Can You Actively Heal Villi? Okra Or Wine?

[cs789]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience with heling their villi?

Or does anyone know of any research about that topic?

I have read about OKRA pills & wine recently.

I have read allot of posts recently about wine having potential benefits relating to gluten (mostly becasue the protein is Alcohol soluble - and that makes since but....)

But isn't Alcohol absorbed through the stomach - therefore it won't make it to your Small intestines?

So if that is true - won't the benefits be limited to drinking wine with gluten. And for the celiac that would be silly to eat gluten - even with Wine. I guess there are other benefits.

I have read alcohol relaxes the intestines and colon. And the antioxidents and other benefits etc.....

But wheer is alcohol absorbed in the human body? The stomach or the intestines?

HOw about - this product - Okra-Pepsin-E3 - anyone heard of it - supposedly helps heal the villi - according tho some moarketing stuff on this page. Open Original Shared Link

Anyone have any experience with this OKRA thing - or anything relating to healing properties of okra?

How about other proactive ways to heal villi. in addition to the gluten-free diet.

My son has celiac - and for the occasional time when he gets gluten - we are looking for ways to speed the recovery.....he has behavioral syptoms for a week (we think becasue he's exahsted and hungry) even after his tummy feels better.

He has been gluten-free for 18 months and we have only had 3 or 4 times where he's been "glutened" .....this week we think it was in french fries or Restaurant Corn Tortillas.

He is now 6 in Kindergarten and a troopper - all of his teachers tell us he is so good with the diet - when they forget he always remembers.

He's teaching us so much in matters of "change" - it's only a matter of will power if you associate no negative consequences. If you have negative consequences it's easy to stay gluten-free or whatever - you just have to tie in the consequences in your mind.

[Cinnamon]

That was my first thought, too, after reading the wine post, that alcohol is absorbed through the stomach. That's what I'd always heard. But when I double checked it, I found out that 20% of alcohol is absorbed through the stomach and 80% through the small intestine, according to the sites that came up when I googled it. I also had read about okra being very healing and wanted to try it, but couldn't find any okra pills and I don't think my kids would eat okra. So I tried Slippery Elm which is supposed to also be very mucilaginous, and I did think it helped, it's hard to tell. It certainly didn't hurt.

[babysteps]

you might find pickled okra works with kids - Trader Joe's has sometimes, comes mild/medium/hot, and somehow being pickled it isn't slimy. depending on age, don't even tell them what it is, just put out a bowl and start snacking, they can try for themselves.

could also use okra as small ingredient in larger casserole or soup

fresh okra seems much less slimy than canned

[CuriousOne]

Yeah it makes sense to eat meals, especially gluey meals...with wine.

So wine and cheese... wine and grains...

If you drink it during the meal..it would mix and slush around in the stomach...helping the stuff dissolve easier I would guess...

Actual Cs, I was JUST thinking this exact same thing, and I was waiting to get home to write a post on this...

Basically after reading DogtorJ.net, I realized something... a way to speed healing of the villi.

Basically, I can imagine it like this. Your villi are flattened, damaged, or totally wiped out. That would mean that your not going to be absorbing food as well... so you really have to be careful how you eat. Reason is, I would guess lots of food would just sit in your intestine...not getting absorbed.... which would then become food for the bad bacteria.

Eating the gluey stuff would just add to the problem...like dairy, corn, soy... even rice and other grains can sorta be sticky in the tract.

So that could be where wine could help. Basically I think you can speed the recovery time of your tract by making sure your tract is not full of mucous...not clogged up...etc etc. Heck... I even read a study that the cell walls of candida yeast is similar to the gluten stuff...so if you have candida your body mounts an immune response against candida also... causes even more flattening of villi...

So that could be why this beast is so tricky. Like dogtorj says... you might have to go off not only gluten, but dairy, corn, and soy...and even all grains if its that bad.

But I think we can also look at proper food combining...which could allow you to tolerate some of the harder to digest stuff easier...and with wine maybe even easier.

