How to Restore Your Body's
Digestive Health
How to Restore Your Body's Digestive Health 
Published: Monday, February 26, 2007 1:50 PM CST
E-mail this story | Print this page
 |
(ARA) - If you're one of the more than 100 million Americans who suffer from symptoms such as heartburn, nausea, flatulence or burping and irregular bowel movements, maybe it's time to take a natural approach to digestive health.
In addition to causing discomfort that can range from annoying to debilitating, digestive disorders keep your system from absorbing and assimilating nutrients, which means you're not getting adequate protein, fats, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants which your body needs to sustain optimal health.
Digestonal is a natural digestive aid that relies on time-tested traditional remedies like artichoke leaf extract, mastic gum, DigeZyme and Lactospore to boost the body's ability to absorb and assimilate nutrients without harmful side effects.
Artichoke leaf extract helps promote bile flow while mastic gum, a natural substance from the sap of a variety of pistachio trees, protects the digestive system against duodenal and peptic ulcers, eradicating gastrointestinal bacteria and soothing dyspeptic complaints. Digestonal also contains DigeZyme, a multi-enzyme complex that promotes digestion and Lactospore, which promotes gastrointestinal health by growing "good" bacteria.
That's very different from how prescription and over-the-counter medications work. While these products can provide quick, temporary relief from dyspepsia, they do so by blocking or neutralizing gastric acid. However, stomach acids and bile flow help maintain normal health in the gastrointestinal tract, and blocking them may make the condition worse by disturbing the normal feedback mechanism controlling stomach health.
Stomach acid is essential for proper functioning of the digestive system. It activates digestive enzymes that break down food into small particles for absorption. Low acidity may result in only partial digestion of foods. A combination of low acidity and undigested food makes it easier for bacteria and parasites to colonize the stomach or small intestine, and interfere with digestion and absorption.
But an estimated 30 percent of North Americans have low stomach acid, which helps explain the large numbers of people suffering from dyspepsia. Yet most medications contain antacids or acid blockers - the opposite of what common sense would tell you your body needs.
Digestonal is available only online. To see what natural relief feels like, visit www.Digestonal.com.
Copyright © 2006, ARA Content
======================
Halina Hladysz: Natural sweetener has health benefits
Halina Hladysz: Natural
sweetener has health benefits
Henry Miller, a famous American writer, said that Americans will eat garbage, provided it is liberally sprinkled with ketchup.
Let me paraphrase him, “We will eat garbage, provided it is liberally sprinkled with sugar.”
We can sugarcoat our food, but we cannot sugarcoat our statistics. The average adult consumes more than180 pounds of sugar each year, which amounts to almost half a pound a day. That is more than 13,000 pounds of sugar during an average lifetime.
And, we pay the price.
Health experts agree that overuse of sugar is at least partly responsible for a myriad of diseases and conditions such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes, Syndrome-X (heart disease) and ADHD. As an example, 15 million Americans suffer from diabetes. Each year, 798,000 new cases are diagnosed. That is almost 2,200 cases each day, 90 cases each hour.
Sugar is often disguised in everyday products. Look for these ingredients on food labels: sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup, simple syrup, glucose, dextrose, fructose, molasses, maltose, invert sugar, laevulose and lactose. I encourage you to find the hidden sugars in your foods.
I found out from my clients that we are oblivious to how much sugar we consume from even the most innocent looking foods. Two graham crackers contain one teaspoon of sugar; one piece of bubble gum — two teaspoons; one slice white bread — three teaspoons; 1/2 cup gelatin — four teaspoons; a 2.1-ounce Milky Way bar — nine teaspoons; one cup low-fat fruit yogurt — 11 teaspoons; and 12-ounce orange soda — 12 teaspoons. One teaspoon equals five grams of sugar.
Some people switch to artificial sweeteners, but these man-made chemicals cause more health problems than they prevent (that’s a subject for an entirely different article).
Do you recognize yourself in the picture I have presented so far? Are you enticed by sweet-tasting foods? Are you trying to make changes in your diet and do not know where to start? I believe that the most crucial step you could take is cutting down on sugar consumption. It appears so difficult but please, read on and learn that it need not be as painful a process as you have imagined.
Stevia — a sweet herb
Stevia ([i stevia rebaudiana]) is a small South American shrub known for its incredible sweetness. Native cultures have used stevia as a natural sweetener since at least the 16th century.
Today, stevia is grown worldwide for its amazing properties and is most widely recognized and used as a non-sugar sweetener in food and drinks. In fact, stevia accounts for nearly 40 percent of the sweetener market in Japan where it is used as a tabletop sweetener and to sweeten a variety of food products, including ice cream, bread, candies, pickles, seafood, vegetables and soft drinks. It is mainly in Japan where stevia’s safety was proven through extensive scientific testing; however, other countries throughout the world have come to the same conclusion.
The main active ingredient in stevia leaves is stevioside, contributing to its sweetening properties. Stevia in its natural form (powdered leaves) is approximately 10 to 15 times sweeter than common table sugar; its extract (a white powder comprised of 85 percent stevioside) can range from 200 to 300 times sweeter. In addition, stevia is virtually calorie-free and its extracts are considered non-caloric.
The best news for all of us — especially for those who have a sweet tooth and suffer from any health weakness resulting from sugar overeating — is that stevia does not negatively affect blood sugar metabolism.
As a matter of fact, preliminary research on people suffering from diabetes indicates that stevia may help reduce blood sugar levels by increasing insulin secretion.
How do you like it so far? But wait, there is more. A study was conducted with people suffering from high blood pressure. After three months of treatment with 250 mg of stevioside taken three times a day, both systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased significantly and the effect continued during the course of the one-year study.
