As a consumer in our American culture I am often dismayed at how GOOD, simple solutions to health problems are overlooked in favor of solutions that involve the taking of prescription or over the counter drugs that have harmful BAD , long-term effects. We the American public, end up taking drugs that are big money makers for the drug industry but are harmful for us. This is a shame when ‘simple’ remedies are available that do not have harmful effects on our bodies, in the long term.
One of these common problems that has a simple solution but is often treated with long term harmful medications is excess stomach acid. I never understood how painful this condition was until it happened to my husband, and then in turn happened to me.
Our doctor knew that h. Pylori was the cause of excess stomach acid. My husband was the first to have the blood test to determine if he was infected with h. Pylori. His test came back positive for this common infection of the gut.
Both of us tried antibiotics to kill off this BAD gut bacteria but it worked only while we were taking the antibiotics, and once off the antibiotics the h. Pylori returned. The medications worked to stop the excess stomach acid but we knew from reading on the subject that in time the medications would be harmful.
This BAD bacteria strain is a nasty one to deal with! We needed a 'simple' solution to control our excess stomach acid, and we found one in the grocery store.
I wrote and posted an article on h. Pylori infection in one of my food blogs. You can control h. Pylori by drinking Kefir liquid yogurt with ten ‘live’ bacteria strains. When you stop h. Pylori from reproducing in your gut you stop excess stomach acid. There are several brands of Kefir available, and I am sure it is available around the United States as well as in other countries.
Following is the post I placed in one of my food blogs on the benefits of drinking Kefir, because it bears reproducing…
What is Kefir? Kefir is not a brand name but I have seen the word Kefir used as a brand name. Kefir consists of a lacto bacillus culture, yogurt in liquid form, consisting of ten friendly 'live' bacteria cultures in one liquid yogurt that you drink instead of eating with a spoon.
I’ve read several stories about where the original Kefir recipe came from; one of these stories is that the Kefir culture was developed by the tribes that originally came from the base of the Caucus Mountains in Eastern Europe. That would make Kefir a Celtic yogurt drink because the Celts were the people who originated at the base of the Caucus Mountains. The Celtic peoples migrated across Europe, finally settling in Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
Kefir is superior to other yogurt cultures because its ‘signature’ is that it always consists of ten ‘live’ bacteria cultures that are friendly for the human gut. Yogurt that does not contain 'live' bacteria is nothing more that a good source of calcium and protein. It is the ‘live’ bacteria that do all the good work in the gut to keep us healthy.
Friendly bacteria in our guts help us to digest our food, and also helps fight off invasion of unfriendly bacteria like the unfriendly bacteria called h. Pylori, which is short for helicobacter Pylori.
Helicobacter Pylori is the unfriendly bacteria that causes humans to secrete excess stomach acid sometimes called ‘acid reflux disease’, and if left untreated, h. Pylori will cause stomach ulcers as well as stomach cancer. In both cases it is the erosion action on the gut from the excess stomach acid that causes disease.
Unfriendly bacterial infection called h. Pylori is spread from two main sources.
The first and most prevalent is through flies landing on your food. Flies carry the h. Pylori bacteria on their legs and bodies.
The second most common method of contamination of h. Pylori is through human-to-human contact. A food server may have h. Pylori, and this person wipes their mouth as they are serving food. If the hand that was used to wipe the mouth touches the food they are serving, then h. Pylori is passed along to the person who eats the food.
Medicines used to stop excess stomach acid do work. A problem with these medications is that they often stop ‘all’ stomach acid from entering the gut. We need some normal acid secretions in our stomachs in order to absorb minerals from the food we eat. Minerals like Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Potassium, etc…. We all know we need Calcium and Magnesium for strong bones, and Potassium is important because it acts as an electrolyte in our bodies. Potassium’s job is to carry nutrients into our cells, and then carry waste out of our cells. Muscle cramps can be the result of a Potassium in-balance.
Taking medications that stop stomach acid completely may be all right to take for a very short time, but we shouldn’t take such medications for the long term. The lack of minerals being absorbed in the gut can result in Osteoporosis, porous bones, and can also result in excess muscle cramps.
A better solution to battle the excess stomach acid problem is to eat yogurt that contains friendly 'live' bacteria because this bacteria stops the h. Pylori from reproducing in the gut. With the h. Pylori stopped, the excess stomach acid stops.
Taking antibiotics to kill off h. Pylori may not work in the long term. My husband tried taking antibiotics when he was first diagnosed, but the h. Pylori returned causing the excess stomach acid problem to return.
After taking the antibiotics and having the h. Pylori return, my husband’s only resource to stop the acid was to take the medications. But we knew that the medications could also have long-term bad effects so we had to find something for him to stop the excess acid that would not hurt him. It was after doing some reading on the subject when I learned about Kefir. Taking kefir is working for him, it keeps excess stomach acid away. Some time after he was diagnosed with h. Pylori I found myself also having the same excess stomach acid problem. So I also have become a Kefir drinker, and it works for me too.
Today we keep Kefir in our refrigerator all of the time. We prefer the Kefir we are buying at Trader Joes. It comes in strawberry flavor and is NOT colored with Carmine.
One of the additional perks of drinking Kefir, is it is loaded with Calcium, which you need for strong bones, healthy skin and a healthy nervous system. Drinking liquid yogurt Kefir is far superior to stop h. Pylori than taking pills.
Kefir is GOOD!
Cooking and freezing kill ‘live’ cultures. Frozen yogurt ice cream is loaded with calcium and protein but doesn’t contain ‘live’ cultures. Live cultures can be found only in 'fresh' yogurts and Kefir; always look on the label for the words ‘live cultures.’
Copyright © 2010 by Carol Garnier Dutra
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