I just started food combing today and I feel much better already. Makes complete sense. I gotta go, more later.

[spunky]

Yes, I'm with Curious ONe... Dogtor J has said that other foods that have glue-like proteins, dairy proteins, soy, and corn to a lesser extent, can retard the healing of the villi.

So the best thing might be to avoid soy, dairy, and possibly corn at least for the first year or so.

I'm not sure I'll ever add those back to my diet, except I do eat corn, but I try to limit that to no more than a couple of times per week, overtly (I don't watch for corn starch, etc. in labels... it's bad enough having to scrutinize everything for gluten).

The specific carbohydrate diet sounds like something that would promote faster healing of the villi.

But it seems to me, the best way to aid their healing is to just don't do anything that might interfere with that healing process... i.e., just get out of the way and let them heal.

[CuriousOne]

I think if you decide you do want to eat dairy, corn, soy, or anything else that might be very cloggy/gluey to the digestive tract, then I think you should eat it separately, at the very least...in your diet.

I was reading about Susan Somers book (yes, lol)...on the active low-carbing forums. She's all about food combining after going to France and having an interesting experience there. Now she can eat basically any type of food, but found that properly combined she had more energy/lost weight..etc etc.

I think the less work you give your digestive tract, the more time you are giving it to heal/detoxify/clean itself...and to heal the villi...that seems to be the main jist.

I think thats basically what say...the traditional french/italian/mediterranean cultures have excelled at. Digestive health... Knowing what foods, in what quanities, in what combinations, at what times... to keep the digestive system in the best shape, but also while maximizing satiety, and that good feeling you get when you have good food in your stomach...but also that good feeling you get when your GI tract is clean...

The cleaner your GI tract, the more efficient you will be at absorption. Also you will "feel" cleaner and lighter...instead of mucousy/foggy/bogged down...

If you look at the Warrior diet...he recommend 20 hours of undereating, with 4 hours of overeating a day. So basically, during the day you undereat all day long on live fruits/veggies... maybe minimal protein... but basically no fat. The point is to allow those veggies/fruits to go through and help with the detox process. Then, come dinnertime, you feast the bulk of your calories.

But with this WOE (way of eating)... you actually end up absorbing more of your food because your GI tract gets cleaner...

Anyways, the point is I think people with damaged villi have to be Phd's about all this diet stuff...and really understand what is going on....because they are probably susceptible to much more than the average population if they don't have clean digestive tracts.

I can just imagine a whole bunch of bad bacteria,fungi, and parasites that really are feasting on some of us... because with damaged villi.. the food sits there and doesn't get absorbed as well. Top that off with still eating other gluey foods...which also don't get absorbed as well. We could be creating a Thanksgiving feast for the bad guys...and who knows, maybe this is the reason for why we all feel so crappy...not just malabsorption... but the huge amount of toxins all these bad guys are creating for us...because we are providing a home for them.

[spunky]

Well, there's a lot of interesting theories out there, and I truly do believe that everyone is a little different, and needs to find their own way, etc.

I was already dairy-free before I cut out the gluten...I was vegan, and started getting sicker and sicker and sicker, then after searching for WHY for 5 or 6 years, found gluten was my answer. Being vegan, I wasn't eating any dairy, but tons of gluten and soy.

So I cut out the gluten and changes began to happen, although I wasn't really that much better, but still I could tell by the symtpoms I 'd been having like clockwork, everyday, during different times of the day... there was a disruption in those symptoms about 2 weeks after I got off gluten. So I knew something was happening. I felt really good at 7 months, but then soon after started having some symptoms again (not as bad as the gluten ones had been) and after lots of searching again, found soy was messing me up.

So, then I discovered Dogtor J's site and read about his idea of the glue foods... and thought, well, I'm already off dairy, gluten, and soy. I go easy on the corn for now, but I do eat it.

I think the specific carbohydrate diet sounds interesting and I could see where following that for a couple of years would be healing for a lot of people....they do allow dairy, but it's stuff like fermented or aged things so the proteins and sugars are all different than they would be otherwise.

