Full Digestive Reset

Look, I understand that it just sucks to be dealing with digestive issues. And when you're trying to research to find some answers, it's really hard to find anything that makes sense. Like, why? Why doesn't it make sense? And with some of these digestive issues, it can literally ruin every aspect of your life.

I was touring professionally as a stand-up comic, and I lost my voice. And I know now that that had to do with some digestive issues that I was dealing with, but it took me eight years to get my voice back. And I went to two different doctors, and none of them could help me figure out what was going wrong. And everything just seemed to be making me worse and worse. And I finally got to the point where, look, these doctors needed to piss off, and I was just going to figure this out myself. And I just started traveling the country to every nutrition seminar I could find to try to get some answers. And it took me a long time to figure it out. So now I write books and I make courses to try to help people find their answers a whole lot faster than it took me. And I'm not a doctor here giving anybody medical advice. I'm, I'm basically just, you know, 20 years later, I'm just a guy that ran into some trouble and had no choice but to find some answers if I ever wanted to be able to talk again. So now you can just learn from the struggles that I had, how to get your answers a whole lot faster.

And one of the biggest pieces of information that I found was that you're not going to find an answer to a digestive problem with, pretty much any digestive symptom or issue that a person can have, there can be three or four different possible underlying causes creating that. So the remedy that's going to help one person can make another person with that same symptom a whole lot worse. So understand that this is going to take some effort. You're not going to watch a 60-second video clip and fix everything that's been going wrong in your body for the last 30 years. It's just not how it works. This is going to take some work to learn about why these things go wrong, understand how to figure out which problem is creating the issue for you, and then do the work to correct that. So I don't want to see people in the comments like, "Whipper snapper, quit gaming on and just tell me what I should take so I can get off the toilet." You know, Rosco, I don't know what you should take because I don't know your situation. And it sounds like you might not either. So you really need to be willing to put in some effort to figure out what's causing the problem so you can turn it around.

So if you've seen our channel, we have hundreds of different videos where we talk about different digestive symptoms or issues that can come out, or how digestive issues can create other health issues. But I don't have one video that really goes through everything that helps a person create a total digestive reset. So instead of me explaining this whole digestive process and how to fix every aspect of it in 1,700 videos, I want to have this video so I can point people to that if they need to dig deeper into understanding that digestive process. So in this video, I'm going to help you understand how the digestive process should work. I'm going to help you understand signs that things are going wrong and how to understand which aspect of digestion really needs help. I'm going to share studies along the way if you want to dig deeper into these topics. And I'm going to help you understand what steps are most likely going to turn the situation around for you. Let's jump in.

[Applause]

DC hell is not a doctor and does not claim to be a doctor licensed in any type of medical field. Don't be an idiot. Use anything heard on the show is medical advice. This information should be used for educational purposes only and you should contact your doctor for any medical advice. Get off me.

So let's head to the smartboard so that we can dig into this a little bit. And you can see there's a wide variety of digestive issues that can come up. And in severe cases, these can really make it harder just to live or to have a livelihood, or even just to watch like an old episode of Different Strokes. Like, some of these things can really mess a guy up. But in this video, I'm going to help you understand the most common underlying causes for these issues. And you're going to be able to see why some of them can have more than one possible underlying cause.

And when we look at this digestive system, I kind of want to run through how this is supposed to work, just real quick. And then we'll come back and dig into this. And remember, this is not going to be a 30-second video. We really want to understand what's going wrong because when you understand what's going wrong, it makes it a lot easier to figure it out. If you're just throwing darts at the remedy dartboard, it's going to take a long time to figure out some answers. I know it did for me because you're not addressing what's actually going on with you, you're just addressing the symptom. So we want to understand this a little bit.

And when we look at the digestive process, it's a complicated situation here. I mean, the digestive process like starts in our mouth before the food even gets in there. But I just really want to focus on two major parts of the digestive process. And you're going to understand that when these malfunction, which is very common, it has the ability to kind of mess up some of these other things as well. So when we eat food, our stomach should make hydrochloric acid, or HCL. And this stomach acid is there to help us acidify that food to start the breakdown process. We really need to break down that food so that we can access the nutrients in that food. That's kind of why we eat food, to get fuel and nutrients. And if we can't break that food down, the body can't use that. The body can't just take a piece of chicken like, "Oh, I'm going to put this right here and build the muscle." It has to be broken down into elemental nutrients like amino acids and vitamins and minerals and fatty acids. So we need this digestive process working, or it's going to create a lot of side effects and symptoms that we experience. But beyond that, the deficiencies that can come from an inability to break down your food and get the nutrients out can be very problematic. So it's very important that we're making enough stomach acid to acidify that food correctly.

And inevitably, I'll hear from somebody that'll say, "Oh, you know, that's not the problem for me. I have acid reflux, so I have too much stomach acid. I even have to reduce that a little bit, or it causes all kinds of problems." And this is a really common misconception, and it's a very big deal. So the reality is that in most cases, acid reflux is caused by a lack of stomach acid. So there's this valve at the bottom of the esophagus called the lower esophageal sphincter, or LES. And that's meant to open up so that food can come in, and then once that food is acidifying, the LES valve closes so the food and the acid doesn't come back up and burn us. The problem is that the LES valve is triggered by stomach acid. So if somebody's just making a small amount of stomach acid, then it's not enough to trigger that valve to close. And now the small amount that they're making is going to come back up and burn them.

So if we look at the Cleveland Clinic website, which is one of the biggest, you know, medical research types of hospitals in the world, and basically when they talk about hypochlorhydria, which is the name for low stomach acid, they say that hypochlorhydria means your stomach isn't producing enough hydrochloric acid. Hyperchlorhydria means it produces too much. In the US, people most often attribute their digestive troubles to hyperchlorhydria, and they often use medication to suppress their stomach acid. Millions of people do it every day. I did it. 23 different doctors told me it was a great idea. But in fact, symptoms of chronic reflux or heartburn can also be caused by hypochlorhydria. Poor digestion from the lack of stomach acid can create gas bubbles that rise into your esophagus and throat, carrying stomach acid with them.

So, and when we look at the common symptoms that show up with hypochlorhydria, we see things like bloating and gas and constipation and reflux and heartburn. So this is known out there that this is a cause of acid reflux. It says hypochlorhydria, or low stomach acid, is a relatively underdiagnosed condition that may be more common than we know. Symptoms commonly associated with hypochlorhydria, or high stomach acid, including heartburn and reflux, may actually stem from hypochlorhydria. Medications to treat stomach acid can contribute to low stomach acid, making digestive problems worse.

So for a lot of people, including myself, that may be dealing with digestive issues where they're not making enough stomach acid, it creates a lot of symptoms. And instead of correcting the problem, just kind of turn it off more. And the reason that that can relieve some symptoms is because if you just have a small amount of stomach acid in the system, it can create a lot of trouble. And you're going to understand this in a second. But when we look at this study for nutritional interventions for gastroesophageal reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, and hypochlorhydria, they say that PPIs were first thought to have few side effects. New evidence, particularly with extended use, has revealed a decrease in absorption of some key vitamins and minerals, gut dysbiosis, and a bunch of other trouble. And they say that the current use of PPIs often focuses primarily on symptom management rather than addressing treatable factors that have contributed to the gastroesophageal reflux, gastritis, and even peptic ulcers.

So this is not something that I got from a Paw Patrol coloring book. Like, this is in the medical literature, and this is understood. And so what is important is that a lot of people will kind of feel like, "Oh, if I just turn off that symptom, then it's fixed and everything's great." And so I went on some medications that turn off stomach acid when I was having my vocal troubles, and then that symptom stopped. Like, "Oh, I'm not feeling that heartburn stuff." But my voice didn't come back. It didn't improve. And the problem is, there's still enzymes here that are made to help us digest proteins and foods and things. And when you turn off the acid, now this valve is not going to close properly, and the enzymes can still come up and digest those tissues. So there's ways that can create trouble even though you're trying to stop trouble from happening.

So if you're currently using some type of medication to turn off stomach acid, this is not me telling you to stop doing it. You don't want to just stop without actually fixing the problem. We just want to make sure we understand how this is really supposed to work and why so much trouble can show up.

So once the food is acidified here and it leaves the stomach, it comes down here into the duodenum, which is the first 10, 12 inches of the small intestine. Some people like to call it duo-denim, but it's a lot more fun to say duodenum. So when the stomach acid comes down here into the duodenum, that triggers the gallbladder to squirt this alkaline bile down to help us neutralize those acids. We need those acids to be neutralized. If the acids are not neutralized, they'll continue to move through the intestinal tract. Well, remember, those acids are made to help us break down protein. Well, guess what? Your intestinal tract lining is made up of protein. So if that's moving through there, you're basically going to digest the lining of your intestinal tract. And your body doesn't want that to happen. So it'll bring all the water that it can to that intestinal tract to cool off those acids and then rush them out the back door. And we come shooting off the toilet like a rocket. So this is the body trying to correct a problem that's going on. We need these acids that are leaving the stomach to be neutralized.

So the bile comes down, and bile is this soapy substance that's made up here by the liver and then it's sent down here to be stored and concentrated in the gallbladder. And then when it's time to call on it, it sends it down to help us neutralize those acids, but also help us emulsify our dietary fats, or break those down so that the body can use those. So we need to be able to digest fats correctly to be able to access fat-soluble vitamins like A, E, D, and K. Those are kind of a big deal, right? But it's very common for someone not to be making enough stomach acid for a wide variety of reasons. And it's very, very common for someone's bile to become too thick and sticky to flow correctly. So if that's not coming down and neutralizing these acids and helping us digest our fats correctly, a whole lot of trouble can go on.

