Large Intestine: Recycling and Eliminating

Introducing Your Large Intestine

Your large intestine performs several important functions as the final station of the digestive tube. At the beginning of the large intestine, the digestive contents are still in liquid form. The large intestine must firm up this liquid into solid form.

As the water and other usable chemicals are reabsorbed, the waste becomes dehydrated. Then it is mixed with mucus and processed by bacteria to become feces.

The large intestine is also your body’s major recycling plant. Water and other valuable chemicals are recycled in the colon by absorption. Without this function of the colon, we would dehydrate very quickly.

The large intestine is also a major chemical factory. Normally it contains many friendly bacteria (more than 500 different types) and various enzymes to assist with the digestive process. The medical term for the mechanisms that facilitate these transformations is “microbial fermentation.” However, if the bowel becomes toxic, the friendly bacteria can become overwhelmed with “bad bacteria” or other parasites such as worms or fungi. When this happens, an internal environmental nightmare occurs, similar to when a healthy stream becomes invaded by pollution or a rogue weed. The ecological balance of the system becomes compromised.

Anatomy of Your Large Intestine

The large intestine is the final segment of the digestive tube between your ileocecal valve and the anus. It consists of three major sections:

• The cecum,
  • The cecum is a pouch that extends below the opening of the ileocecal valve.
  • Its shape is formed almost like a cup designed to catch the contents of the small intestine as they spill through the ileocecal valve.
• The colon
  • The colon is the large upside down U-shaped tube that forms the length of the large intestine.
  • At about five feet long, its dimensions are wider and larger than the small intestine and are classified into ascending, transverse and descending segments.
• The rectum
  • The rectum is the short, last segment of the digestive tube, continuous with the anal canal.
  • It’s here that the fully processed feces are stored in preparation for a bowel movement.

Typical Symptoms of Your Large Intestine

The large intestine, also called the bowel, is what I call the garbage disposal area. Let’s assume at this stage that your ICV is working normally. Now he liquid remains of the digestive process have been deposited in the large intestine to undergo final processing and elimination.

Now we are looking for the kinds of problems that are local to the bowel alone.Problems within the large intestine can create not only localized problems in the bowel, but can also become whole body problems due to the Leaky Gut Syndrome.

This occurs when the walls of the intestine become so packed with toxins that these toxins leak through the wall of the large intestine into the adjacent tissue cells. This means that parts of the body that weren’t designed to deal with toxins are put under severe duress, which causes an immunological response.

The kinds of problems you would expect with Large Intestine toxicity are:

• Gas, gas, and more gas.
• Lot’s of “wind,” particularly the type with an overpowering smell
• Constipation, or diarrhea or constipation alternating with diarrhea
• Less than one bowel movement per day (Many doctors consider a bowel movement every two or three days to be normal. This is not true. If you are eating three meals a day and are not having a least one or two bowel movements daily, you have a bowel toxicity problem. “Normal” is having a bowel movement every time you eat so  believe me, most people aren’t “normal” like this.)
• Painful bowel movements (straining due to dryness of the bowel)
• Too many bowel moments, maybe three to five a day that are very loose; not quite, but almost, diarrhea
• Watch out for any new bowel peculiarities that you didn’t have before, especially after a trip to a foreign country or a course of antibiotics

Just as a water pipe can become contaminated with minerals and start to build a crust on the inside, the large intestine can become overloaded and begin to build up layers of fecal matter, which adheres to sections of the intestinal wall. A build-up of toxicity along the wall can interfere with normal bacterial function.

These deposits begin to harden and become an additional interference, blocking the proper function of the intestine.These toxic layers of waste become the breeding ground for harmful bacteria, which can then overwhelm the friendly bacteria to create what researchers call “gut permeability.” These hardening deposits contaminate the protective function of the walls of the large intestine.

Now the contents of the digestive tube, which should be contained within the bowel, actually begin to leak through the walls of the bowel directly into the body, causing a significant detriment to your health. This problem is called the “Leaky Gut Syndrome” and creates a severe state of toxic distress for the entire body.

Brain Management for Your Large Intestine

As part of your overall dietary awareness, you will now have a clearer sense of what parts of your digestive system are working correctly and which aren’t. If you feel that your large intestine has toxicity problems, then you have three ways of aiding your system to detoxify.

1. Taking a high quality probiotic from the health food store is a clear first choice to enhance the normal function of the positive bacterial levels. If you ever have to take antibiotics for another type of problem, then following up with a course of probiotics is mandatory.
2. If your bowel movements are sluggish but not overly so, you might try an enema or two and see how things go.
3. If you are severely constipated or overweight, then the colonic irrigations will do the most for you in the shortest period of time.

Eating the Digestive Awareness Diet way, taking probiotics regularly, and making sure that your colon does not build toxic residue will be a lifetime goal for insuring that your large intestine functions normally.

I’m not in favor of cathartic laxatives or even some of the drugstore herbal cleansing products designed for the bowel as they typically seem to irritate the large intestine, rather than help to rebuild its functionality.

Another obvious tip is to eat a preponderance of raw fruits and vegetables so that your digestive tube will always have plenty of roughage, which is needed for the Large Intestine.