Anyway, it seems to me our bodies all react differently, especially those of us who have been totally screwed up by gluten, and our immune systems don't know how to stop the battles, not for a while. I think everybody's gotta be alert as to which things hold them back and which things promote their own healing.

Also, the most frustrating thing in my experience, is that the healing takes TIME. And during the healing time, a lot of strange things can happen and sometimes you can't tell if you got glutened, or a new food senisitivty popped up, or it's just some weird change your body is going through while healing from the gluten. All that just about drove me nuts for several months, like from month 8 through about month 16... there was a span of time there where there was just a lot of ups and downs that I couldn't make much sense of.

I really think there is a big difference around the 2 year mark, and some of the things that happen before that time may just be unexplainable.

[holiday16]

I just spoke with my NP last week and she recommends L-Glutamine. She said it would heal the intestines faster. The one she gave me is L-Glutamine Plus by Nutri-West. I used it for something else before the whole gluten thing (which she was the one to diagnosis), but did not try it for healing. My symptoms were more neurological so I wasn't as focused on healing the gut since that was not where most of my issues were.

I'm pretty sure L-glutamine has been discussed on the board before so you can probably find more information about it with a search.

[CuriousOne]

A person gave me a bottle of powdered L-glutamine or whatever even before I knew it was good for intestinal healing. hows that for fate...hehe

Spunky - hmm..interesting. It seems you have problems with anything that glues up your intestines... or that, you are sensitive to a state of your GI tract when its gluey...

either from gluten, dairy or soy...

And I would guess its because... when your GI tract is gluey you might have some stuff in there that feeds off it, producing symtpoms...thats why it only got better for you when you finally got off soy? possibly??

I should find the article...but basically the article said our body actually gets an immune-response to candida...because it looks like gluten... so... it would make sense if your eating foods that glue, and you have issues with candida (from impaired immune system -which, has many causes)...

then... your going to not have fast healing of the villi...because candida also causes villi to die.

If this theory is true...it was only after you got rid of the glue, which got rid of the home for the candida... that stopped the killing of your villi...allowing them to regrow!

I think Rachel24 is onto something (sorry rachel haven't really talked to you before if you read this)...but how candida is really mainly present, or at least the imbalance of it...because of an impaired immune system...and that can happen for so many reasons.

One huge reason is pure and simple lack of sleep. Take away something we are designed for (sleeping when the sun goes down)...and what happens? I would guess most of the world that stays up into the artificial nights is operating with a lower immune system.

[Lenny]

Here are the things I do. No idea whether these things heal villi, specifically.

Okra-Pepsin - I wouldn't normally bring this one up but since you mentioned it in the first post...I am currently taking this but have no idea whether it works. That one paper that was linked to is pretty much all I've found on it. As far as I know, there's no definitive evidence that it really works so I'd put it in the "can't hurt" category.

L-Glutamine - As was mentioned before, this is needed to rebuild your intestines so it's a good idea. I take 2 grams daily.

Slippery Elm - I think it's pretty well accepted at this point that it's soothing to the intestines.

Aloe Vera Juice - I drink around 12oz daily (Trader Joe's has a good bargain) and also have something called "stomach formula", made by Lilly of the Desert. That has aloe in it along with slippery elm, peppermint and several other things known to soothe the intestines. There's a nice little study that was done in the 80s, which I'd recommend looking up. Aloe was shown to reduce the quantity of pathogens while increasing beneficial flora (tested in stool samples).

Probiotics - I rotate several. When it rebuilding mode, I think larger than normal quantities are justified. I take several a day sometimes.

Chlorella - It's a proven detoxifier that can also help with regularity. I have seem claims that it makes beneficial flora multiply at something like 4 or 5 times the normal rate. I have found nothing to substantiate this, though.