And another important thing that happens when this acid hits this duodenum and it's triggering the gallbladder, all these actions also trigger the pancreas to squirt out this bicarb that also helps us neutralize those acids along with digestive enzymes that help us break down our food even more. And so this acid coming down here and meeting with the alkaline bile and the alkaline bicarb to help neutralize those acids, those opposite phases colliding creates like a sizzle, like a sizzle that helps us really bust that food apart and get all of the nutrients out of that food. So it's very important for both of these sides of digestion to be working correctly.

Another thing that's important to understand is that study was talking about how extended use of a some type of PPI or something that's going to turn off stomach acid increases the chances of creating a dysbiosis. So here in this large intestine, we should have beneficial bacteria. But there's a dysbiosis when there's a bunch of bad guys in there. So somehow these bad guys have kind of set up camp, they're having like motorcycle gang races and such. And the problem is that this stomach acid is not just there to help us digest our food. It's the barrier of the whole body. That stomach acid is like our knight in disgusting armor. When the bad guys come in on the food that we're eating, and they're coming in on the food we're eating, they're supposed to die in an acid bath. That stomach acid is supposed to fry them.

And when someone is not making enough stomach acid for a variety of reasons, they might not even need to be turning it off with a medication. There's a lot of reasons that someone might not be making enough stomach acid. But when it's not there, and those varmints come in, they're like, "Oh, well, this is nice. Let's set up camp here. Let's have a keg party. We'll raise some kids and we'll have a great time." And the better that environment is for them, the more they thrive and the more they replicate. And the bad part is, for a lot of these bacteria, the waste that they put out can be alkaline. So now they're alkalizing this stomach even more, turning off your ability to digest your food even more. Like a person might be making some stomach acid, but if there's all this alkaline waste in there, it's neutralizing it and removing their ability to acidify and break down that food. And then the bad guys will move down here and they'll set up camp in the small intestine where they really should not be. We should not have a lot of bacteria in the small intestine. It should be in the large intestine. And so now we've created some type of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, situation. And like, all cool kids have SIBO nowadays. And so now you can see where just trouble here is going to create trouble down here as well.

Okay, so how do we know which side of digestion is not working correctly? It's important to at least have a clue because if you're just trying to fix stomach acid, but the problem is that bile is not flowing correctly, you're going to increase the amount of acid there and really make it even harder to neutralize those acids and really magnify the problems you're dealing with. If you're just trying to fix bile flow, but the problem here is in stomach acid, it's going to create some other troubles too. We'll talk about some of those. But to get an idea of where you are, we want to look at what the signs are.

So when we look at signs for low stomach acid: burping and bloating and cramping and discomfort. Those are very common issues because when there's not that stomach acid there, that food has to break down at least a little bit somehow. And it'll break down kind of like by rotting and fermenting, and that creates those extra gases. And those gases will expand your stomach or your intestinal tract, and they can create that bloating. They can cause cramping or discomfort, or that gas can try to escape up here and create burping situations. And remember, if there's not enough stomach acid and you've let in a bunch of bad guys and created this dysbiosis situation, either in the stomach or the small intestines or further down the line, that has the ability to create some cramping and discomfort as well. We've already talked about acid reflux and how that can happen. And it took me a long time to figure out what was going on with me. I had some other things going on too, but acid reflux was a really big part of why I couldn't get my voice back. Indigestion. It says right there in the name, indigestion. An inability to digest. You can't digest. So that can let you know, "Oh, there's probably not a lot of stomach acid helping us digest." If we're seeing food in our stool, we shouldn't happen. We shouldn't see the food in the stool. It should really be broken down. Constipation can be a factor here with low stomach acid. We're going to talk about some other causes of constipation, but an important thing to understand when we're looking at our stool and food moving through the system is to understand that that bolus of food moves through the digestive tract at a pace according to its acidity level. So if somebody's not making enough stomach acid, now that bolus is going to be more on the alkaline side, and then it's going to move through slower, which means it's going to become dry and hard and more difficult to move, which can lead to chronic constipation issues. We'll talk about some other causes in a bit as well. This gas can come from either that food rotting or a bacterial overgrowth that got in because there wasn't enough stomach acid to fry them on the way in. And this issue, and both of these can cause a loss of appetite. You know, a lot of times if the food is not digesting correctly, it's just turning into this goo. You know, if you took a bunch of food, put it in a trash can and set it outside for a few days with a lid on it, you go out there, you stick your head in the lid, like it's not going to be super pleasant. It's going to have a smell and it's going to be rotting and fermenting and all these crazy bugs. And that can kind of go on in your body when you're not breaking your food down. It has to break down by rotting and fermenting, which can create all these toxins. And it's almost like the body is sending a signal like, "Don't send more food down here. I'm still dealing with the mess you sent down here before." So it can cause a person to lose their appetite. But on the other side of that, for some people, instead, they'll just be hungry all the time because they're not breaking down their food enough to get the minerals and vitamins and nutrients out of that food that the body needs to function correctly. So the body is sending this signal of, "Hey, we kind of need some stuff here. Send me some more things down here." And it makes the person kind of where they always want to eat because the body's not getting what it needs. Recurring nausea. Just kind of that same line of loss of appetite issue, just because the toxins are kind of filling up the system.

And one thing that's important to understand when we're looking at bile flow is that we know that it helps us neutralize our acids and break down our dietary fats. But we know the liver kind of filters a lot of toxins out of the body. But what a lot of people don't know is that it puts those toxins into the bile. So that when the bile is moving through the intestinal tract, it can carry those toxins with it, and they'll go out the back door when we poop like a champion. But if the bile becomes too thick and sticky to flow correctly, then it's not carrying those toxins out. And then the toxins start to accumulate in the system. The system becomes very toxic. And now the liver's got to filter out that stuff again. It's like, "Hey, why you sending me this again? I just filtered this out. What are you doing to me?" And the liver gets overwhelmed, and then it can't do all the jobs that it's supposed to do. It does a lot of important jobs. So that can be a pretty big problem. But when we're looking at this situation of, "Oh, I'm just kind of nauseous," sometimes it's just the system is too toxic because the body can't detox correctly. And that's why we see this chronic nausea over on the bile flow side as well. As well as it can happen just from an inability to break down that food.

If we're seeing green stool, that can be a sign that you're not making enough stomach acid. That bile has a green color and it's kind of what gives our stool that dark brown color. Um, so if it's green, that's a sign that there's not enough stomach acid mixing with that bile, so it's still kind of coming out in the green color. That bad breath. That can be a possible issue where everything's just rotting down there, so that smell is coming back up to the top. Cravings are very common here because your body's not getting the nutrients that it needs. So it's just screaming, "Can you give me some sugar? Can you give me something that I can use in place of that other stuff that I need?" And if your blood pressure is low, like the systolic number, which is that top number, if that's below 112, that can be a sign that there's not quite enough minerals and nutrients in the system and that blood pressure is going low. And an interesting sign of low stomach acid, it can actually be poor bile flow. You know, when we're talking about this stomach acid coming into the duodenum and triggering the gallbladder to shoot that bile down, if the stomach acid isn't coming down there, then it doesn't trigger the gallbladder, and then the bile doesn't come down and flow and help us digest all that stuff. And remember, the gallbladder's job is to concentrate the bile. So if it's not flowing and being called on like it's supposed to, it will just continue to concentrate. The concentrating mechanism doesn't have like an off switch. It's just going to continue to concentrate until it concentrates into sludge or even stone. And then you have a real problem with things moving through there. And a lot of people will say, "Oh, you know, no, it's cholecystokinin that triggers the gallbladder to squirt that bile down there." And that is accurate. The thing is, cholecystokinin is triggered by stomach acid coming into the duodenum, or dietary fats, or amino acids. Those are the things that trigger the cholecystokinin to tell the gallbladder to squirt that bile down there. And remember, amino acids need to come in by being broken down by stomach acid. So you either need the acid or the amino acids. And if there's no stomach acid, then neither of those things are really coming into the duodenum. So if you're only the only way that it's getting triggered is if you're having some dietary fats, one of the troubles is that when somebody has gallbladder pain and they're having gallbladder trouble, a lot of times they're told, "Oh, we just go on a low-fat diet. It's the fats that are calling on that gallbladder to kind of contract, and that's what's creating your pain." So if you don't need any fats, you won't have that pain. And now the gallbladder going into action even less. And all this stuff is concentrating in there even more. So a lot of times a problem that goes bad can really be magnified pretty quick. But you can see that when one side is broken, it has the ability to affect the other side as well. Nutrient deficiencies. When we see that, that's a strong sign of low stomach acid. And so can just like fatigue or weakness. You know, you're just not getting the nutrients that the body needs. And that can be one of the possible causes of fatigue and weakness. And then dysbiosis. If you have a dysbiosis problem, it's usually there because there wasn't enough stomach acid to fry them on the way in.

And when we look at the signs of poor bile flow, one of the biggest ones is a light-colored stool. Remember, it's that bile that helps us make that stool dark color. And when it's light color, like lighter than the color of corrugated cardboard, that's a really strong sign that bile is not flowing correctly. And diarrhea or loose stool issues is a strong sign because those acids are not getting neutralized and the body is rushing them through. There's lots of other causes of diarrhea, but this is a common one. If you eat fats and you just don't feel good, it's like, "Oh man, I just can't do that." That's a sign that you're not digesting those fats as well. Same with like a malabsorption issue. This often has to do with this stomach acid side not triggering these other functions as well. But when you're not absorbing nutrients correctly, there's things going wrong. Here's an interesting thing: is you can see blood pressure going high because that bile is not helping the body detox correctly. So all these toxins start to accumulate and thicken up the blood and raise the pressure needed to push that through the system. So that's one possible cause to see blood pressure going high. And of course, when either side of digestion is not working correctly, for some folks, they'll see their blood pressure go really low because they're not pulling minerals and other nutrients out of the body. Now, if you have acne or skin type issues, this is a strong sign that bile is not flowing because when those toxins aren't going out the back door, the body's like, "What do I do with these? I got to do something." And it'll try and push some out through the pores. And then if they clog the pores, that has the ability to cause some inflammation and trouble with those pores.