Researchers concluded that stevioside is a well tolerated and effective therapy which may be considered as an alternative or supplementary therapy for hypertension.
One more health-benefit from stevia — it significantly inhibits the growth of plaque in the mouth, preventing tooth decay.
I hope I have convinced you to add stevia to your grocery list and make it a major part of your New Year’s health resolutions. Stevia is available in health food stores where you will find all the handy information as to how much to use and how to replace sugar in your favorite recipes.
A practical way of introducing stevia is to mix it first with other sweeteners, such as honey or sugar; this will enable you to reduce the amounts of these unhealthy sugars and reduce the calories while you are getting used to cooking with this wonderful herb.
In February, I will present information about healing sugars. And for now I wish you all a Happy New Year!
This column is for informational purposes only and should not be used to diagnose or treat diseases. If you have a serious health problem, consult a competent health practitioner. Halina Hladysz of Rapid City is a certified Master of Holistic Healing, a natural health consultant, an herbalist, holistic nutritionist and certified iridologist. You can write to her in care of The Rapid City Journal, Box 450, Rapid City, SD 57709, or send her e-mail messages at health@...
Subscribe to the Rapid City Journal
Rapid Reply
orl jqcks wrote on January 26, 2007 1:47 PM:"what about high blood pressure? I support bitter melon as a supplement and alpha lipoic acid for sugar supplements. Mork/orlando submitted 1-26-07"
Send us your Rapid Reply
Healing properties of
By Halina Hladysz,
Journal columnist
Over the years, I have written about the healing properties of many herbs, and the question which often gnawed at a scientifically-inclined mind was what exactly in these herbal plants was helping to improve a person’s health.
And oftentimes, there was no answer. Some of these herbs, such as Chinese edible mushroom cordyceps (cordyceps sinensis), have been used in medicine for thousands of years; others, such as our native echinacea (echinacea purpurea) or aloe vera (aloe barbadensis), have been helping people recover from ill conditions for hundreds of years.
Essentially, science provided no answers as to why these healing abilities occurred; however, empirically, many cases of improved health confirmed restorative capabilities. For instance, cordyceps has a multitude of curative potentials. It combats fatigue, promotes longevity and enhances vitality, endurance and stamina; it stimulates and regulates the immune function, helping in treatment of auto-immune diseases and cancers; it restores sexual function, promotes fertilization and helps with menopausal symptoms; it helps in the treatment of arrhythmia and lowers cholesterol and triglycerides; it treats respiratory system diseases, such as bronchial inflammation, chronic bronchitis, asthma and pneumonia; and it helps with chronic kidney diseases, including kidney failure. This list is so impressive it stirs the desire to know what makes cordyceps — and other herbs with a similar medicinal punch — herbal workhorses.
In the past 25 years, scientific research has led to a discovery and to a dramatically increased knowledge of the tremendous healing properties of saccharides, special sugars. Of the more than 200 sugars, eight are essential to optimal body functioning. Interestingly, glucose — found in table sugar — is one of the eight essential saccharides. This one we eat too much of. The remaining seven essential sugars are fucose (please note — not fructose), galactose, N-acetylgalactosamine, N-acetylglucosamine, N-acetylneuraminic acid, mannose and xylose. These are scarce in our diet.
These eight saccharides are essential because they serve as the building blocks for manufacturing glycoforms which are large molecules made of sugars in combination with proteins and/or fats. (Glyco in Greek means “sweet.”)
Glycoforms cover the surface of every cell in our body, relaying important information between cells. Without this proper communication between cells, our body loses its multicellular intelligence and is prone to “confusion” and disease.
The eight essential sugars have shown in hundreds of clinical trials to:
* Modulate autoimmune diseases by correcting the miscommunication between immune cells (Conditions which might be helped are MS, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s disease and more)
* Strengthen the immune system
* Prevent autoimmune diseases
* Overcome inflammatory conditions
* Reduce severity of urinary tract infections and candida
* Fight viral infections (including common cold, influenza, herpes and hepatitis)
* Fight bacterial infections
* Ease symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Gulf War syndrome
* Alleviate allergy symptoms and ease asthma
* Alleviate symptoms of chronic diseases such as kidney disease
* Lower cholesterol
* Keep blood sugar levels balanced (for hypoglycemia and diabetes type II)
* Help combat heart disease
* Decrease body fat and increase lean muscle mass
* Control obesity
* Increase efficiency of an athletic workout
* Enhance wound healing (including wounds from burns and skin conditions from poison ivy and psoriasis)
* Help inhibit tumors, including cancerous tumors
* Lessen the toxic effects of radiation and chemotherapy
* Decrease depression, ADD/ADHD and other brain-dysfunction conditions
* Improve memory
Correcting deficiencies of the eight essential sugars in our diet may have a profound effect on our health.
In my next articles (March 12 and April 9) I will continue this subject — describing the role of each of the essential saccharides, listing the foods and supplements which are rich in them and describing some of the ill conditions which may be helped by a particular group of saccharides.
In the meantime, you may start incorporating the essential sugars into your body with a supplement such as Glyco Essentials. It contains not only the essential sugars but also several herbs high in those sugars. Glyco Essentials is available in health food stores.
This column is for informational purposes only and should not be used to diagnose or treat diseases. If you have a serious health problem, consult a competent health practitioner. Halina Hladysz of Rapid City is a certified Master of Holistic Healing, a natural health consultant, a clinical herbalist, a holistic nutritionist and a certified Cleansing Specialist. You can write to her in care of The Rapid City Journal, Box 450, Rapid City, SD 57709, or send her e-mail messages at health@..., or visit www.halina-health.com.
Subscribe to the Rapid City Journal
Online Now 
Send Email