Fiber - I get plenty of fiber in food but have been taking extra fiber pills for a while to cleanse the intestines. Before I gave up gluten (again) a couple of weeks ago it didn't matter how much fiber I took, I never got constipated and my stool consistency was never right. Now, in just over 2 weeks with no gluten or dairly, that's changed and things are looking much better so I don't know that I'll need the extra fiber much longer.

[spunky]

Well, Curious One and others... I do believe, both from reading and especially from how things worked out for me, that the probiotic, or good bacteria environment of our intestines is definitely screwed up in certain situations... gluten intolerance might be one of them or even the promotor of getting the bacteria all off balance in the first place... I don't know. I guess yeasts and stuff could find opportunities to crowd more than their share of intestinal space in those situations.

But my first year and a half gluten free I needed to take Digestive Advantage for IBS (probiotic which has something else, can't remember what right now) to function at all... the stuff really helped me a lot. I'd read about Culturelle on Kenneth Fine's site, took it once and it made me really sick... I mean BAD D... so I stopped with that stuff, but the DA for IBS never did bother me, just helped me to remain functional that first year where all kinds of strange things kept happening, so I could at least get to work and keep up with my obligations and stuff.

The soy seemed to be no problem until I was almost an entire year gluten free. I hadn't eaten dairy for so many years, I have no idea what that would even do at this point. I'm not sure the corn bothers me, but it seems to me, now, and I don't take Digestive Advantage anymore... but it seems that whenever things get a little rocky (never anywhere near as bad as before I stopped the gluten two years ago), I can think back that I've had a lot of things made with tortillas or something like that in the few days prior... given what I read about DogtorJ's "glue" theory, I have opted to hold back on corn....and I try to limit my tortillas and stuff to two or three times a week. I'm not 100% sure it's a problem for me, but I'm still kinda wary of it and it seems to have been around a lot whenever my intestines do anything on the order of strange.

A big surprise for me was that as much as I keep trying... I can't seem to tolerate eggs anymore. I was vegan for years and didn't even try and had had no egg problems ever in my life before that, but then after gluten-free, started picking up fish/eggs/chicken, stuff like that again... I've tried regular grocery store eggs, organic, free range, etc., and still can't seem to eat eggs without getting sick.

So, whatever, I think it could be true that our microbes get all out of wack if something like gluten totally messes our intestines up, then you have to allow or encourage enough healing for the good microbes to get a chance to crowd out the bad guys again. Maybe some foods will trigger some of that up again throughout life, or maybe those other reactions could eventually stop... I don't know.

I don't really know or even care if I can't ever eat soy again, and not worried about trying dairy. But I do wish I could eat eggs... because we can have chickens were we are and I would get some chickens in a heartbeat if I knew I could use the eggs.

It seems that I can tolerate eggs in some things (wasabi mayonnaise from Trader Joe's) on occasion with no problem... but whenever I just try to eat eggs, I get sick again...not bad, but enough to be bothersome. I don't know how it all works... but I am so glad I finally just got the gluten out of my life, and if I'm careful to avoid soy and not too much eggs and possibly go easy on the corn, I feel so much better I can't begin to explain it!!!

However it all works, or whatever is going on inside those intestines... I am just so glad to be off the gluten and back to feeling like a human being again!

[solange]

OKRA,KOMBUCHA, KIMCHI, NO DAIRY, well, I never heard of okra as a healer until I bought some at an asian market, checked it out on the internet to see if it fit my specific carb diet, and discovered it was used to heal cattle's intestinal problems. So I tried it causciously and did well with it. I have been eating it once a week as part of my rotation diet. I am happy to report that three and a half years after declared celiac, I can now eat most starches again. (that is six months after starting okra, and I don't know if it had anything to do with it).It has been a long haul, and I did wonder at times if I'd ever get better. I have made my third batch of gluten free waffles without guar gum or xantham gum, because those are questionable for the intestines and I am planning on making my own bread as well, since all the store bought kinds contain gum.