And one nice thing you can do is you can just check your saliva pH at least two hours after a meal. You can get pH testing strips at most health food stores. And if you look at that saliva pH and it's lower than 6.5, that can be a strong sign that if the system is just a little overly toxic, which is usually because that bile is not flowing and taking out the trash correctly. Now, this is not a diagnostic thing. We're just looking at things that we can do at home easily to get some ideas of what may be going on. You can also get some 10 or 11 parameter urinalysis dipsticks on Amazon. And, uh, there's a variety of brands. I'm not going to say a brand or anything, but you can just figure out, you know, just search for 10 parameter urinalysis dipsticks and you'll find a variety of brands on Amazon. And you want to get one that has bilirubin and urobilinogen. And if either of those markers show up on your dipstick, that's a strong sign that bile is not flowing correctly and that the kidneys are trying to have to get rid of that kind of stuff. Another sign is that if a person is on some type of estrogen-raising medication, like a birth control or HRT therapy kind of thing, that's raising estrogen. And estrogen going too high seems to have the ability to thicken up that bile. We'll look at some studies and stuff for that in a little bit later. And again, nutrient deficiencies. If you're having nutrient deficiencies, one or both of these things are usually going wrong.

And then next, we want to look at the signs of a possible overgrowth in either the stomach or the small intestine. That could be an H. pylori situation in the stomach, or it could be some other type of varmint. You know, we hear from a lot of people, or like, "Oh, I had an H. pylori test and it came back negative." But then they take steps to reduce some type of overgrowth and they see a lot of improvement. You know, this could be bacterial, it could be some type of yeast, mold, fungal issue going on as well. But a lot of the signs that you're going to see are similar to low stomach acid signs, you know, like the burping and the bloating and the cramping and discomfort. Indigestion, you know, excessive fullness after meals, or maybe I get full too early from that meal. That kind of thing can go on when there's some type of overgrowth there. And instead of just constipation, a person may also see diarrhea. Almost like, think about it like if you had food poisoning, you know, if you had diarrhea when you got food poisoning, it makes sense. "Oh, the body's trying to flush out all these bad guys." But what if a person just kind of had a low-grade infection all the time? That could create a chronic diarrhea type response. See the malabsorption and these things as well.

And one interesting thing when we look at this study about nutritional aspects of H. pylori infection, they talk about how it's very common that we see deficiencies in specific nutrients. We see here like iron deficiency. And again, that can go back to iron deficiency, B12, as an inability to really acidify the food and break down those proteins correctly. And the main mechanism related to malabsorption is this components is the modified intragastric pH. So we're seeing a modified pH in the stomach when H. pylori is present. And a lot of people even believe that H. pylori has the ability to reduce our ability to make hydrochloric acid. A lot of people view that like hydrogen is kind of what they're scarfing up, and then we need that hydrogen to make hydrochloric acid. So in this study here, they even say that as a consequence of these effects, H. pylori is also associated with childhood malnutrition in developing countries, either for the occurrence of malabsorption or for the increased susceptibility to enteric infections caused by hypochlorhydria. So like we talked about before, we see these low stomach acids and an increased ability for other bad guys to come in and take over as well.

And when we're looking at signs to know whether digestion is working correctly, we kind of need to understand basically water traffic a little bit. And where is the body sending water? Because that could dictate what the stool is looking like and what's going on there. And it was Dr. VCU who helped us understand that the body has this natural circadian rhythm at the cellular level. So during the day, the body should be in this catabolic state where it's very good at creating energy and kind of breaking down all tissues so that it can be rebuilt and renewed. And then at night, the body moves into this anabolic state where it's very good at sleeping and resting and then repairing and rebuilding. So both of those functions are great. We want all of those things. The problem is, some people can get really stuck in one of these states where they're not really moving back and forth from day to night like they should, or maybe they're just pushed way too far into one of these states. And when that's the case, it can create a wide variety of health issues. And one problem that we're going to look at here is that if somebody's stuck in this catabolic state, then the body tends to send more of the water to the bowels and less to the kidneys. So that could create a chronic diarrhea issue if the body is sending a lot of the water to the bowels. And if the person is stuck in its anabolic state most of the time, the body will send most of the water to the kidneys and less to the bowels. And that can create a chronic constipation issue. Maybe they'll get up to pee like 14 times in the middle of the night because the body is sending most of that water to the kidneys and not enough to the bowels.

So when we're watching our stool, you know, there's two kinds of people in the world: there's stargazers and there's stool gazers. And the stool gazers fare far better because they have a better idea of how their body is operating. We want to look at our stool and say, "Okay, am I pooping like a champion, or do I got a big mess going on?" And when you're watching your stool to get an idea of how digestion is going on, if we're dealing with constipation issues, you know, a lot of cases it's going to be that lack of stomach acid that's slowing things down. But where the body is sending the water can be a factor as well. So we want to understand these things a little bit. And I'm not going to dig into this too much here, but if you feel like this might be a factor, I'm going to put a link in the description below for our video on "Is My Circadian Rhythm Off?" And the circadian rhythm is not just about sleeping like people think. It's really about what the body is doing at the cellular level. And it has a lot of functions that need to happen in this state, and there's a lot of functions that need to happen in this state. And if either of those things are kind of off, or somebody's stuck in one state, it can be really problematic.

Okay, so now we want to look at what's possibly causing these issues. And before, before we can get to taking the steps to correct these problems, we need to understand the most common causes. Because most of the solutions that we use to fix this stuff are natural solutions. So if you're taking steps that are working against those steps, you're going to have a hard time reaching your goals. You're going to have a hard time seeing real results if you're driving around with your foot slammed down on the gas and the brake at the same time. If you've ever tried that, I'll let you know it doesn't go super great.

So let's look at the most common causes of low stomach acid, or hypochlorhydria. And the most common cause is really going to be a lack of resources. And the body needs minerals and resources to make this hydrochloric acid. This digestive process that we go through takes more resources than just about anything else that we do. So a body needs resources to make this hydrochloric acid. And then a person can really get stuck in this vicious cycle for years or decades because if they don't have the resources to make hydrochloric acid, then they can't really break down their food to get the minerals and nutrients out of that food to give the body resources to make hydrochloric acid. So they can get stuck in this cycle of broken digestion for years or decades. So what we're going to talk about in a little bit is how to kind of simulate digestion so that we can create that breaking down of the food process and then give the body the resources that it needs to improve this digestive functions. And this seems to work really well for maybe 30, 40% of the people who are having digestive malfunctions. So we need to understand the other things that can restrict this process because some people will just keep trying to synthesize this digestion and the body is not turning around and doing it on its own. So we want to understand the other things that can restrict that.

So one mineral that we know that's really important for making hydrochloric acid is zinc. And if the body gets depleted of zinc, it's going to have a hard time producing that hydrochloric acid. And the thing is that the body uses zinc for a lot of other functions. Zinc is really important for our immune function to work correctly. So if a person got like some kind of cold, or maybe even like a really popular cold, then the body could use a lot of the zinc to kind of handle that immune function, to help the body get rid of this invader. So if that's the case, the body may prioritize, "Well, I got to get rid of these bad guys. I got to get rid of this invader." So I'm going to use all the zinc for that. And then there might not be enough for that digestive process of creating that hydrochloric acid. And this can be why sometimes somebody will get really sick and they'll have effects from having that cold for a long time afterwards. And it just could be that they just kind of kickstarted this broken cycle where now the body didn't have the resources to create that hydrochloric acid. So then it wasn't breaking down food as well and getting all the nutrients out of that food. So this immune function can be a big deal. And I kind of felt like this was part of what happened with me. Is I kickstarted some trouble by a major food poisoning episode. A girl that I was dating at the time cooked for me and gave me some really nice food poisoning. And I was in bed for a week. And then after that, I just started having some digestive symptoms that came up. So I was like, "I'm going to use some antacids." And I took those, and that felt a whole lot better. And then that just kind of sent me down that line of turning off my digestion a little bit more and more at a time. So that doesn't mean that that's always the cause. You know, somebody just might not have enough resources for a wide variety of reasons. But to kickstart the problem by some type of infection or some situation like that, or a cold, even something that can possibly be the case. We broke up. It's fine.

So another issue can be chloride. Uh, the body needs chloride to make hydrochloric acid. So a lot of people are running in horror from salt because the doctor told them it was going to kill their Uncle Bill. So you should use salt either. But we need that chloride ion. So a good sea salt, I've seen clients that just adding a good sea salt or some unrefined salt into their diet really help the body get some nutrients it needed to start functioning better on its own. We need to have enough water. So if a person is not drinking water, we know that water needs to be available to make hydrochloric acid. And the body also needs CO2, or carbon dioxide. And that's what we expel when we breathe out. And the body needs to use that for this conversion thing that kind of goes on to part of the process of making that hydrochloric acid. And for some people, the body might not be making as much CO2. If somebody's on a low-carb or keto diet, that can be problematic in this area. And I'm not saying that low-carb or keto are bad diets. I use those myself. I use those with clients, uh, when it's appropriate for them. But those diets are not appropriate for everybody. So what we need to understand is that CO2 can be a byproduct of processing carbohydrates. So when we eat carbs or sugars and we process those, we create CO2 as a byproduct. So if somebody's doing a really low-carb or keto diet, that can lower the amount of CO2 that they're creating. And for some people, it's going to be fine. They have plenty of CO2 going on. But for others, there can be other things going on where maybe it was already low, and then they do some kind of keto or even no-carb carnivore type situation. And we need to understand that could go low enough that that could restrict the body's ability to produce that hydrochloric acid.

