Health Conditions and Treatments

Seventy five percent of the body is made up of the building blocks of life, also known as amino acids, which are required for every bodily process. There are twenty necessary amino acids and ten of them are produced from what we eat, while the others are produced naturally.

Here are a few of the essential amino acids: histidine is necessary for tissue regrowth, lysine helps with calcium absorption, phenylalanine affects memory and nerve functions, methionine breaks down fats, and tryptophan aids in sleep and serotonin production.

When our digestive system is out of whack, we suffer in several ways. Acid reflux, heartburn and indigestion can be an unpleasant side effect of improper digestion. While it’s widely believed that acid reflux comes from overproduction of hydrochloric acid, recent research suggests that indigestion can actually be caused by the underproduction of this acid.

Achlorhydria, which is the technical term for the underproduction of acid, results when undigested protein is sitting and is basically rotting away in the stomach. This in turn causes burping and bloating and is very uncomfortable when food is forced back up the esophagus. Telltale signs that your food is not being broken down properly and is not producing the amino acids that your body requires, are excessive burping, feeling heavy and nauseated, suffering with either diarrhea or constipation and bad breath.

There are several reasons why your digestive system may not function properly. Maybe your body is not receiving the signals of a chemical nature to encourage the removal of waste, the absorption of amino acids and protein and mineral usage.

Body chemicals can be affected by heavy duty workouts or stress — which seems to command all of your body’s attention, thus taking it away from other processes that may need neurotransmitters. Age also naturally diminishes hydrochloric acid production : a 65 year old individual has only 15% of the HCl that he or she had at the age of 35. Sleep deprivation, eating disorders and a poor diet can also affect digestion in significant ways.

Drugs like Prilosec, which has been the top selling prescription medication in recent years, appeal to us by promising to stop acid production, even though acid production is a much needed natural process. While these drugs provide temporary relief, they still don’t deal with the underlying issue - that the body simply isn’t digesting foods properly and therefore is not generating the necessary amino acids that it requires for proper functioning.

For this reason many people take supplements of amino acids to control their digestive processes. These supplements can kick start the removal of wastes from the body and control the production of stomach acid and the absorption of minerals. We need to remind ourselves that our bodies will not perform as designed without the proper nutrition.