I think that the turnpoint in my recovery was when I finally faced the fact that I cannot do dairy either.

no gluten, no sugars, no corn, no soy, and finally no dairy either. then things got better and I could start eating starchy foods and sugars again within a few months. I must also give credit to kombucha and Kimchi for helping repopulate the good flora/fight the bad flora. I still do those regularly, besides, I like them, Kombucha is a satisfying replacement for beer, kimchi is a fine condiment . It is hard to pin point what does what, but getting off dairy was essential.eating smaller quantities of food might have been important too, not easy when you are hungry ALL THE TIME, but probably contributing to reducing the putrefaction in the intestine. Also, I do B12 injections, and I am convinced that it is not a luxury. when I delay my next shot, I get very run down, and within two days of the injection, I have a surge of energy. I don't think that the sublingual ones were cutting it for me. I have slowly been putting on some weight, I have stopped been cold all the time, and my energy level is pretty good again. As one sees progress , the moral gets better too.

[CuriousOne]

I think a good long period of intestinal detoxification/cleaning is very important. Although I do still think wine might be some sort of magic ticket... it just seems it could be, judging by the way it is used.... in countries that eat different types of food that are gluey. I bet without wine they would not be in good health...eating all those foods. For some reason I have a hard time buying wine at the store. I guess I always thought it was a pointless food, only being used to get intoxicated...and I never liked to drink alot. I remember sorta being fascinated with the idea that wine was drunk in meals in Europe, and always wondered why... I know its good to relax (which is good for digestion)...but to me that answer was not good enough...and now after studying all this villi/digestion stuff I think I realize why... and I'm glad DogtorJ was thinking similar things. Sorta one of those lightbulb moments I guess.

So thinking about it, I think its just very important to keep the tract clean. And you an do that brute force with wine it seems...or without it you need a good daily period of detoxification/cleaning for the intestines.

I think a good long sleep would take care of this...every single night. It would be the time for your whole body to clean, detox, and repair.

Right now I am sorta following the warrior diet. The premise is you go all day UNDEReating on live fruits and veggies. Then at night you OVEReat the bulk of your calories and rest... The undereating phase is for detox. The past week I've actually been just eating a bit of fruit/veggies until 12 noon. I found it works good. But now I'm going to try to go longer. I made it to 5 today with zero problems. First day.

But I'm not sure if its really necessary... if I'm going to start also going to start putting candles on at 7 pm... because ensuring a long period of rest at night will give me a good amount of detox already.

Thinking back to when I felt really good about a year and a half ago... I was doing the sleep thing. But also I was doing physical labor during most days. I was outside..and if I wasn't working I was working in my garden or taking dogs for walks. I don't think I was eating all the time really. I just had a forward momentum of energy that I kept going... and I didn't think as much about food.

I also noticed that I was more sensitive to carbohydrates during that time. If I ate them I could really feel them working fast... I think long periods of sleep also help you become more insulin sensitive... which is also what the warrior diet does.

So I guess the point is you can work it different ways. But the important thing I think for all people on this forum is to be aware of your digestive tract. Give it a good cleaning everyday. I'm personally starting to convince myself that using wine could be a very good tool to give you more flexibility. If its possible that the reason I felt so good getting so much sleep was the result of intestinal cleaning more than anything....then could I achieve the same results by just drinking a good 2-3 glasses of wine everyday? I have no idea!

But wouldn't that be neat. Because it would ultimately give you more flexibility in a modern day society that doesn't sleep. I mean it seems Europeans don't just go to bed at 7 pm obviously. They stay up pretty late. So with wine you wouldn't have to be tied to a long sleep period every night...or a long period of undereating for detox during the day... I suppose you could still do a breakfast detox with a few pieces of fruit till 12.

But maybe wine isn't some magic ticket. I honestly haven't tried this experiment out. But if I did, I would probably try to drink a half bottle of wine a day like the Spaniards. I would still cut out gluten. But I would allow myself others grains, or dairy even. I don't know..maybe it could be good.