We also need to understand that the body uses CO2 to help balance out the pH of the blood. The pH of the blood has to stay in this narrow range. And if it goes too far in either direction, we just kind of die. So the body doesn't really want that to happen. And one mechanism it uses to regulate that pH is it will adjust the rate at which we breathe. So if the blood starts leaning a little bit too far on that alkaline side, then it will slow the rate at which we're breathing in an effort to hold on to more of that CO2 because CO2 is acidic and it can help balance that out. If the blood's leaning a little bit too acidic, it'll increase that rate that we're breathing to huff off more CO2 and help balance out that pH. So the thing that we need to understand is that's a priority to the body. We may just want, "I just want my digestion to work better." But the body's like, "Hey, I got other things that are a little bit more important." Because when the blood starts leaning to alkaline, what's called the Bohr effect kicks in. And that tells us that when the blood is too alkaline, that oxygen can't leave the blood and go down to the tissue so that it can be utilized correctly. Oxygen's kind of a big deal. So that can be an important thing to the body. So if it's slowing the rate at which we breathe in an effort to hold on to more CO2 because the blood is leaning to alkaline, then it may want to use more CO2 for that purpose, leaving less available for that digestive process and the production of hydrochloric acid.

So we also need to understand this can be happening with insulin resistance. Because the CO2 is a byproduct of processing carbohydrates. If somebody's leaning insulin resistant and their cells are not listening to that insulin, then they're not really processing those carbs or sugars effectively. So if you're not processing them, you're not producing as much CO2. It's very common for us to see a really low breath rate and someone's blood leaning a little bit too on that alkaline side with clients that are insulin resistant. So if that's the case, if someone's insulin resistant, that may also cause the body to be trying to hold on to more of that CO2 to balance out the pH of the blood, and making less available for that digestive process. That oxygen utilization is a really big deal to the body. And that's why we need to understand that fixing this problem is not always just a supply and demand issue. "Oh, I'm going to give my body zinc. I'm going to give it chloride." And then it's just going to make all these things happen. Sometimes the body has priorities that we don't really understand what's going on.

Another thing to think about is maybe somebody has gastritis, where there has been inflammation in that stomach and it has damaged those parietal cells that are in charge of making that hydrochloric acid. That has the ability to be a problem. And what's really interesting about this is that gastritis is not usually caused by too much stomach acid, like we thought in the '80s. We see now that it's usually caused by infections in the stomach and some type of bacterial overgrowth, like an H. pylori situation, that's creating that inflammation. So a lot of cases, it's due to that lack of stomach acid that the bad guys came in, set up camp, and then created all this trouble. If you feel like that's a problem for you, we'll link in the description below for our video on "Steps to Improve Gastritis." I'm not going to go too much into that specific issue in this video.

And another really big deal is stress. And this is probably one of the biggest factors for most people. I see that it's usually either a lack of resources or a stress situation. And what we need to look at is that the autonomic nervous system is very involved in this digestive process. And the autonomic nervous system is this system that kind of runs a lot of the show behind the curtains, like we don't need to think about our heart beating, it just kind of does that. And there's two sides. There's a parasympathetic rest and digest side and a sympathetic fight.

Or flight side, and both of those sides are needed depending on the situation of the body. So if we're presented with some type of stress situation, the body will move, move into this sympathetic fight or flight state, and that will change the way the body is operating to optimize for survival.

So if we're being chased by a lion, the body moves into this fight or flight sympathetic state, and it allows us to create more glucose for immediate fuel source to get away from this lion. It constricts the vascular system, it does things to optimize for survival in that emergency.

The problem is, to make hydrochloric acid, the body really needs to be able to be in that parasympathetic, rest and digest state. So if someone is stuck in this sympathetic state all the time, which happens to a lot of people, they may have a hard time making this hydrochloric acid. Which really makes sense. It makes sense that the body would do that because why would the body optimize for a situation where you need to run away from a lion and eat a sandwich? It's never going to happen. Nobody's going to be running from a lion and stop at a drive-thru to get a cheeseburger as it's running from this lion. There's no circumstance where the body should optimize for both of those things.

Stress in our life should exist for about four minutes at a time. Either the lion's going to catch you, or he gets tired and you get away, but it's, it's over in four minutes. But the way we live our life now, we're stressed for months at a time. Our boss is a jerk, we can't pay our rent. We're stressed for very long periods of time, and if we're stuck in that state, it can restrict the bodily functions that are supposed to happen in the other state, in that parasympathetic state. So if someone is stressed in their life, they need to simmer down now. They need to find ways to reduce that stress if they want their digestion to work optimally.

And another thing to consider is that a person may not have a lot of stress in their life, but if there's stress in their body, that can also push the body into that sympathetic state and get it stuck there. Maybe a person has some type of infection that they don't really know about. Maybe the body doesn't have a lot of resources, maybe it doesn't have enough resources and minerals and nutrients to function the way that it wants to function, and that's a stress to the body. It has to change how it's operating because it's not getting all the nutrients it needs to function correctly.

And the last one we'll talk about is just H. pylori. It's a common cause of, of low stomach acid. And we see over here, I copied from the Cleveland Clinic website that they say this common bacterial infection affects about half of us in the US. And some people, H. pylori causes no symptoms, but in others, it can take over, fighting and eventually decrease stomach acid. Ironic, low stomach acid could also allow for H. pylori to take over. So it's a situation where it seems like they come in and like, "Oh, we're going to make this environment great for us, and we're going to reduce this acid thing in here so that we can thrive a little bit better." So that can be a problem for some people and restrict their ability to make that stomach acid. So we'll talk about some steps for that when we get to improving low stomach acid.

So when we talk about the causes for poor bile flow, this is where we get into some things that really seem to be where people are working against themselves when they're trying to correct this issue. And the first thing that we want to look at is hypochlorhydria. And like we talked about before, and we'll look at this study in PubMed where they say, "Association between regular use of gastric acid suppressants and subsequent risk of cholestasis." And cholestasis is just when the bile becomes too thick and sticky, it's not flowing correctly.

So they say here, "It has been showed that acid suppressants may reduce gallbladder motility and lead to a delayed gallbladder emptying, which in turn facilitates the development of gallstones." Well, oops. So there's millions of people that turn off their stomach acid on purpose, and it seems like this piece of information is just kind of left out of the instruction pamphlet when I was using these medications. So we need to understand that this stomach acid is important to help that bile flow. And just keep in mind that they're talking here about the lack of stomach acid when using a PPI that turns off that stomach acid. But somebody could have a lack of stomach acid for any of those other reasons that we talked about. They don't need to be using a PPI to have a lack of stomach acid and therefore magnifying their ability to create this cholestasis issue.

So this is a really big piece of information. It should help us understand that just because my background is in stand-up comedy and I'm currently wearing Spider-Man pajama pants while I film this, doesn't mean that somebody can't find life-changing information in this video. This piece of information for some folks, absolutely will be.

Next, let's look at the next one that's really big, and that's estrogen medications. You know, like birth control and that kind of things. Things that are going to raise the estrogen in the system seem to have the ability to thicken up that bile flow. So we're going to look at this study here, "Effects of Estrogen Therapy on Gallbladder Disease." And the conclusion they came to that, "These data suggest an increase in risk of biliary tract disease among postmenopausal women using estrogen therapy. The morbidity and cost associated with these outcomes may need to be considered in decisions regarding the use of estrogen therapy."

So we see this a lot, and I've just, I've had clients that they wanted to continue using the birth control, and that doesn't mean I'm telling you to stop using birth control. I'm certainly not doing that. That's certainly not my place. But I haven't seen a client be able to improve their bile flow while still doing that because we're using natural supplements. And you think that you're going to overpower a powerful pharmaceutical medication with, you know, natural supplements? It's just, it's never going to happen. It's like standing in front of a train with a hammer and thinking you're going to stop the train. A hammer is a great tool, but it's not going to stop a train.

So this can be a big problem. And we also want to think about the fact that someone may have high estrogen levels even without using a medication. You know, eating a lot of estrogenic foods can have a similar effect. You know, things like soy and things that seem to be estrogenic, or maybe someone just has a lot of stress in their life. And when we're stressed, we can raise stress hormones, and estrogen can be one of those that can go elevated in that scenario. So this is a big deal and needs to be taken care of because it really seems to thicken up that bile and keep it from flowing correctly.

Here we go. Low-fat diet. That's another really big oops. And we'll look here at this study about "Modified Dietary Fat Intake for Treatment of Gallstone Disease." And they say, "As dietary fat is a potent stimulator of gallbladder contraction, dietary fat may provoke or exacerbate postprandial pain and therefore hypothetically restricting dietary fat may reduce the pain." So like we talked about, they're saying that if you're having this right quadrant pain where your gallbladder is when you eat fats, then it's from that contraction going on.

But they go on to say, "However, the gallbladder also contracts spontaneously in response to intake of mixed foods like protein." Like we talked about. Furthermore, "if restricting dietary fat does lead to a reduction in gallbladder contractions and emptying, it may also increase the risk of gallstone deposition as lithogenic bile would be retained longer in the gallbladder, thus potentially exacerbating the problems."

And to understand that all the trouble that this could cause just by low-fat diets and thickening up the bile, we see here under this study of "Fat Absorption and Lipid Metabolism and Cholestasis," they say that, "Many reports have indicated the existence of significantly decreased fat-soluble vitamin level under cholestatic conditions. Fat-soluble vitamins are highly dependent on intraluminal solubilization of bile acids, and lack of bile flow inevitably results in malabsorption and depletion of fat-soluble vitamin stores." So that's a really big deal when we want the body to get the nutrients it needs to function correctly.

