken in to be nutritious; that what the body would take unto itself would build up the body, would strengthen the body, and it would assist the body in reproducing those cells in the body that would replace the worn-out cells, and would strengthen the systems that function within the body, that would function normally, and in a healthful way.
The body has both assimilative and elimination capabilities. If the body was given simply a good diet, it would be sufficient for the body to maintain itself throughout its life. But other contributing factors to be considered or understood are that whatever is put into the body, the body must utilize, accommodate, handle, or find itself in a situation in which it may be disruptive or it may be strengthening to the body. There is no choice. Once what is taken into the body passes the lips and is ingested, the body therefore reacts to what it is being given. In the diet -- good, bad or poor -- whatever is put into the body, the body must handle. Unwittingly, poisons and toxins are taken into the body, or items that are not natural to the body: food coloring, processed ingredients in foods, or foods that themselves have been invented. These are not natural to the body, or they are not natural in the world! But the body must, after being ingested, handle these substances. Indeed, chemicals taken into the body, known and unknown, taken in unwittingly perhaps, cause the body’s systems to overact or to overwork. You have no idea how hard the body works when food or material is taken into the body!
However, depending on what is taken into the body, the body’s functions should be considered. High amounts of acidic food are secreted in the stomach. Where does this go? Its primary function is to digest the food, which means to break down the food into such a substance that it can be assimilated through the small intestine, into the body. Carried by the blood, these nutrients go to places in the body. Have you ever thought about how the body knows where to take these nutrients or substances? Once they are delivered in the body, they are utilized, like raw material in a factory, to build up the body. Conversely, that which is taken into the body that is derogatory, or harmful, or unnatural to the body’s function degrades the body (you might say, they pollute the body). Sediments, toxins, poisons are, therefore, stored in the body, for they have had to be accepted into the body, have they not? And now, what to do? These substances go to the nooks and crannies, to the soft tissues, to some low- priority storage area in the body. They do not build up the body. Instead, they pollute the body, infringe upon the body’s function, and disease, stiffness, or other derogatory ailments prevail in the body. Think of it as a sewage or cesspool area stored in the body. Then you might understand what boils and cysts and pimples are all about.
However, the digestive fluids which are highly acidic (corrosive) migrate through the stomach (the valves in the stomach, the small intestine), and therein they begin to deteriorate the body’s own tissue. Bile secretions are also acidic. They help to move the physical congress through the body. Both the liver and the gallbladder are responsible to assist the body in different functions, but of the same manner. The bile, the acidic digestive fluids, and other corrosive substances that have been given to the body (using a strong term here, we understand) therefore begin to break down the body’s tissues in the gut. Leaky gut syndrome is little more than perforations or holes in the intestine being the result of these corrosive substances not moving through the body as they should (and, in fact, actually overworking in the gut, in the intestine). No wonder there would be a leakage of these substances, or these fluids, or partly- digested food into the abdominal area outside of the intestine!
“Beer guts” or extended bellies are a result of the body taking into itself excess substances, liquids, and foods that congest the intestine or cause bloating and malfunction in the intestine. A poor diet can be considered the commencement of this disruptive influence in the body. Selecting foods that would be live foods, real foods, natural foods will not harm the body. But other foods that contain high amounts of fat, sugar, and salt, or other ingredients (like chemicals and food color- ing), these foods that have been tampered with, these foods that are prepared foods or artificial foods, or something that has involved a manufacturing of real food into some sort of food (as you would call it), these are unnatural to the body and care should be taken about ingesting these secondary or lower-quality substances (that usually have nutrition removed in order to make the bulk that is taken into the body).
We are not talking about rolled oats or milled grain or ground-up meat. We are speaking of foods that are prepared, in which primarily preservatives have been added, and other substances (so to speak). Beer is not bad for the body (if it is all-natural), but beer that has been altered with chemicals is. Sometimes dozens or hundreds of chemicals are put into beer. The chemicals are not natural for the body, and they result in the body storing them. Unless the body is enriched with some degree of high- elimination practices, these substances are placed into the body, unfortunately stored for years, manifesting in cysts, or boils, or pimples and other irritations. Uric crystals are stored in the leg, and gout is the result. Once these substances are placed in the body, it is most difficult to remove them, but it is very easy to implant them! Care should be taken of what is ingested or put in the mouth (as it would be to guard all the gates of the body), for passing through the gate inward is easy; removing derogatory substances is not.
The function of the liver, the kidneys, the bladder, the gall, these are all important contributors to what would be imbalancing to the substances put through the intestine. The more acidic the diet (and, usually in the Western hemisphere, the diet is very acidic), the more corrosive the substances act in the body. Plugging up the perforations, the lesions, the lacerations, the thinning of the wall of the intestine, all should be considered ways and means to build up and to protect the intestine, and what is within the intestine (including the Peyer’s Patch, the source for building up the immunity in the body or that which regulates the immune system).
Poor diet? Yes, this is perhaps a place to start. Disciplining the self as to what to put into the body, this should be considered even before what is selected to be better food. It is better to eat of a wide variety of all things, of items of food, than it is to specialize of any given amounts of food, for the body requires assimilation from all things. The assimilative process should be such that what is given to the body should be of the freshest variety and grown in the vicinity or region in which the body resides, for then it would be in harmony with the body. A poor diet is not the only issue here; it is how the body is treated and how the body is provoked to produce extra corrosive substances for digestion, and through the assimilative process, the sluggishness in the intestine, the blockages in the intestine, and the body’s own function through the communicative systems of the nerves and circulatory system, so that there is a regulation or communication with the brain and those controlling centers in the brain. These, too, should be considered in addition to simply a poor diet. Why poison the self? Why give to the body those substances that are difficult to digest (or even derogatory to the body’s own health)? It makes no sense.
But understand this: whatever is put into the body, the body is forced to handle. It will protect the heart and the brain at the expense of other organs and other parts of the body. Look to the peripherals and when you find stiffness in the hands and feet, or when you find circulatory difficulties in the extremities, then you would know the body has been, for some time, protecting the major organs in the body, and the body has been polluted and continues to be the same. Exercise is necessary for the body, so that the arteries expand and contract. This simple function protects the arteries from sediments. Likewise, the intestine should be contracted and exercised. On occasion, it should be rested as well. Fasting is a good function for one to three days, occasionally. Cleansing the bowel also; washing the body on the inside is as important as washing the body on the outside. This, too, helps to prevent this leaky bowel syndrome by removing sediments, toxins, and waste from the body.
Remember always, when food is taken into the body, there are two processes: one, the assimilation, or the strengthening of the body, and the other the rejecting or elimination of what is taken into the body which is unwanted and unnecessary in building up the body (the waste result of the digestive and assimilative processes). See? Keep up eliminations as best as possible, and the leaky gut syndrome would abate. Pollutants and sediments would be removed from the body, for the body would work in reverse; instead of storing these pollutants in the nooks and crannies, it would seek them out and eliminate them, for now the eliminations have been activated or are the priority in the body. This is what all elimination practices are about, from the body perspiring, to increasing good bowel movements, to high amounts of water taken in to flush the body. See? All have their result in preventing sluggish activity in the gut (or the corrosive results of what is sluggish in the gut) and which leaks into the body, poisoning the body.
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