I'm not against doing things out of the ordinary, or that would cause me to have an adjusted social life (putting on candles at 7 pm and going to bed by 8:30-9)...especially if it made me feel so good. But obviously you would think if you could feel just as good and not be tied down to a sleep schedule like that... its something to look into. I'll have to experiment..

[spunky]

Well, this is all very interesting!

I never thought of it before, but it does seem the big bread and pasta cultures are very big wine drinkers...so maybe that helps turn the digestion into something similar that ruminents would normally have, if one follows Dogtor J's "glue food" idea and how ruminents allow alcohols to form in their multiple stomachs that break down those gluey proteins, etc.

Curious One, how do you soak your rice? I just cook it and eat it, but, unfortunately, it seems too much rice can also mess me up a little bit. Now that I've had a good taste of feeling good, I seem to be extra-annoyed at any mild intestinal problems. I feel if my body is saying don't eat so much rice, I have to listen to it.

Coming from a vegan background (which I really think triggered a celiac response in me... all that bread, pasta, and fake meats), the idea of so many grains seeming to bother me is kind of freaky and shocking.

Sometimes it seems I actually do better with a plate full of wild salmon and steamed veggies... sort of paleo type diet. It seems to go counter to my "intellect," or what I always "thought" was the perfect human diet...vegan... but now I'm pretty confused. I do better with an assortment of fruits, veggies (most seem fine eithe raw or cooked... ), and so I could just be a raw vegan or even a grain-free vegan, but that feels too much like starvation... so now I eat wild fish and either Amish-raised or free range poultry, plus a few other things I find I can eat with no problems.

Anyway... I don't know how to soak rice. I'm wondering if I could eat more of it without any problem if I soaked it first.

I've thought about trying the specific carbohydrate diet a few times, but that seems restrictive too...but if it made a person entirely well with no symptoms ever again, it sounds like it'd be worth it.

I think your kimchi probably does the same as the Digestive Advantage... probiotics.

[CuriousOne]

Hey Spunky,

For about a month I was pretty much raw vegan. I didn't seem to have digestive/candida issues during that time at all. I wasn't even aware of gluten or candida at that point, all I know was that I felt really good. I felt VERY cleaned up from the inside out. But I did lose some weight.

I think its Jesus in the Essene Gospels that says do not eat anything that is dead or frozen. So basically that would be raw fruits and veggies (live) and live goats milk or kefir. Honestly the way I felt being 100% raw was like I was vibrating on another higher level. It felt so good. I think if I coupled that with some kefir for the protein... it would seem like a very sustainable way to live, and also karmically.

Right now I'm also eating very paleo. In fact, I just haven't even eaten rice in over a week now and don't have desire to... I notice that I get sorta bloaty with it. I don't know...I guess I'm just getting more and more away from grains the less I eat.

To soak rice, I read a thing on the net that says to soak them overnight or 24 hours with an acidic medium. That could be whey or lemon I think. You could google it. It just removes the anti-nutrients...although rice supposedly has lower amounts of phytic acid or whatever the anti-nutrients are... compared to other grains.

I went to bed with my special light last night at 7 pm...it was very nice.

[spunky]

Thanks, I'll try soaking my rice next time.

Discovering my gluten problem pretty much ended veganism for me. I tried raw and I also just tried eating something like Eat-to-Live, where you eat mostly just fruits, veggies and nuts, some cooked and some raw. On both of those, I've been so hungry I just can't stand it.

I've been extremely hungry my whole life (although not overweight). I've read this can be a symptom of celiac in and of itself, so I wonder about that. However, when I was a regular, grain-eating, low-fat vegan (followed McDougall plan for around 11 or 12 years), I had to eat tons, but could finally feel filled up. But that's when my digestion issues all started... slowly at first, and then finally so bad I thought I was dying of some horrid thing, even though Dr. McDougall himself insists his is the healthiest way of eating on the earth and protects and heals from virtually all disease... guess he didn't think of celiac disease, hey? I mean, I went from feeling healthy to a really chronically sick diet doing that.

