5. COFFEE
I'm sure the coffee lovers are about to stone me for writing this! Yes, there has been studies which say coffee is indeed good for us humans. But yet, it has some negative effects on the gut.
INCREASED ACIDITY
*The stomach produces large amounts of hydrochloric acid when you drink coffee.
(Clink on LINK)
Hydrochloric acid is one of your gastric juice which is released after a meal to break down your food. Imagine drinking coffee on an empty stomach everyday!
HEARTBURN
The caffeine relaxes the esophageal sphincter muscle. This causes acid reflux which is heartburn.
IBS (IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME)
Coffee is known as an intestinal irritant. It causes stomach-ulcers-sufferers to be in even more agony.
Die-hard coffee fans still get IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) even after switching to decaf. Apparently it's the enzyme in the beans which irritates the gut.
LAXATIVE EFFECTS
Coffee has laxative effects which actually stimulates gastric emptying which causes the intestines to empty itself before the food is even digested.
Instead of absorbing nutrients from digesting food, the acidic stomach contents are being sent into the small intestines too soon causing injury and inflammation.
DEHYDRATION
Caffeine in coffee is a strong diuretic.
*(A diuretic is a substance that promotes the production of urine in the body.) All diuretics increase the excretion of urine in the body. (taken from HERE) This means you will have frequent urination and and if you do not consume enough water, you will end up in dehydration.
STRESS LEVELS ELEVATED
Coffee actually elevates the stress hormones cortisol, norepinephrine and epinephrine. This will cause the heart rate to increase, blood pressure to increase and also activate the 'fight or flight' switch. These are not meant to be 'switched on' all the time. It's only supposed to be switched on when you are in danger. Just imagine drinking coffee everyday which triggers your adrenaline everyday when there isn't danger.
GABA METABOLISM INTERFERED
GABA (Gamma-aminobutyric acid) is a neurotransmitter. This is produced in the brain and the GI tract. The role of GABA in the GI tract is to produce a calming effect. GABA also plays an important role in mood and stress management. Caffeine has been found to interfere with the GABA neurotransmitter.
Click on LINK to read more on the effects of coffee on our gut.
6. SUGAR
The bad guys in the gut THRIVE on sugar. They become super-powerful when you feed them sugar. Sugar is kryptonite to the good guys in your gut.
Therefore, if your diet is mainly high in starches, carbohydrates, sweets, cakes and cookies and all which spells S.U.G.A.R, then your gut bacteria would be overloaded with the bad guys and not the good ones.
And that is definitely trouble for the gut!
7. ASCORBIC ACID
The good new is, the synthetic version of Vitamin C, which is ascorbic acid is a bacteria killer! The bad news is, it does not know how to differentiate the good guys and the bad. Thus, it wipes out all form of bacteria it comes across.
Last but not least, *ascorbic acid is synthesized from corn dextrose fermentation. Most of the synthesized Vitamin C is sourced from GMO corn. (taken from HERE)
8. VITAMIN S
This is not some vitamin that you can take as a supplement. This vitamin is called Vitamin Sleep. Not only does our brain produces melatonin, even our gut does too!
Melatonin is a hormone that is produced in the brain that helps regulate our sleep and maintains our body's natural clock (AKA the 'circadian rhythm'). The melatonin that is produced in the gut helps regulate and promote healthy digestion.
Melatonin in the gut helps regulate the internal clock of our bowel movements, regulates peristalsis and reduces spasms and aids motility through the GI tract.
As melatonin corresponds according to the circadian rhythm, nighttime light exposure suppress melatonin. People who work at night makes less melatonin than those who work in the day. And those who produce less melatonin have a higher incidence of gastrointestinal disorders.
(click HERE to read more on melatonin and sleep)
(to be continued...)
You mean coffee ADDICTS will stone you...those irrational crazy people who are so high on their coffee addiction they become violent if they think anyone will take their drug away.
ReplyDeleteGood info...
You stated above about vitamin C" "Thus, it wipes out all form of bacteria it comes across."