So they're explaining to us right here that a low-fat diet is really problematic if somebody already has gallbladder problems. But if you understand what's actually happening when you're not consuming these dietary fats, you're reducing the amount of effort that the gallbladder is going to put into moving this bile out, which means it's going to stay in there longer and become more concentrated and thick and sticky. So that may be one of our biggest mistakes of the 80s, not counting mullets and parachute pants, of course.

Another problem can be processed junk and grains. Somebody consuming way too much of that seems to have the ability to thicken up our bile. Maybe somebody's not drinking enough water. The body really needs a lot of water for a lot of purposes, and if there's not enough water, everything is going to be a little bit more concentrated, it becomes a little more dehydrated, and bile is in that boat. So if we're understanding that, first, we need to drink water. But then we also need to understand where is the body sending all the water? If somebody's dealing with that catabolic imbalance that we talked about, then that could be part of the problem. We see with our clients and the coaches that we've trained in more than 40 countries, see very common to see a catabolic imbalance with a thick bile where it's not flowing correctly, and also insulin resistance.

And the final problem could be bile production. Maybe somebody's just not producing enough bile. And this is how most people view it. When somebody doesn't appear to have enough bile to process their foods correctly, they're like, "Oh, your body's not producing bile." We see that it's usually that it's just became too thick and sticky. And if you can take steps to thin it out, that it will flow correctly and everything's going to, going to be fine. But there do appear to be some people where it's about the body not producing enough bile. And if that's the case, a person can supplement with ox bile, and then they're giving the body some bile to help digest that food correctly. But providing that bile also seems to stimulate the body to produce more bile.

The thing is, we don't really like to use that step if somebody still has their gallbladder. We use ox bile if someone has lost their gallbladder and the gallbladder has been removed. And going to go into a whole lot of stuff about, uh, gallbladder removal in this video. If that's the case for you, we'll have a link in the description below for our video on six steps if you've lost your gallbladder, and that'll help you understand changes that may be going on and ways you can improve that. Because it seems like only about half of the people that have their gallbladder removed end up having any trouble. For everybody else, the gallbladder is gone, but the liver is still sending some bile, just kind of trickling down there all the time. For some people, that causes problems. For some people, they, they do okay. So I'm not going to go into that a whole lot. But we usually don't use ox bile unless somebody's lost their gallbladder. We prefer to just thin out the bile so that the natural bile function can work the way it's supposed to in the body.

Because when you supplement with ox bile, you have to take it in through the stomach. And remember that bile is alkaline, so you're alkalizing the stomach that you really want to have more acidic. So one of the biggest mistakes we see people make is that they take ox bile with their food, and they're just turning off their digestion before it has the ability to, to really acidify that food. So if somebody's supplementing with ox bile, it's very important that it's used away from that food so that it's not going to neutralize those acids. But again, we don't want to do that if we can just fix the natural bile function, just help the body work the way that it's supposed to work anyway. So this seems a little bit rare, but it's important to understand that it's a possibility somebody may just not be producing enough bile.

Okay, so moving on. Let's look at the most common causes for some type of overgrowth in the digestive system. And the really big one, like we talked about, is going to be the hypochlorhydria. Whether a person is turning off their stomach acid, or maybe they just are not making enough stomach acid, and they don't even know. If the front door is open, bad guys are coming in. That's just going to be how it works. So that's usually going to be the most common cause.

But another interesting one can be poor bile flow. And a lot of people feel like bile has antimicrobial properties to it. And so when it's coming down on the digestive tract, it's going to wipe out some types of bad guys. And I wonder if that's true. I, I wonder if it's more about the fact that when you get this stomach acid, you know, some type of varmints do okay in an acidic environment, and some do better in a more alkaline environment. So when you have this acid here frying most of the bad guys that are coming in, but the ones who like, "Ooh, acid's a good time," they get through that okay. Then they meet this alkaline bile and this alkaline bicarbonate, and those opposite pH is colliding, you know, creating that sizzle. I wonder if that's more about what's really wiping out any of the bad guys to get through.

But still, we know that with cholestasis, there's a greater chance of having some type of overgrowth because that bile is not coming down there. A person could also just have some type of deficient, um, this word I'm not really allowed to say this word here, the body's defense mechanisms, um, that can be important because maybe there's other issues going on, maybe there's some other infection going on or some other thing that this system is dealing with that is restricting its ability to keep out the bad guys. Um, and we have a lot of information on our private membership about that. If you need help with that, I'll put the link to that in the description below. But, you know, it could also just be a breach. Some kind of ninja varmint got through. You know, it just, it happens. And the body is meant to defend that and to take care of that situation. But sometimes there's just too much going on, something comes in, and we have trouble.

And another very common cause is antibiotics. We'll look at this study here, "Intestinal Candidiasis and Antibiotic Usage in Children." And they say, "Overgrowth of Candida results from factors that disrupt the intestinal microbial balance, such as the use of antibiotics. Unregulated antibiotic use and rampant practice of self-medication in Nigeria is a cause for concern." So this was a study in Nigeria. But what goes on is, you know, when there's bacteria, and there's also like yeast, mold, fungal kind of guys in our body, but they usually keep each other in check. So if we're using some type of antibiotic that just wipes out the bacteria, but not these fungal candida type guys, then all of a sudden they're like, "All right, we, this is free range. We do whatever we want here now." And then a candida issue or something like that goes out of control because there's no bacteria there to keep that in check.

So if somebody's going to use these antibiotics, and I'm certainly not telling you not to use that, that's not my place. But if somebody was to use that, they would really want to reestablish their gut flora with some probiotics. And we're going to talk about how to do that in a little bit.

So now that we're going to talk a little bit about how to correct these problems, you're going to see that it's important to understand the most common underlying causes if you really want to see real results. So let's talk first about improving low stomach acid issues or hypochlorhydria. And we're going to talk about some steps that are very simple and easy to take. And some people are going to do them and maybe 3%, you know, can do one of these steps and, oh man, it really improved those issues. For most people, they're going to need to supplement with betaine HCL.

So when we look at this study here of "Meal Time Supplementation with Betaine HCL for Functional Hypochlorhydria," what they did in this study is that they put a bunch of people on a PPI type medication that would turn off their stomach acid so that they can test some things and symptoms that go along with hypochlorhydria, things like, like dyspepsia and indigestion and things like we talked about. So then once they person had no stomach acid, they were turning that off, then they tested out supplementing with betaine HCL. And betaine HCL is just a supplemental form of the HCL like your body would produce in the stomach. It's a person has the ability to just take these capsules, and then they can acidify their stomach even though the body is not producing that HCL.

And what they said in this study was, "This extended mealtime postprandial hypochlorhydria may contribute to poor protein digestion, reduced micronutrient absorption, increased risk of dysbiosis and SIBO, or other symptoms associated with functional dyspepsia." So this study is saying all these things that we've been saying that can show up when someone doesn't have enough stomach acid. But they say, "Therefore, based upon this progressive functional hypochlorhydria in older subjects, it is not unreasonable for integrative and functional medicine clinicians to consider oral supplementation of gastric acid in the form of betaine HCL, often with pepsin, to help reduce mealtime stomach pH."

So when they did this, they found that it really improved these symptoms for the people. And I'll, I'll put a link to this study and I'm going to put this page here below. KickitNaturally.com/reset. It's going to list all of these studies that I've been talking about because all of them are not going to fit in the description below this video. So I'll just put a link to this page that holds all of those things for you, and you can dig deeper into that study. But they found that all these symptoms that we're talking about that come about with low stomach acid, they created these people with low stomach acid, and then they took this betaine HCL, and those symptoms improved greatly.

And a person doesn't need to be taking a PPI to have low stomach acid. So we find with our clients that this works very well, supplementing with betaine HCL. And they said often with pepsin. And pepsin is often included when you buy an HCL supplement. And in this study, they, they talk about how to use this HCL. They talk about, well, you just start with one, and then if you don't feel any discomfort, then the next meal, you go up to two because you don't really know how much HCL your body is making. It appears that the human body is supposed to make about the equivalent of five HCL capsules if the HCL capsules are about, you know, 500 milligrams, somewhere around there. The human body seems to make about the equivalent of five of those capsules.

So they talk about in that study that if you don't have any discomfort, just go up until you get to a dose that is too much, and it feels like, "Oh, that's discomfort. I feel a warming in my stomach," and then I'm going to go back down. So that's how they talk about to do. We find that that is not accurate at all, and that that creates a lot of discomfort for a lot of people. And we usually like to tell people, we don't see a lot of people going above five. If you go above five and it's not enough to digest your food correctly, it's likely that there's some type of overgrowth in that stomach that is either restricting the HCL production or it's neutralizing the acid that you're putting in there. So you may be putting in five HCL capsules, and I'm not telling you to take five, I'm just saying what a lot of people tell us. And they put in five, but if there's an overgrowth and all the alkaline waste from that overgrowth is neutralizing those acids, then that may only be as equivalent as one or even none for that person. So they may not see immediate results. They may need to take steps to reduce that overgrowth, and then the HCL they're putting in there will be more effective.

And we'll talk about how to do that in a second. But with the pepsin, the pepsin really is beneficial to help us break down our food. That's something that is made in the stomach and that helps us break down protein very effectively. But if somebody's going to work up to five capsules to really digest their food correctly, and we hear from most people that they just need to do that at least temporarily to get that acid going, and then the body starts making more of its own, and then they can reduce the amount that they're supplementing with. But if you increase to five capsules with pepsin in it, it can create a lot of discomfort for a lot of people. So we tend to use HCL without pepsin, and the body should be making its own pepsin, and that pepsin gets activated once the stomach is acidified.

