THE DIGESTIVE TRACT AND THE IMMUNE SYSTEM August 2004 It will be difficult to address this subject in a few paragraphs and oversimplification can sometimes confuse an issue as well. Nonetheless, this is an important subject that is often overlooked and deserves more attention and awareness. Over recent years there has been increased research and textbooks on the subject of impaired digestion and its role in inflammatory and immunological conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases. Let's illustrate with an example. Over the years practitioners involved in nutrition and dietary management have known of people with rheumatoid arthritis that experienced far less joint pain by eliminating certain foods from their diet. Although the foods may vary from person to person, some of the most common foods that can be problematic include: wheat and other gluten based products, sugar, processed flour products, corn and related corn based products, dairy products, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, fast foods, food colorings and preservatives. Unfortunately for some people the list can be longer. When they remove these items from their diet it can be pretty dramatic how quickly their joint pain improves. Another example - people experiencing multiple joint pains during bouts of colitis or irritable bowel syndrome. The same can be seen with increased reactions to foods during spring or fall allergy season. This further demonstrates the connection between the digestive tract and the immune system. How can we begin to understand these reactions? This is a complicated subject but let us try to share a few facts that may be helpful. The digestive tract contains a very large amount of lymphoid tissue, which controls the release of white blood cells and immune responses to undigested food, bacteria, virus, parasites, etc. This reaction can be altered if the digestive tract cells involved with this process are irritated or damaged by too much coffee, medications, sugar, unhealthy water, soda, and other irritating substances. Put simply, unhealthy cells will not function properly and in the digestive tract this can begin to effect not only digestion but also immune and inflammatory conditions as well. For some people beginning the process back to good health may require a healthy diet, digestive enzymes, acidophilus to restore normal micro flora, and nutrients such as L-glutamine to repair the cells of the digestive tract. This can be an important adjunct along with proper medical evaluation and treatment for some of the above mentioned immune and inflammatory disorders. So once again we see that a healthy diet is one of the most important foundational pieces to proper health and the ability of the body to maintain its own healing mechanisms.
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