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Bacteria in our GI Tract: The Garden Within

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As promised in my last article about “Digestive Health”, I will explain what we mean by
“The Garden Within”.According to an estimation , there are between 300 and 1000 different species living inside our GI tract. The majority of micro organisms are bacteria which are present in our gut, and most of them come from 30 to 40 different species.

We also find fungi and protozoa, but its function is less well understood.
We think that these micro-organisms are symbiotic with their host, rather then just existing
together with no affect on each other. Symbiotic means that there are benefits for the host as well as for the bacteria. However, our gut also contains some harmful bacteria.
Because if they increase or become out of balance, they can cause serious problems and
even death to the host.
That’s why the key is balance when it concerns “The Garden Within”.

The gut of a new-born child is sterile or contains no flora. However, within one month
after the child that was born vaginally, their gut micro flora is well established.
At the age of two, the micro flora of the gut looks similar of that of an adult.
This balance appears to stay relatively normal and healthy, as long as our diet is healthy and no antibiotics are used. However, with the use of modern medicine of to-day it is rare to find someone who hasn’t taken some form of antibiotics in the last few months to a year or who is not eating a healthy diet.

When you add the All-American high-glycemic, and high sugar diet to the mix, you begin
feeding your fungi-like yeast much more than you do your bacteria.
Both the use of antibiotics and our poor diet has been shown to change our “Garden Within”, so that it is out of balance. This may have the effect that the yeast will overwhelm the GI flora,  causing a rise in vaginal yeast infections, and even in some cases, systemic yeast.

Antibiotics will destroy the bad bacteria that are the cause of illness, but unfortunately, they also destroy the good bacteria in your bowel. For example, clostridium is a species that is common in the GI tract and normally causes no problems.
However, as antibiotics can kill off the good bacteria, they allow clostridium difficile
(or G.difficile) to grow out of control, causing a heavy diarrhea for the person.
Even the antibiotics we find in our meat, milk and other foods can destroy enough good
bacteria to create an antibiotic induced diarrhea, as more of the good bacteria are destroyed, which allows the pathogenic bacteria to flourish.

We know of several healthy benefits from having a balanced micro flora in your GI tract.
Medical research have shown that the good bacteria in the gut have the following  benefits:

  • Help in the digestion of carbohydrates
  • Stimulates the immune system
  • Helps to absorb vitamin k, calcium and iron
  • Stimulates the lymphoid tissue of the gut,
    which also helps the immune system
  • Normally suppresses the grows of the
    bad or    pathogenic bacteria and fungi
  • Decreases the risk of allergic reactions
  • Has been associated with weight gain
    if it becomes out of balance

There are many other benefits of having a healthy, well-balanced GI flora;
however, there are also some negatives that occur from our GI flora.
They are able to break down certain protein fragments that can potentially be toxic to the GI tract and to the host.

These toxins have been associated with a greater risk of colon cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, leaky gut syndrome, auto immune disease , and irritable bowel disease.
This is why consuming adequate fiber in your diet is key in removing any of the toxins produced in the GI tract during digestion.
Fiber causes our bowels to eliminate those toxins much more quickly and much more effectively.

The Benefits of Raw Food

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It is a well known fact that with high temperatures when cooking, some vitamins will be destroyed, particularly vitamin C and vitamin B9 (folic acid). It may also render minerals inorganic and denature some proteins, and it certainly destroys the life force in raw plant food.

Cooking kills all enzymes. Their activity increases as the temperature rises, but only up to 42 degrees C, after which enzyme activeness slows down. If the food is heated to 48 degrees C for more than half an hour, all enzymes are completely destroyed. In contrast, dry heat would not be destructive to enzymes until around 150 degrees C,
but this is theoretical, as all foods contain moisture.

Thus cooking and pasteurisation completely destroy the natural, health-giving enzymes that are present in all raw foods.

Like vitamins, enzymes are present in all vegetable and animal tissue in their natural state.
They are the biological catalists that trigger off all the millions of chemical changes that are taking place within the human body, every second of our life. There are tens of thousands of enzymes working away in our body – with something like 50.000 in the liver alone! And each of them has his own specific purpose.

When food intake is above starvation level and all the necessary nutrients are provided, the less food that is consumed on a long-term basis by humans, animals
and  insects, the longer they live.
When the air temperature raises, causes insects to be much more active, but they die sooner because their enzymes are used up more rapidly. Enzyme supply may well be the yardstick of vitality.

It is accepted in general, that the enzymes in food cannot work in our bodies, although Dr. Edward Howell has written a book :”Food Enzymes for health and longevity”, in which he states that there is strong evidence to the contrary.

The enzymes in raw food commence the digestion of each morsel the moment the food’s cell walls are ruptured by chewing. The food enzymes assist our own  digestive enzymes, easing the load on the organs that produce our enzymes, particularly  the pancreas. When humans eat cooked food, the pancreas is enlarged due to overwork.
In fact, oriental people on a high carbohydrate cooked diet, mainly rice, have pancreas approximately half as big as Westerners .

All animals in the wild consume abundant enzymes in their always raw diets. Some have a separate stomach in which the food enzymes pre-digest food before the body’s digestive enzymes are called upon, for example, the rumen in the cow.

The enzyme content of organically-grown food that has ripened at its source (on the tree, vine etc.) is significantly higher than conventionally-grown foods.

When raw food enzymes reach the bowel, they encourage the friendly gut bacteria by binding any oxygen present, thus eliminating the aerobic conditions in which harmful bacteria grow and cause putrefaction, toxaemia and ultimately degenerative diseases, including cancer.
When the harmful bacteria are gone, beneficial bacteria, like acidophilus and bifido bacteria can flourish and carry out their vital functions, including the manufacture of B vitamins, digestion of fiber, and production of natural ‘antibiotics’ against pathogenic bacteria.

In the highly cooked Western diet, a high incidence of arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other degenerative conditions is exactly what can be expected as a result of enzyme damage.

In contrast, the remarkable therapeutic value of a short-term diet of raw fresh fruits and vegetables and/or their juices, which have been employed all over the world, is exactly what we would expect.