So I'll put a link in the description below to the one that we use. I'm not telling you to use that, but I know you're going to ask, so I just want you to see and be able to look at the ingredients in that so you can understand that. Now, some people will use apple cider vinegar to acidify the stomach. And this tends to work if somebody just needs a little bit of a boost. It's not going to acidify like betaine HCL is, it's not even close. But if someone just needs a little boost, they could use a little bit of apple cider vinegar with each meal, and that might help acidify that a little bit. And again, we really need to reduce any overgrowth that's there in order for that HCL to be effective.

Now, one thing we like to see people do if they're running from salt, maybe using a little bit of an unrefined salt to get that chloride ion in there can help the body start to make more of its own HCL and help reduce how long you need to supplement with that HCL. Um, if you have low mineral levels, if we looked at our blood pressure and we saw that that systolic number was lower than 112, that's a sign that mineral levels are low in the body, and you're going to want to take steps to lift those minerals. And the trick is that we really need the digestive process working correctly to get all the minerals out of our food. We can supplement with some minerals, and that can help some. But if you can synthesize this digestion and you know, get that HCL going to help acidify the stomach, now you can start breaking down your food more to get more minerals out of your food to raise those mineral levels.

And one mineral that can be important is zinc. Like we talked about, um, zinc is important for the body to have to be able to make that hydrochloric acid. And zinc picolinate seems to be the form of, of zinc that can help that the most. And I don't like people to supplement with a whole lot of zinc. Um, it too much can cause troubles in other areas. We use a special digestive formula, a digestive enzyme formula that has a little bit of zinc and other co-factors in it that give the body what it needs to make more of its own HCL. So the goal with using that is to kind of reduce how long a person would need to supplement with so much HCL. I'll put a link to that below so you can kind of see the ingredients and do your own research to figure out what's going to be right for you.

Another thing to think about is celery juice. Celery juice seems to have a, a variety of benefits. And, uh, it really has to be juiced, it needs to be fresh, and it needs to be, uh, consumed on its own on an empty stomach. Um, but celery juice seems to be really good at wiping out bacteria in the stomach and even in the small intestine. So that could be one benefit. Um, but it also seems to give the body nutrients that it needs to help it start making more of its own HCL. So that can be a really good benefit. Just know that it also seems to have a slight laxative effect for some people. So if somebody's dealing with chronic constipation, that can really be really helpful. But if somebody's stool is already loose, they wouldn't want to use celery juice because that's going to magnify that problem.

And we also want to think about, you know, some of these possible causes. If somebody has like a gastritis issue or some type of ulcer in the stomach, then they wouldn't want to take HCL capsules. That's going to be like putting acid on an open wound. That's going to be creating a lot of discomfort. So a person might need to take steps to improve a gastritis issue. One popular step is to use cabbage juice. That seems to be very effective. So they might need to do that for two, three, four weeks before they qualify to test out if HCL is going to be okay for them. We'll put a link to that video on gastritis in the description below if you need to dig deeper into that. But it's just need to understand that, um, if there is an inflammation issue in the stomach, then that is going to create a problem. You wouldn't want to put acid in on on top of that. You'd want to fix that first.

So a person might need to reduce an overgrowth that's creating that issue, and then maybe use some cabbage juice to heal that up, and then they might be able to test out using some HCL. And how long would I use that for? Well, I don't know. We need to look at, remember these things that cause it. There could be a lot of these things going on that are restricting it. So some people are going to be able to use HCL, synthesize that digestion, get more nutrients out of their food, give the body the nutrients it needs to start making more of its own HCL. They'll be able to test out, "Okay, I'm using five per meal. How do I do if I only use four?" If I do four and it's great, then I'm going to do that. Maybe I'll even test out going down to three.

A person might need to look at the amount of protein that they're eating. That can kind of dictate how much HCL you would need to use in a meal. If you're not having a meal with any protein, you don't really need HCL. That's meant to help break down protein. If you put a lot of HCL in there with a meal without any protein, you, you might feel that discomfort. And the thing that they talked about in that study, like if you put one in and you don't have any discomfort, then increase to two. And we find that that's not reality either because if somebody has a bacterial overgrowth in here and their stomach is very alkaline, when you put one HCL in there, it's not going to be enough to acidify that stomach and overcome that alkaline substance of the waste from the bacteria. But it will mix with that alkaline waste and create this fizzy mess that creates discomfort in the stomach.

So a person could do one and feel discomfort and be like, "Oh man, HCL isn't for me. That made me feel worse." But the reality is that they needed to take steps to reduce that overgrowth. They could put one HCL in there, now they have a small amount of acid, but not enough acid to trigger that valve to close. So they could get reflux. Maybe they never had reflux before, and now they have reflux. "Oh man, HCL gives me reflux. That's not right." But the reality was they just didn't acidify the stomach enough to trigger that valve to close.

So if somebody's dealing with reflux, and we see a client that already has reflux, we like to see them take steps to reduce an overgrowth before they start using HCL. Maybe use some steps that we'll talk about in a minute for a few days before they test out HCL to reduce the odds of that overgrowth waste mixing with the HCL, creating all this gas and pressure that's going to push that acid back up and really magnify the acid reflux symptoms that they're having. So if they reduce that overgrowth first, then they put in HCL, you know, just putting in one or two, again, the person might realize a magnification of that reflux symptom because now they have more acid in there coming back up. But if they can increase to a dose that's going to acidify the stomach enough, then that'll acidify the stomach enough to trigger this valve to close, and that reflux symptom will stop.

So it can be a little bit tricky, you know, when you start taking HCL, there's some discomforts that can have and happen. And the reality is that the people that experience the most discomfort are usually the people who need it the most. So it's about understanding what steps to take to get past that and understanding what your body is trying to tell you when you're experiencing those discomforts. But yeah, if we don't fix like this stress thing, then that, that's not really going to fix the problem. You're going to continue to need to supplement with that HCL to digest correctly. If there's other of these things going on that are magnifying the problem, then it's going to take longer. But if you can start reducing the dose and still you feel good, you don't have these digestive symptoms coming back, and you can go down to none, and everything is still great, then you know that your body is now making enough HCL on its own, and you don't need to supplement with the HCL anymore.

Okay, let's talk a little bit about improving bile flow. And one really easy and free step that you can do is just to reduce processed foods and like processed grains, kind of things, and get that out of your diet. Eat more real food, and that could start to help in improve this bile flow. And, you know, if somebody's had a problem for a long time and it's a significant problem, doing this is not going to fix it. But if somebody just has a slight problem, that alone could be enough to fix the problem.

And then the easiest and the most effective step is supplementing with a supplement called Beet Flow from Empirical Labs. And we're not the manufacturer, this is not like a paid programming video kind of thing. This is just the supplement that we use with our clients. And I know you're going to ask, I'll put the link in the description so you can see the ingredients. Just understand that you don't want to use like a beetroot supplement, that's not going to do the same thing as this Beet Flow does. And we use this and it just works really well. We also do a specific flush with it that really seems to speed up the process of thinning out that bile. But that's all it's doing, it's just helped to thin out the bile. So if you can do something to thin out the bile, then you can get that moving.

And people talk about a lot of other things that are supposed to help, and we just don't see it work. So we don't want to tell you to do that because then you're like, "Ah, it didn't work at all. It's, uh, stupid." But we use something that we know works, then a person gets results. Now, you can also do coffee enemas or coffee suppositories. And this is like, "You want me to stick what where?" And I know it can be a little bit intimidating at first. But what this does is it has the ability to dilate that biliary pathway. So when you can do something to thin out the bile so it's easier to flow, and then you do this step to dilate that pathway and open it up, now you really improve the ability to move out out that old sludge and all that junk and get the bile flowing like it's supposed to.

And a coffee enema, you, it's, it's, it's messy, it's hard to do, I get it. But if you're set up and you know how to do enemas, just do a coffee enema. It works great. It works as well as these coffee suppositories that we use. I'll put the link so you can check those out in the description too. But I'm fine with a person doing either of those. And it's not something that you want to do every day. A coffee enema, nobody wants to do that every day. And we don't even feel it's beneficial to do that every day. But if you need to do this initially, maybe once a week or so to really get things going, and then you can kind of keep things going with some type of supplement like Beet Flow. And then eventually, if a person doesn't need to use the HCL anymore, then we tell them not to worry about improving their bile flow either, as long as they're not showing signs of it not flowing well.

But if somebody is putting stomach acid in their stomach, we want them taking steps to make sure the bile is thin enough to flow so it can come down and neutralize those acids when they leave the stomach. Otherwise, you can really create a magnification of loose stools or some other issue like that. Now, one thing that really does work well is choline. But a lot of people really cannot use this, they're going to make themselves worse. Because choline has the ability to alkalize that bloodstream. So it works to thin out the bile too, and it works pretty well, kind of like Beet Flow. We use it in conjunction with that, it seems to work well. But choline can alkalize the bloodstream. So if a person's blood is already leaning on that alkaline side and making the body want to hold on to more CO2 and not give up that CO2 to create hydrochloric acid, then alkalizing that bloodstream further is going to make that situation worse.

So you would want to check your breath rate and you would want to know how to do that. And if your breath rate was, you know, above 12, then you could probably use some choline. But if it started to go lower than that, you wouldn't want to use choline until you were able to, to get that breath rate up. And we go over how to do all those self-tests and stuff and how to figure out, "Am I leaning too far on the catabolic or anabolic side?" in our free digestion course. And I'll put a link in that description, uh, below as well. And that's just a free course that kind of walks you through how to look at the different aspects of digestion, how to run these simple self-tests at home with tools you can pick up at a pharmacy or a health food store. But that talks about how to look at that breath rate to figure out, "Can I use choline or not?" Because it can be helpful, but you don't want to use it to make things worse. So don't just use it because I said it's cool. You want to know if it's right for your body chemistry.

