Do you suffer from abdominal pains and complaints? Author of Gut Instinct Pierre Pallardy explains the inner workings of your 'second brain'
Extract taken from Gut Instinct (Rodale)
Like the upper brain, the abdomen is constantly active, day in, day out. Cerebral processes do not shut down at night: we dream. Equally, abdominal processes remain active: the processes of digestion, absorption and elimination are uninterrupted through the night.
Optimal abdominal health is to a large degree governed by what we eat, although other factors enter into the complex equation. As a practitioner treating abdominal problems, I am aware of the abdomen's innate properties as a preventative and restorative organ and convinced of the importance of what we eat and how we eat it.
Eating is both a necessity and a pleasure. Typically, a 60-year-old will have devoted more than five years of his or her life to ingesting food. Some cynics might argue that eating and drinking are merely signposts along the road to death, but I take the opposite view: I believe that what we eat and drink is what helps us to remain healthy. Provided, that is, that we do not eat indiscriminately.
Perhaps the first point to be made is that when we eat is of crucial importance. Eating 'on the run' or as the opportunity presents itself is simply not good enough. Although we have gained substantial insight into the functioning of the upper brain - discovering, for example, that the regenerative powers of sleep are more pronounced in the initial rather than in the later hours, or that dreams recur in cycles - we are still not totally sure how our 'second' brain processes food, despite the fact that this is crucial to the overall well-being of the abdomen.
Respect your body clock
Our lives are regulated from infancy onwards by what is commonly referred to as a body clock, for which the secret mechanism is located in the hypothalamus. Among other things, it controls 'automatic' functions such as body temperature and hunger. Our body clock is central to our general health, not least the digestive processes performed by the abdomen. When it comes to nutrition, we ignore those natural rhythms at our peril.
In days gone by, mealtimes were sacred and hallowed by observance - particularly in rural areas, where falling ill was simply not an option. I recall from my own childhood how fieldworkers would simply not tolerate any departure from the time-honoured rituals of a punctual breakfast and midday meal. Staying healthy was a precondition of running a farm and tending to crops and livestock. Mealtimes were set and respected back then, when labour laws were fluid and statutory maximum working hours simply unheard of.
Times have changed. Today, we tend to eat what we like, as and when we choose, and whenever time permits. To my mind, the consequences of this have proved disasterous. Once our body clock has been tampered with and abused, the system fights back. The digestive cycle is disrupted at the level of the solar plexus, the gall bladder, the pancreas and the intestine, triggering a destabilisation of the tenuous relationship between the two brains. Once that balance is upset, internal rhythms are thrown into disarray. Systems malfunction and serious illness may result, including the onset of allergies, depleted energy levels and higher incidence of heart problems.
I recall the case of Simone S, a 42-year-old divorcee who lived alone following the collapse of her marriage. She ate sporadically and haphazardly, irrespective of whether she was hungry. She did not derive any pleasure from what she ate. Worse, she put on 12 kilos (26 pounds) and, partly as a result, her self-confidence eroded. She experimented with various diets but they appeared only to make matters worse.
I persuaded Simone that a first priority was to re-set her body clock. By adopting my breath to relax approach and keeping a food journal she was able to track the shortcomings in her behaviour. During the first week of eating more slowly and at a specified times, she lost 2 kilos. Her abdomen became less distended and less prone to cramps. This convinced her to persist with my method and to take up regular physical exercise, abdominal meditation and my other recommendations. Simone?s two brains were eventually reconciled. She lost a further 10 kilos of unwanted weight, slimmed down to her pre-divorce figure, became progressively more self-confident and regained a happy (and healthy) outlook on life generally.
Simone's experience demonstrates the importance of eating regularly to maintain good natural biorhythms, as well as the need for a sustained link between the abdomen and the upper brain as a barrier against digestive system dysfunction. In practice, this may mean eating three, four or even five meals a day, depending on your occupation or level of activity. 'Hunger' - the appetite engendered simultaneously by the two brains - will be the decisive factor in setting your individual body clock. Above all, remember that a chaotic and intermittent approach to eating is totally incompatible with a healthy abdomen.
There will always be situations where disruption of the body clock is unavoidable; for example, when working on night shifts or travelling long haul flights. Several recent studies have examined the effects of such disruption, while others have looked at the consequences of eating and drinking late at night. It transpires that the latter may well induce a rise in cholesterol levels, more fatty deposits in the arteries and a whole host of other negative symptoms that could culminate in diabetes or other serious disorders. The digestive process works more slowly at night than during the day, so a meal taken around midnight will produce higher blood sugar levels than the same meal eaten at midday.
If a meal is eaten very quickly or under stressful conditions, the damage can be considerable. One immediate consequence of eating a meal too quickly is the more rapid onset of the desire to smoke or consume harmful stimulants such as coffee, tea or alcohol. As is well known, these can lead to coronaries, allergies and a reduction in overall energy.
Researchers have also looked long and hard at the practice of fasting, often as a religious observance (for example during Ramadan) and have noted chemical, physical and even hormonal changes that occur as a result. Personally, I am against fasting in any form, since I regard it as shirking our responsibilities to our bodies. Equally, I always counsel against skipping a meal; my preference in the even of 'not feeling hungry' would be to eat at the regular time, but simply reduce the quantity of food ingested. If you are ill or otherwise under the weather, it is even more inadvisable to skip meals and risk re-setting your body clock.
I also strongly advise against weight-loss programmes or diets designed to alleviate specific complaints. Depriving the organism of essential vitamins can prove injurious to health by weakening the immune defences after period as short as four days (as clinical tests have demonstrated). In effect , the stomach secretes gastric juices at regular intervals in a process known as chronobiology (the biology of cyclical physiological phenomena); accordingly, if those juices have little or nothing to work on, they convert acids and other toxins which contaminate the entire digestive system and provoke disorders such as fatigue, weight gain, rheumatism and assorted other disorders. If your body clock is re-set for some reason or other - typically by eating at odd hours, 'snacking' or raiding the fridge during the night - you must take whatever steps are necessary to get it back on track.
Our stomachs are programmed to break down fats during the night (a process known as 'nocturnal lipolysis'). To kick-start the system the following morning, it is best to start with a light breakfast, then allow a four-hour interval between subsequent meals. After several days, your body clock will re-establish its natural rhythm and will function in accord with your neurological and hormonal cycles again.
Gut Instinct, by Pierre Pallady, published by Rodale is available to buy through www.amazon.co.uk