Action plan for a healthy small intestine

The small intestine is as wide as your thumb and around 5.5m long.  It is both a food blender and assimilator as it digests more of your food than your stomach.  Food stays in the small intestine  for 1 – 4 hours before moving on to the large intestine for further processing.

Maintaing a healthy small intestine is all about controlling your bacteria levels and mucus build-up on your intestinal walls which can cause havoc and deplete your energy levels.  If you have bloating, gas and loose bowel movements you may have a small intestine issues such as:

  • Candida
  • IBS
  • SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth

Tips

  1. Cut out imflammatory drugs e.g. asprin, paracetamol and avoid alchol.
  2. Take L-glutamine and butyric acid both of these can help heal the gut, but check with a nutritionalist first as dosage is important.
  3. Drink slippery elm tea which calms inflamation of the small intestine and helps relieve IBS.
  4. Up your intake of vitamins A and D – liver is an excellent sourch of these vitamins which protect the mucus membrane of the gut.
  5. Eat more antibacterial foods such as garlic, honey and sauerkraut which preven the growth of Candida, fungus and yeast infections.
  6. Take oregano oil (Oregnano Vulgaris) which has been shown to stop Candidan in its tracks.
  7. Take probiotics daily – look for a count of 50 billion or more in each dose.
  8. Take prebiotics daily – to feed the probiotics.  Or eat food prebiotic foods such as sauerkraut or kimchi.
  9. Go gluten free.  Cut out gluten for an entire week and keep a food diary to check if your symptoms improve.
  10. Mimosa pudica an ayurvedic herb is brilliant at wiping out parasites.
  11. Eat more ant-parasitics such as garlic, thyme, chilli, tumeric and ginger.

References

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38800977

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15883716

 

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