Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: Re: [fast5] Gastroparesis

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Re: [fast5] Gastroparesis

Another thing about stomach emptying: another common condition
is "dumping" ... where the stomach empties too quickly before
food is properly digested. This *also* results in gas and bloating,
because the undigested food feeds the wrong kind of microbes.
A number of the "fixes" for gas and bloating involve slowing
down motility, so the food stays in one place longer: things like
having vinegar with a meal.

One thing that bothers me about the description of gastroparesis
though is the description of fermenting in the stomach. The
stomach PH is supposed to be extremely low. Microbes just
don't multiply in an acidic environment. You can prove this. Take
a jar of vinegar. If you put an apple in a jar of vinegar, it doesn't
produce a lot of fermentation or gas. It just produces a
pickled apple. Put an egg in a jar of vinegar: you get a pickled
egg. Your stomach is a lot more acidic than a jar of vinegar,
or should be. Your stomach is so acidic, it can digest a
piece of steak down to mush in an hour.

When your stomach dumps it's contents into the small
intestine, you body buffers the acid and makes it slightly
basic, and THEN the microbes get to work. Some of the
microbes are ones you want ... they produce things like
butyrate that keep your gut happy, and vit K and B vitamins.
Some you don't want ... they produce lots
of carbon dioxide and sometimes
even toxins and sulfuric acid. The trick is to have the correct
mix of microbes, which sometimes involves having the
right mix of food and/or probiotics. My own finding has
been that spacing meals helps in the microbe mix.

But if diabetics are in fact getting major fermentation
in their stomach in this instance: they must have very
little stomach acid???? What is causing that?

On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Mary Jeanette Mannino<mjm1@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
> Gastroparesis certainly is a disorder that is seen with diabetics or others
> with neurologic pathology that slows down the muscular action of the stomach
> to digest food. However, it is relatively rare and not an easy diagnosis.
> I recently accompanied a diabetic friend who was having a three hour
> gastric emptying study. Her stomach emptying time was essentially normal,
> with some slowing after a fatty meal.
> I think we have to be very careful on this listserv and emails not to
> practice medicine, unless we have have the required education and license.
> As a long time medical professional and an instructor in evidence based
> medicine, I would not think of making a diagnosis outside my field of
> expertise. While I respect the individual stories of lay people and am
> pleased that they have been able to self-diagnose and treat their own
> ailments, unless it can be replicated, it is not science.
> Sharing ideas and websites can be fun, but they do not replace medical care
> and even common sense. As an example, taking blood sugars after every food
> encounter when you are not an insulin dependent diabetic, is not rational
> and not very useful unless you have a sound foundation of pancreatic,
> hepatic and neurophysiology.
> Sorry to be so negative, but I am really looking for strong, sound science,
> not anecdotes.
> MJ
> On Aug 16, 2009, at 10:03 AM, Ellen Ussery wrote:
>
> So here is a condition for which eating smaller meals throughout the
> day is appropriate.
>
> http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/gastroparesis/
>
> Ellen
>
>
>
>