Uh, if estrogen is high, taking steps to lower that and bring that down can be helpful. You know, a lot of people use things like calcium D-glucarate or DIM, and those seem to be effective at bringing down high estrogen levels because the high estrogen levels are going to work against you in thickening up this bile more aggressively than some of these steps are going to help improve it. And a person can also try consuming more fats. And, you know, this can be a little bit tricky because if bile really isn't flowing, consuming fats is going to make a person feel lousy. They're going to feel nauseous or like, "Uh, I'm just bloated and yucky." So they might not want to really increase that unless they're taking some of these other steps. But as they take some of these other steps and get things moving, remember that increasing the amount of fat that you're consuming is going to call on the gallbladder more. More activity in the gallbladder is going to get it to get that stuff flowing, keep it from staying in there and concentrating and getting sludged up, and that can help improve that bile flow.

And finally, you know, if you're stressed, you got to simmer down now. You're not going to be able to be stressed and and fix this. It's just, it's going to work too much against you. And I get it, things in life can be stressful. But just put whatever you can in your favor. You can put things in your favor. Just relax for two minutes a day. You know, some people never do that. If you can do that, now you're putting a little bit something in your favor. You can also, you know, what you can do is you can turn off the news. Have you ever once watched the news and felt good? Like it just, it doesn't happen. You don't feel good watching the news. It's very stressful. The world is awful. But you don't have to carry that awful on your shoulders. Just turn it off. You know, and people will say, "Oh, well, I need to be informed." But do you? Are you really in charge of all that stuff that you're watching there? You're probably not. If something really bad is going on, you're gonna know because you'll go into the grocery store and they'll be out of toilet paper. So just simmer down. Find some way in your life to reduce that stress so that you can improve this bile flow and let your body function a little bit better.

And most people are not going to experience symptoms when they're improving bile flow. But if a problem is significant and it's been backed up for decades, and a person starts to thin that bile so it's flowing now, then a lot of those backed up toxins can start coming out. And then a person could experience some symptoms, like maybe they feel lousy, or maybe they have some type of skin rash or something where the body is just trying to push toxins out through the skin because it can't deal with everything that's trying to come out. And if a person just slows down how aggressive they're going and maybe increases their water enough to help the body wash out, that usually goes away pretty quick. But for most people, they're going to do fine when they start to improve bile flow, and they'll just start to see an improvement with their symptoms.

Now let's look into a little bit of, uh, improving an overgrowth. And when we're doing this, remember, we got to wipe out these bad guys. And we talked about the celery juice that can be really beneficial. Another thing that's natural could be D-limonene, which is basically an orange peel extract. And it's really good at wiping out bacteria in the stomach, maybe some in the small intestine as well too. Um, a person might burp up some orange flavor and be like, "I remember eating oranges." Isn't that just because it's made from orange peel extract? Mastic gum is another thing that can be beneficial. And it really works as almost like it's thought to be like an antibiotic for for the intestinal tract, a natural version of that, just because it kind of goes and wipes out all these guys through there. But that means that it could also wipe out some good bacteria. So you would want to replenish good bacteria after doing mastic gum for, you know, one, two, three months, depending on how significant a person's issue was.

Grapefruit seed extract can be helpful if the things are leaning more on that yeast, mold, fungal side. Grapefruit seed extract is very beneficial at getting rid of that issue. And a lot of cases, when a person has one type of overgrowth, they'll kind of have both because the door is open to letting in all these bad guys, and the environment is set up for them to thrive. So they might not just have just bacteria or just yeast type situations. It could be bad guys in both of those areas. And we like to use some herbal antimicrobials. A lot of formulas out there that have things like oregano oil and wormwood and clove. And we'll put links to some below, but you can just look at ingredients and see what you want to use. But some antimicrobial herbal can be very beneficial. And just know that a person is usually going to have to use more than one thing. They're not going to be able to just do one thing and nail it. You know, most of these things when you're using natural substances, a person is going to have to be a little bit more aggressive.

And remember that this, if it's like something aggressive like H. pylori, then it can be withstanding some of these things, and you might have to use more than one thing. When we look at this study on H. pylori on the "Long-Term Perspective Study of H. pylori and Non-Ulcer Dyspepsia," they did a study where they showed, "Okay, how do these symptoms go when we remove this infection or we reduce it, and how does it go if somebody doesn't really reduce it?" And they say that at one year, "those with persistent H. pylori infection had a higher score than those remaining clear of the infection." And they go on to say, "In addition, persistent H. pylori infection was associated with more additional treatments than those who eradicated it." And these results suggest that H. pylori plays an important role in the symptoms of non-ulcer dyspepsia. And that non-ulcer dyspepsia just means that they are not digesting their food. And we understand that that can come from a lack of stomach acid.

And with that information in studies like that, you'd be like, "Oh man, they should really be helping people understand how to reduce this bacterial overgrowth to help that digestive system function again." But then we see studies like this about H. pylori and dyspepsia where they say, "There is no doubt that H. pylori is not a sufficient cause of non-ulcer dyspepsia because it is well documented in the literature that dyspepsia can occur in the absence of infection and infection can occur in the absence of symptoms." So because it's not the answer for everybody, they say that it's not the answer for anybody. So that's kind of what the medical world likes to do. Is they're looking for an answer. So when this doesn't work for everybody, what if that's the cause for you? We already know that there's other causes of dyspepsia. Dyspepsia can come from an inability to create that stomach acid. So a person might not be able to make stomach acid because they don't have enough nutrients to do it, or maybe they're too stressed. It might not have anything to do with an infection. But just because someone else is having the issue for a different reason doesn't mean that that's not going to help that guy over there who has that infection.

Now, is this the stupidest thing I've ever heard? I can't say it is. I've heard some pretty stupid stuff. But when I explain this to my four-year-old, she was smart enough to say, "But Daddy, that's really stupid." So I'm not saying it's stupid, but my four-year-old thought it was stupid. She's really into My Little Pony. It's awful. Ah, now it's not as bad as the Super Kitties thing that she had going. But still, it's no Bluey. I think you parents know what I'm talking about there.

So when we're looking at improving these scenarios, we understand that it can really improve these symptoms. But we need to stop looking for an answer. All of the funds and all these resources are going towards these studies to find an answer that can fix the problems for everybody and be marketed and make billions of dollars. But it seems like that's going to be really hard to find an answer when we understand the variety of issues that can create this. So until we learn how to look at the person instead of that symptom and find one solution for everybody for that symptom, it seems like there's going to be a lot of sick people out there. And it seems like it might be kind of up to us. And it might be up to us saying, "Okay, I'm going to share this video with one person that I know with digestive symptoms." And I can tell them, "Hey, this video is kind of long, and this guy is really annoying, but this."

Is life-changing information, so suck it up and check it out and see what kind of answers you can find for yourself. If we all have the ability to do that, we might be able to take a chunk out of that pile of sick people that are all waiting for someone to find one solution for everybody that's dealing with that problem. It's not going to happen.

So, along with herbal antimicrobials and these things here, we also want to think about taking HCL because we want to shut the front door. And we don't want to fix this problem with all these natural antimicrobials and then have it come back three weeks later. People do that all the time. I hear from people all the time that have that happen because they didn't fix the stomach function, they didn't fix that acid barrier and shut the front door. Why wouldn't they come right back in? So that's important to make sure you're acidifying the stomach correctly. And also, as you're taking steps to wipe them out, acidifying that makes it a less hospitable environment for them. So we want to make sure that we're acidifying that. And we might need to take things down a few notches before we can actually really implement the HCL, or we talk about that magnification of symptoms that can come.

And when it comes to wiping out bad guys here in the small intestine or a SIBO type situation, I find that the mastic gum and some of these antimicrobials work a little bit better than the D-limonene. Uh, celery juice seems to be effective too. And a lot of people will tell you, "Oh, if you have like H. pylori, you don't want to use HCL because they feed off of hydrogen," and HCL is hydrochloric acid. But we just don't find that to be accurate. We find that the ability to acidify that stomach is going to correct the problem. And the HCL that's coming in that supplemental form just doesn't seem to be the same thing like the body would make and then feeding just on that hydrogen situation. So a lot of people have that opinion. I just don't have that opinion, but you can test out and see what works best for you. But just keep in mind that you might need to be aggressive, but that doesn't mean that you need to create total annihilation of these bacteria in my gut kind of situation. You usually don't like those studies show, you know, most people have H. pylori in the system and they do just fine. It's when it gets out of control. So if you can get things to a point where it's more in control and the body has the tools it needs to manage the situation, then most people do pretty okay when they're looking at an overgrowth and kind of resetting that situation.

Okay, let's let's move on. So every pony everywhere, every ah, get out of my head. Why can't we watch something that doesn't make me want to pull my teeth out? You're four, you're not in charge of everything. Oh no, don't cry. That's pretty much how that goes.

So when we're looking at enzymes and probiotics, enzymes are important because that's part of what helps us really break that food down into those elemental nutrients that the body needs so that we can function correctly. And the body makes some enzymes, and the foods that we eat contain enzymes. The problem is, if that food is cooked or processed, that kills those enzymes. So for most adults, we need to be supplementing with digestive enzymes. And for most people, they'll need to do that indefinitely. That doesn't mean you have to do it for every single meal. You're not going to fall apart if you forgot your enzymes when I went to the restaurant. But for most people, we're going to need to use those digestive enzymes indefinitely. And that's usually the only one that you're really going to want to use indefinitely. These other things that we're talking about are used to kind of correct a malfunction until you don't need them anymore. You don't need those training wheels anymore. Some people will need them a lot longer than others. But with enzymes, we really want to use them. And I don't use a ton with clients. I just like, yeah, just take a capsule with each meal, and that's usually fine. Um, if you can get one that has a little bit of zinc picolinate in there, that can be great, especially initially. Um, if you're having to use supplemental HCL to acidify your food, if you can get an enzyme that has some zinc picolinate and other factors that'll give the body what it needs so it can start making more of its own, that's great. You want to avoid something that has ox bile in it. A lot of people, these manufacturers will put ox bile in digestive enzymes with HCL. And again, you're driving with your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. Ox bile should go in away from food. If a person needs to supplement with it, it should not go in and be neutralizing the acid while we're trying to digest the food correctly. And just remember that enzymes are not magic. A lot of people will tell you, "Oh, just take enzymes and you're going to fix all your digestive issues." Well, it's not going to fix low stomach acid. It's not going to fix bile that's not flowing correctly. So usually this is just a step that goes along with correcting any malfunctions.