After getting the gluten out, I finally felt I just needed more to my meals. I began adding the wild fish and moved from there to poultry... I mean, I just need more to eat than what I was feeling like as a gluten-free, then soy free, and a not-so-sure-about-most-legumes kinda vegan. Didn't leave enough to fill me up at all.

I still wonder if some day I might try raw again... at least it SOUNDS very healthy... but for now, just still getting better all the time after 2 years gluten free, I'm happy just eating whatever I can that goes down good and doesn't make me sick. I've been enjoying just eating and feeling good! I've been leaning toward paleo to accomplish that, but I do eat sorghum flour, rice, and some corn products, but those grains aren't that big a part of my diet these days.

I used to eat all kinds of beans all the time... it got to where they seemed harsh on my tum, so I've been shying away from them for now too. Will try them again some day, but not yet.

[mftnchn]

Also, the most frustrating thing in my experience, is that the healing takes TIME. And during the healing time, a lot of strange things can happen and sometimes you can't tell if you got glutened, or a new food senisitivty popped up, or it's just some weird change your body is going through while healing from the gluten. All that just about drove me nuts for several months, like from month 8 through about month 16... there was a span of time there where there was just a lot of ups and downs that I couldn't make much sense of.

I really think there is a big difference around the 2 year mark, and some of the things that happen before that time may just be unexplainable.

Spunky,

I really appreciate your post because this is exactly what I have been experiencing. I am just beyond the one year mark, and the ups and downs have been extremely frustrating.

I've even copied and pasted this part of your post to save--just needed the encouragment to hang in there.

[CuriousOne]

I've been doing more thinking and researching. I found this:

"In non REM sleep, there are four stages. Stages 1 and 2 are light sleep, and serve as the relaxation and transition period from being awake to being in deep sleep. Stages 3 and 4 are called

[babysteps]

Some of us are "slow metabolizers" of caffeine.

I wonder if more celiacs are slow metabolizers of caffeine than in the general population - most of my family, at least on my mother's side, has an issue with caffeine. 3 of us are celiac, another 2 (at least) we suspect are/were.

[CuriousOne]

Well it got me thinking...

If we have leaky guts...

Then we probably are absorbing caffeine from coffee much more than lots of other people... so we end up with more circulating levels of caffeine in our bloodstream...

I think one reason people drink caffeine is because it has a purging effect on the intestines... If you can imagine an intestinal tract being really bogged down by slow digestive...putrifying waste.. just sitting there...

Then you drink a good hot cup of coffee...it forces your intestines fecal stuff to just get moving and move along...so we are constantly moving that along with caffeine.

But with people with leaky guts, is it possible we are just absorbing more caffeine? It seems to be my experience personally.

It seems for whatever reason... some of us have digestive systems that are just not functioning as good as they can. So I think our food doesn't move through us as well. It may sit around longer. We probably produce more toxic waste products from fermentation and putrification of waste...which compounds problems and could be the cause of some of our symptoms.

Oh yes...plus with damaged villi we don't produce as much digestive enzymes to break the food down so it ends up fermenting/putrifing easier, is my guess... feeding bad stuff...

I started food combining a few weeks ago and I notice my entire digestive system is doing better. Its just another small step in the game I think though. I wish, I wish, I wish... we could somehow see through our bodies into our guts...and watch food as it makes it way through us. Can you imagine what insight we could gain from this????? To see the effect of different foods...different food combinations... effects of cooked vs. raw dairy... and see how it moves through us... if it gets stuck/slowed down...

and compare this with children, adults, people with different dis-eases...celiac etc etc...

At least plumbers have the ability to open up the tubes and see whats going on. Its like we are blind to our tracts... We just have to rely on signs and symptoms to gather data on what is happening inside...

[minniejack]

I can't see giving the wine to my 13 year old. Does anyone out there remember Joggin in a Jug? Do you think that would do the trick?

Here is a recipe that I still have for it:

4 C. Apple Juice

1 Can frozen grape juice

1/2 c. Apple cider vinegar

2 qt container fill the rest with water