ReplyDeleteDid you read the link -- it said the opposite -- that it doesn't and can't possibly do so.
I don't mean to come off as rude, but you remind me of ME, a couple of years ago. Worried about this food, that food, and especially salicylates. I found out later that one can be allergic to almost all foods if one isn't getting enough overall nutrition.
Yes, some things are of course not good (or as good) for us than others, but I encourage you to check out 180degreehealth.com. They also might come off as rude, but there are a lot of people who have recovered from various eating disorders (and I'm not calling salicylate intolerance an eating disorder!), but that many of the people there became so fanatical about what they could and couldn't eat, that their health just got worse and worse -- until they relaxed what was considered "good" and/or "bad" -- and they recovered.
Another thing to look up is orthorexia. That's what I eventually developed, and am still recovering from.
Wishing you the BEST! :)
Thank you Mark for dropping by. If you could click on this link:
Deletehttp://therighttobealive.blogspot.com/2014/11/orthorexia-nervosa.html
you will see that in November, I wrote about orthorexia nervosa. I am well aware of that. That's why I also wrote about going about this with caution and yet with common sense. There's too many diets that have been thrown at us. But yet at the same time, if you almost died from an over-accumulation of salicylate, would you eat like a 'normal person'? And yet I have experimented with food containing high and very high salicylates. But I did it very slowly and also with common sense. I know my threshold. I know how much my body can take. Since my anaphylactic attack and this total change of lifestyle and diet, all my blood tests have come back with excellent results. Better than the years before the attack. I must be doing something right, right?
Also if you click on this link,
http://therighttobealive.blogspot.com/2011/09/day-i-met-death.html
you will see that I wrote that I did not cheat death to live like this. That's why I am where I am today. Being able to eat so much more variety of food.
Now I am researching on how to heal my gut. And what I share on my blog is up to the readers to accept or to reject. What I've written is not absolute. I've always written that everybody is different. I've never said my lifestyle is what everyone must adopt. This is my way of surviving.
But like I said before , there are some universal truths.
Mark,
DeleteI hope you aren't saying anyone who tweaks their diet has eating disorders? Or refusing to eat a particular food is a mental condition?
Unlike you, when I finally isolated and restricted certain foods I felt 100% better, not worse. Restricting foods has been a life saver for me, literally. Because I found a dietary solution, I don't have to take drugs to control my symptoms and drugs are the only option according to AMA doctors.
The personal experimentation Girl Alive is doing has also helped her. I can't remember the last time she was in the hospital for an anaphylactic attack and the digestive issues that were also putting her in the hospital have stopped. I might be wrong, but according to her posts, restricting certain foods has not made her worse, but better!
Currently I'm fairly fanatical about not eating gluten, but it's based on the fact I don't want to feel like I am dying. I have a medically diagnosed condition that could kill me and eating gluten pretty much makes me feel so miserable I feel like I will die. No fun and incredibly scary. I need to function in this life and in order to function, I have to be a fanatic about restricting certain foods. That doesn't mean I'm orthorexic. It means I'm smart.
I agree with your "lacking nutrients" theory, however, I think most lack of nutrients has to do with the way our bodies digest foods. If they aren't digesting properly, you won't be getting the nutrients from the foods no matter how many wonderfully, healthy foods one eats. Girl Alive is addressing digestive issues and how one may heal their systems in order to digest those nutrients. I think she's on the right track as there are some universal truths, but as she said, everyone is different.
Yeah, currently I'm following a crazy restrictive gut-healing diet that is no fun, and although I'm being fanatical about it, when it comes time to re-introduce foods back...I will do it with gusto! I pray they don't give me problems but if they do, I will restrict them from my diet. It's constant experimentation. If anything makes me worse, I back up and stop. I'm guessing with orthorexia one doesn't have the ability to stop or cognitively judge whether a food is good or bad?
I'd be interested to hear more about your story. I clicked on the website you offered, but it wants me to sign up for training. I won't sign up for anything until I know what it's offering.