When we're looking at probiotics, also not magic. A lot of people will say, "Ah, just take probiotics and you're going to fix your constipation and all these kind of things," and it just doesn't work out that way. And we like to see people fix these malfunctions, take care of an overgrowth, and then repopulate with some probiotics. For a lot of people, if they put probiotics in while they have this major overgrowth, they're going to feel horrible. "Oh, I got all this cramping, I was so nauseous, I had discomfort, I was way more bloated." And it's because you're putting in these good guys and they're battling with all the bad guys that are in there, and it can create a lot of distress. So people will put in probiotics and like, "Ah, that made me feel way worse. That's not right for me." But they just needed to take these bad guys down a few notches, and then you can work on repopulating the probiotics. In this gut area, in this large intestine, is where we want those to thrive. But putting them in too early can create some trouble. I don't feel like people need to use them indefinitely like a lot of people say to do. If someone just repopulates that good gut flora for maybe, you know, two, three months, they're using these these probiotics, if this is all set up and working correctly, if this environment is good, and these malfunctions are corrected, they're wiping out bad guys as they come in, then they're going to flourish there, they're going to do well, and they're going to repopulate, and it's all going to be fine. Maybe somebody will use some preot, some probiotics, you know, once or twice a year, maybe. And using prebiotics is is okay too. I have a video about "Should I use it if I have SIBO?" and if you have SIBO and you're concerned about that, I'll link to that video below. Um, but adding in some fermented foods is fine on occasion too when you're to the point where you're adding in probiotics. I find that it works best just to put a variety of strains in there, not just to use, "Here's my bottle of probiotics that I use and that's all I use." If you can add some fermented foods in there or even different varieties of probiotics from time to time while you're replenishing, that seems to work a little bit better.

And we even use a specific probiotic to do what we call a probiotic test. Where after we've done enough work to wipe out any bad guys that are there, and we've corrected these malfunctions, and things are going better, we'll take this probiotic and we'll have a client take one on an empty stomach in the morning. Probiotics should be taken on an empty stomach, not when there's stomach acid going in there and going to fry them all. So away from food, we like to put the probiotics in. We'll take one of these capsules and then see, does that create any discomfort for you? If it does, that could be a sign that those good guys are going in and battling with too many bad guys, and we might need to do more work to kind of bring that down a few notches. But if you do okay with one, then the next morning you could do two and see, does that create any discomfort? If it doesn't, that's a great sign that you've done enough work to get rid of some bad guys, and now you can focus on just repopulating with those probiotics for a few months.

So with this information that you've learned here, most people are going to be able to do these things and be able to create some improvement in a relatively short amount of time, one to three months. They're usually going to be able to fix some things. And I hear from people, if you just look in the comments of our videos, you'll see people all the time, they're just like, "Oh man, I've had this problem for 20 years and I did these steps and I fixed it in two weeks." And I'm like, "It took me eight years." So you're annoying and that's not fair. But you know, that's just how it is. When you're taking the right steps for you and your bio-individuality, then the process can go a lot faster. Most people struggle for so long because they're working against themselves. They're either working steps that are maybe appropriate for their symptom but not right for the cause that's creating the symptom for them, or they're working with two different things that are actually working against each other. And people do that a lot. A lot of times when clients come to us, we help them more than anything by just having them stop doing the wrong thing. So that's pretty common. But for most people, they'll be able to fix this. But you know, a good 40, 50% of people are going to need to do some troubleshooting and kind of work through a few things. And that's okay. That's better than taking 10 years and just throwing remedies at the remedy dartboard.

So the most common troubleshooting that we'll see with reflux is that somebody's going to have that overgrowth there, and when they put the HCL in there, it's not going to be enough to acidify that stomach correctly. And all the gases that that overgrowth is creating is going to push everything back up and magnify those reflux symptoms. So taking care of the overgrowth is really necessary. Not using enough HCL is the next biggest mistake that we see, where they just put in a little bit, and now it's going to come back up. We need enough to trigger that valve to close. And another problem is that a person could have a hiatal hernia here, where the stomach is kind of pulled up into that diaphragm a little bit, and then that LES valve that's supposed to close gets a little jacked up and it doesn't really close correctly. So no matter how well they acidify the stomach, it might not close, and their reflux will just keep getting worse. So we'll put a video below in the description about how to correct a hiatal hernia if you think that could be a problem for you.

And when it comes to constipation, again, they might take HCL like, "Okay, I acidified this food, so it should move through the pathway a lot easier now." But if there's an overgrowth either here or here, they could be putting out that alkaline waste in either location. And if this is all alkaline from that waste in the small intestine, that's really going to slow things down and that's not going to correct the constipation. So if that's an overly alkaline situation here from the overgrowth, that's a problem. And another big problem is with constipation is that the person is often dealing with that anabolic imbalance that we talked about before. So the body is sending too much water through the kidneys and not enough to the bowels. So that course that we put for free below in the description kind of walks you through how to figure out if you're leaning too far on that side. So that may be some work that you have to do. You may have to look into that and figure that out. And if you prefer to read, chapters three and four of my book, "Kick Your Fat in the Nuts," kind of walk you through that same process and figuring out digestive stuff. And it also shows you how to do those simple self-tests for this anabolic stuff. And I'll put a link in the description below so you can get that whole thing totally for free. You don't have to get that on Amazon.

And then with diarrhea, the biggest problem is usually that a person will take steps to improve bile flow, which should help them neutralize those acids. So they may take steps to improve bile flow, but that doesn't mean that they've taken enough steps to improve their bile flow if it's really backed up. Some people might need to be really aggressive. They're not going to be able to just take, you know, bile flow for a week or two and fix it. It's they're going to need to be more aggressive to fix that problem. So that's usually a troubleshooting issue. And maybe the diarrhea is not caused by the poor bile flow. It could be some type of infection that the body is trying to rush out of the system. They could be dealing with that catabolic imbalance where the body is sending too much water to the bowels. So they need to correct that in order to fix the loose stool issues. Or they could be having this unchanged bile really, where they have bile that's flowing okay, maybe the gallbladder is even gone, it's flowing all the time, but there's not enough stomach acid to acidify the food. So then the bile is not meeting with that acidity and turning into this process that it should be. Like as it moves through the system, it's moving through here still in that format of bile like it is up here. It shouldn't be like that down here. And that can irritate this intestinal lining to where now it's irritated because it's way too alkaline. So instead of slowing it down, it's irritating it so much that the body rushes it out there. This is a little bit more rare to see, but it's important to understand in case it comes up.

So we've given you a lot of stuff here, but that doesn't mean that there might not be some troubleshooting. And inevitably, somebody will be like, "Oh, well, I have more fancy things than that. I have delayed gastric emptying or or I have slow peristalsis." And you know, there's lots of fancy names for things that go wrong out there. But in a lot of cases, when you understand the main malfunction that's going on, either a lack of HCL production, a lack of bile flow, some type of overgrowth, or water going to the same place, a lot of these fancy names just end up being names for the symptom that is going along with your situation, like inflammatory type of names for things. Well, if you have acid that's not being neutralized, you know, if you were to put battery acid on your arm every day, don't you think that would create some inflammation? It's going to create a problem there. So over time, this acid, as the body is trying to rush it out the door, is going to create inflammation in that digestive tract. And now you're labeled with this inflammatory issue when maybe it was just a problem of the bile was not neutralizing the acids as it came out. So, you know, slow peristalsis is a thing that makes us sound like our intestinal tract is broken. It doesn't feel like moving like it should. Well, remember that things move at a pace according to its acidity. So if there's no stomach acid, of course things are going to move slower. So sometimes it's about reading through some of these things. If you have some of these advanced things, we have videos on pretty much all these topics. And you can just go to our channel, go to the video page, and then just type in that little search box the keyword for what you're looking for, and you'll probably find a video for it. If you don't, let us know and we'll see if we can make one for you.

So if you made it this far, that tells me that you're going to fix this because you're willing to do the work. This video was long. This is like day four of shooting this video. So if you sat all the way through that, that means you're going to be willing to do the work that it takes to figure out what are the right steps that are going to work for you, not for the symptom that you're dealing with, but for you and your unique bio-individuality. And it can take some effort. Some of this stuff can be a little bit complicated, but we have a lot of resources that you can dig through to find your answers. So if if you need to dig into this more, that free digestion course that you can sign up is going to give you a lot of answers. We have a private membership that has a support group where people can ask questions and me and my coaches help people find the answers that they're looking for. And if somebody's really stuck, they can get a bio-individuality coach to help them walk them through that process. I become too busy, I don't take on clients anymore. And and these coaches don't shut up. Phone. I'm talking about coaches right now. And these coaches don't work for us, they work for you. But we're happy to connect you with someone since I'm not able to work with clients anymore.

So the main thing that I like somebody to get from this type of video is that, "Oh, well, that that makes sense. That makes sense why I'm dealing with the issues that I'm dealing with." And when something makes sense, which I know is kind of weird today, but if it makes sense, then it's just a matter of doing the work to correct that. So you may have some work to do, but know that if you're willing to do that work, you can really see improvements. You can see some changes and you can improve things that you've been dealing with for a long time. I can't wait to hear about your results.