Digestive Disorders On The Increase

There are many health challenges we face these days. There are many reasons for this. Sedentary and irregular lifestyles are the main causes. These include minimal physical activity, impaired sleeping patterns and wrong eating and drinking habits. The digestive orders are of many types. These are minor digestive problems, enteritis, gastro enteritis, gas, bloating, acidity, constipation, gastric ulcers, loose motions and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Along with this we also face increased waist lines and other related lifestyle diseases.

Reasons For Digestive Disorders

There are so many causes for IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and all other digestive disorders. Many of these are listed below:

• If we are stressed, our digestion goes for a toss. If we keep getting stressed for longer periods of time then our digestion capacity is impacted over the long term, causing related problems.
• These days we out frequently. We pick up bugs and bacterial infections which impact our digestion. If we eat out too often then it can cause long term problems.
• We eat a lot of processed, packaged and pre-packaged foods. Even though a lot of them claim to be healthy, there are always some additives or processing by-products which impact digestion.
• A modern day life also prevents us from eating freshly made food. As a result, we land up eating stale food on a daily basis. Leftovers are kept in the refrigerator and re-heated and eaten. TV dinners are becoming more of the norm and one has time to cook fresh food for every meal. All this stale food is not good for the body.
• Most of our food and drinks these days (including milk and drinking water) contains preservatives, hormones, pesticides and additives. All of these cause digestion problems.
• We all tend to have little or no physical activity. In fact more and more people these days do no physical work. Most of us do not even exercise. However, we keep eating in the same way. This lack of physical activity or regular exercise is one of the main causes of digestion problems.
• The trend these days is to eat a lot of heavy foods which require the digestive system to work harder. These include non-vegetarian food like read meat and sauce laden foods and curries, baked breads, pastries, sweets, processed cheese, fried foods, refined flour, junk food, burgers, pizzas, lot of sugar and so on.
• We tend to have a lot of beverages like tea, coffee, alcohol, soft drinks and energy drinks. All of these are unhealthy and upset the digestive system completely.
• One of the lesser known reasons for digestive problems is irregular or less sleep. We seem to be not only sleeping late but sleeping for lesser number of hours. Sleeping correctly, is therefore becoming core to proper digestion.

The Gluten Intolerance Myth

Now we have seen so many reasons for digestive problems and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Then how does gluten enter in the picture at all? Everyone talks about Gluten intolerance. When we talk about gluten intolerance researches are incomplete and biased. More often than not, they show only one side of the story.

We say one side of the story because gluten free products, gluten free wheat and other related products cost at least two hundred to three hundred percent more than regular wheat and other products.

The other fact is that gluten intolerance is a very minor problem. It only affects a miniscule amount of the population and that too, mainly in Caucasians. So what we have done is to generalize a non-existent problem for the whole population. This has been done through some smart marketing by the American processed food industry.

This has been spread so smartly and without any scientific research or basis; that the whole world is now running around to go ‘gluten free’. This is another myth like the ‘fat is bad’ marketing and the cholesterol myth. There is no basis to this. How people actually get affected by wheat or gluten is as random as tossing a coin and the outcome is less than one percent. More than ninety nine percent of people are not impacted at all. So the question we must ask is, why should we stop something if it does not harm us?

Even in people whom some such problems are seen, are not caused by gluten or wheat. The main reasons as we have already seen are incorrect and excess eating, processed foods; chemicals and hormones present in the grains, milk, water and other products. It has been found that if you just reduce grains and increase vegetables and fruits, the problem gets resolved on its own. It is probably only a very tiny percentage of the population which has a genuine gluten problem.

Gluten Researches

There are so many ‘credible’ researches done on Gluten intolerance. However, these do not take into account all factors like lifestyle, stress, food habits, exercise, differing metabolism, genetic and racial factors and so many other variables.

There are also other recent surveys and researches done by credible organizations and individuals which clearly state that there is no so such thing as gluten intolerance IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) caused by gluten in a majority of cases. Rather, it is a combination of all the other factors as already stated above.

What Is The Problem With Wheat?

Wheat causes a problem when have it in large quantities or products made of wheat which are ‘dense’ in nature. Refined and processed versions of the wheat also cause a similar problem as have gotten rid of the healthy fiber.

To give an example, baked breads will cause a problem, but the Indian ‘phulka’ or fresh chapati is very healthy. Both are made of wheat. This is because phulka is light and cooked through properly. Similarly, if you have pasta made of wheat, it may cause digestion problems because it is processed and very dense. But upma or ‘daliya’ (always freshly made and normally had as breakfast in India), made of cracked and broken wheat, called Suji, is healthy. Therefore, this does not cause a problem. This logic holds true for all grains and pulses. If we eat a lot of baked or ‘dense’ food or large grain based quantities, it will cause Irritable Bowel Syndrome and other digestive problems.

So the problem is not the wheat or the gluten in the wheat. It is the way we eat it and how much of it we consume.

The Main Solution

The solution to these problems is actually very simple. Improve your lifestyle and exercise or walk regularly. Reduce the consumption of all grains a little bit, and not just wheat. Eat more freshly prepared food and vegetables and avoid re-heated or outside food. Additionally, learn to sleep well with our sleep program or you can take our online balanced diet plan and learn how to eat more healthy.