What did Florence mean?

When cells malfunction, we ultimately present with disease, nature does not label/define cell malfunction into various disease types such as arthritis/depression/cancer or cardio-vascular disease, we do that.

Therefore our first question should be;

Why do cells malfunction?

Too often we spend time treating the symptoms and not the cause of the malfunction, in the beginning medicine was about finding and treating the cause.

Cells, the building blocks of our body – all 36 trillion of them, malfunction for only a few key reasons. The most important is lack of optimal cellular nutrition.

Our cells perform trillions of chemical reactions every second. So far, we have discovered that the body requires access to over 250 different nutrients for optimal cellular health.

Even if genes are playing a part in the disease process, whether those genes become activated or not is intricately linked to nutrient triggers – nutrients can literally switch genes on and off. Medications cannot do that.

We have holistic medicine sometimes termed ‘alternative medicine’ and ‘traditional medicine’.

I am slightly unhappy with the allocation and use of these terms as ‘traditional’ is something that has long been established and honored for generations. Since all our herbs, roots, natural remedies have been used as medicine for thousands of years surely natural medicine should be considered ‘traditional’ and drug-intensive medicine, which has only been around for a century or two is actually the ‘alternative’ medicine.

The Gut

The gut is our second brain. Its main role is in controlling digestion, from swallowing, to the release of enzymes that break down food, to the control of blood flow that helps with nutrient absorption to elimination.

Over half of the diseases we encounter today were unheard of in my granny’s day and her granny’s day this is because they did not have the readily over processed foods that we have available today.

Over 80% of all foods in the grocery stores are processed foods, laced with mood-altering chemicals, dyes and the number one killer today ‘SUGAR’.

Thousands of people are suffering from chronic constipation because all the enzymes are literally cooked out of the food and replaced with lab-based chemicals.

These natural enzymes are there to break down your food, to digest it properly, and allow for proper elimination. Processed foods do not break down and they sit in your digestive tract and can create toxins that can eventually leach out into our organs making us sick.

A wee Uganda story

When I was in Uganda on a dental charity trip, at one orphanage we visited, the workers there were quite devastated to learn the sugar cane they were giving to the children – who had so little – was causing tooth decay and it really stuck with me and struck a chord that they were repeating they had made the children sick!

The team were horrified to hear they felt this way when they were only trying to do something good for the children, and we educated on how to limit the time the children had sugar cane to allow for remineralization of the tooth surface – now this is where I become more dental hygienist than nutritionist, unfortunately my default is to the teeth. 

On reflection sugar is making the children sick and just as in Scotland where I ‘treat’ my children with sugary snacks and processed foods in effect I am also making them ‘sick’.  It is a hard one, and I am not preaching at all, this as all my blogs are just information, education, and my thoughts.

As a dental hygienist we do train in diet and nutrition. This is of great importance as with the education of sugars in the diet and their action on the teeth we must be vary careful about the advice we give to protect teeth but also to protect the gut and the body’s nutritional needs.

Alongside tooth decay is gum disease and the relationship between gum disease and systemic health is paramount.

Remember the mouth is the top of the gut.

We are what we eat or We are what we absorb?

You are probably all familiar with the ‘we are what we eat’ saying, let us just take that a bit more in depth.

Yes, to a certain extent we are what we eat, but to be more precise we are what we absorb! Nutrient absorption is fundamental to the whole process of optimal cellular health.

Optimal absorption is dependent on optimal digestive system function. If we are busy and stressed our body triggers our stress response and digestion is suppressed so the body can reroute its resources to trigger the fight/flight mode instead of wasting energy on rest/digest mode, the central nervous system shuts down digestion by slowing contractions of digestive muscles and decreasing the secretions for digestion. In rest/digest mode, healing and regeneration occur, the body performs activities like digestion, detoxifying, elimination, and builds immunity.

The whole system must be in balance. Not only do we have to be in a relaxed state and consuming nutrient dense foods, but we also require sufficient stomach acid, bile flow and digestive enzyme status, a diverse and balanced micro ecology of the gut.

The gut and the brain have a bi-directional relationship, they are interconnected and able to transfer chemical messages between the two brains. Poor gut health leads to inflammation throughout the body and inflammation has been shown to be associated with cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, and anxiety.

The gut sends out chemical messengers of its own separate from the brain, it also produces 90% of our mood calming neurotransmitter Serotonin (see my serotonin blog for more info on our happy hormone).

The Advice

There is so much conflicting advice out there about what to eat and what not to eat. I am not going to delve into it too much but to try keep this as an informative but not too in-depth blog. Here are just some top tips…

Chew your food thoroughly!

We should chew each mouthful about 30 times! Taking time to savor the taste and textures of your food really helps the enzymes further down the digestive tract to work more efficiently. Putting your cutlery down between each mouthful is useful.

Drink more water than any other drink!

This appeals to me more than only drink water, as I love a red wine and coffee – they make me a much more pleasant person lol. This basically says whatever your beverage of choice, tea, coffee, herbal tea, juice, wine, gin, whisky – let the volume of water you drink be more that the total of the others. Your skin, your bowels and your brain will thank you. Anytime you or others are feeling tired, losing mental focus – drink some water. Dehydration is a big cause of mental confusion. If you are thirsty you are already dehydrated!

Enjoy food!

Our digestion starts with our salivary process the saliva glands anticipating what is coming – be it the sight, sound or the smell of food being prepared and presented.

What else do we absorb?

Many of you may have thought I was speaking in a broader sense and that is of course jumping back to the ‘we must be in a relaxed state for balancing our whole system’. Eating in a calm, unhurried atmosphere with a relaxed frame of mind. When the fight/flight mechanism is engaged the rest and digest mechanism does not stand a chance! I, myself, had to reach for the Rennies when I was creating Ohh! I think I was almost inhaling my food in the rush to find extra hours to build the business from scratch.

Our diet, in the broader sense, is also what we read, what we watch, what we listen to – in feeding our minds, our hearts, and our souls. It is known that we absorb energy and the energies of those around us. Choose your company and your reading material well also remember the saying that laughter is the best medicine.

In my stress skin blog I write briefly about breathing and grounding techniques, most people (not me) have apple watches these days and they have a reminder to ‘breathe’ this is obviously not to keep you alive as such but to remind you to keep “centered” (I am asking my husband about his apple watch and this function whilst writing this and trying to find the right word, and he has just quoted Mr Miyagi, we have been watching Cobra Kai recently, he said – “it is to keep you centered Daniel son!” so centered it is -lol).

Remember as always

At Ohh! We are here to help, never to judge or lecture, information and education is key, drop us a message or book a no obligation consultation if you require any tailored advice, we may each have our 2 brains, one of my favourite films when I was younger was ‘The Man with 2 Brains’, I do love a bit of Steve Martin, but 4 brains are better than 2!

Our purpose is to ensure we all Stay Fabulous, Jacqui x