If you eat three times per day and live for seventy-five years, your digestive system must swing into high gear 82,125 times. But that’s not counting a couple of snacks each day and an occasional late night snack which must be digested also. All in all then, your digestive system works diligently most of the time.
The importance of good, sound digestion can hardly be stressed too much since its purpose is to physically and chemically change the foods we eat—the grains, dairy products, meats, and vegetables—into a form our bodies can assimilate for building new cells, for energy, and for countless other vital bodily applications.
Need we say that without proper digestion, a wholesome life is unattainable. And, as we shall see, sound digestion depends in large measure on a properly functioning nervous system.
The digestive system begins in the mouth and ends at the anus. In between you’ll find the principle parts of the system, namely the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, and the colon which is the main portion of the large intestine.
The digestion process is enormously complex and depends in large measure on a properly functioning nervous system.
THE DIGESTION CHAIN
Chewing, the first step in digestion, breaks down the food and mixes it with saliva so it can be swallowed and moved through the esophagus into the stomach where the food is churned and mixed with hydrochloric acid and other digestive juices.
Eventually, the food becomes a semiliquid called “chyme” and flows into the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine. More digestion takes place there as gall bladder bile and pancreatic juice add their potency to the digestive process.
As the liquified food moves through the small intestine, it is broken down further into nutrients, absorbed into the bloodstream and distributed to the body. Whatever is left moves into the colon where powerful contractions eliminate the feces from the body.
DIGESTION DEPENDS ON NERVES
Although digestion sounds rather simple as described in these few paragraphs, the process is enormously complex and depends heavily upon an intricate nerve network for completing the digestion of three meals a day plus snacks, year in and year out. This nerve network involves spinal nerves—especially those in the area between the shoulder blades—the vagus nerve, and both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve systems.
Sometimes misaligned vertebras (subluxations) pinch, impinge, compress, or irritate spinal nerves. This alters the nerves’ normal nerve function and can be the underlying cause of various chronic digestive problems such as heartburn, gastritis, colitis, and even peptic ulcers.
CHIROPRACTIC EXAM
In cases of frequent digestive upset or distress, a chiropractic examination will establish whether spinal nerves associated with digestion are compromised, and if so, what can be done about it.
Certain digestive problems may have multiple causes not involving pinched nerves, but a large percentage of such cases do indeed involve pinched nerves and can be treated with the drugless, nonsurgical methods of chiropractic.
Copyright © 2010 Health Star, Inc