Raena Morgan: Hi, I’m Raena Morgan with iHealthTube, visiting with Nena Dockery.
She’s an expert on digestion and enzymes—what’s going on in the
stomach?
Nena Dockery: Well, really, the stomach is where digestion, for the most part, actually,
simply begins. It is interesting—I teach some classes at a local college,
and I had a student come up to me—we were not even studying digestion
at the time, but he was asking me a question about digestion, and about the
digestion occurring in the stomach. And, it was his understanding, or
misunderstanding, that that’s where digestion occurs, and that’s where we
absorb the nutrients from our food. And really, that’s somewhat incorrect,
because except for a very few nutrients—our nutrients from our food—our
digestive process actually occurs—the bulk of it occurs—in the small
intestine; so, very little actually occurs in the stomach. Protein digestion
begins, carbohydrate digestion begins, fat digestion begins through the
action of some enzymes [in] that region, in that time, but most of it
actually occurs in the small intestine. And that is because the food…
simply begins to be broken down in the stomach and then it proceeds into
the small intestine where the bulk of digestive enzymes do their job. And,
after the food is broken down to its simplest components, or nutrients, then
those nutrients are absorbed through the small intestinal wall. So, really, in
the stomach very little digestion is occurring. So, when we think about—
oh my stomach hurts, you know, I’ve got indigestion—we think of it being
in our stomach. It’s really, usually, a process that is occurring in our small
intestine.
Raena Morgan: So, that is where the discomfort would be occurring?
Nena Dockery: Right, normally in the intestines.
Raena Morgan: In the intestines. So we think of it as stomach indigestion but it’s really
intestinal indigestion.
Nena Dockery: Right. Now, there are some things, some problems that can occur in the
stomach, such as heartburn; it’s usually a product of something going
wrong in the stomach. In other words, the gastric acid that is released in
the stomach is backing up into the esophagus, but as far as the bulk of
digestion [goes], it is actually occurring in the small intestine. And, the
absorption of our nutrients definitely occurs in the small intestine.
Raena Morgan: Okay, well, what is the importance of intestinal health, good intestinal
health?
Nena Dockery: Oh, it is very, very important, because if we do not have the functioning of
the enzymes that are released both by the pancreas into the small intestine
and the functioning of the enzymes that are found in the small intestine,
then our food cannot be completely broken down. And, if it’s not
completely broken down then we don’t absorb the nutrients from it
through the intestinal wall, and we end up with a multitude of problems
with digestion.
Raena Morgan: And, there are a multitude of problems with digestion. You go to any
pharmacy and you just see rows of digestive aids. And, that’s coming from
lack of intestinal good health?
Nena Dockery: Oh yes. When I first started working for National Enzyme Company,
around 10 years ago, I read a marketing statistic that around 30 million
had some sort of digestive problems. And, each year I would look at that
same statistic, or a similar one, and that number has steadily increased to
the point now where it’s well over a 100 million people.
Raena Morgan: 100 million people have digestive problems?
Nena Dockery: Right.
Raena Morgan: And are taking aids for that?
Nena Dockery: And are taking aids for that, and that doesn’t even [include] the people
who may take an antacid 2 or 3 times a week. And, it’s to the point where
we consider that as normal. I think one of the classic examples [is] the
boiling frog. You put it in water and you slowly heat that water and that
frog will be boiled. But if you put the frog immediately into boiling water
he would jump out, or try to jump out. And, the same thing is true of our
digestive health; it has occurred over a number of years, and we have
become accustomed to having poor digestion. And, we don’t even
recognize, I think, at this point, that it is a problem. It [has] become so
normal for me to have to take an antacid, or a number of people to have to
take an antacid that that is what has become the norm. And we see the vast
increase in the number of even prescription antacid products or digestive
products that have become over the counter digestive aids because the
problem is so prevalent, it [has] become essentially normal for us.
Raena Morgan: Okay, well, thank you very much Nena. We’ll talk some more about this.
Nena Dockery: Thank you.
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