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The Stomach: A Very Complex Organ

| Health & Science

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Many Factors Are Involved In The Balance Between Proper Digestion And Stomach Problems.

My medical dictionary describes the stomach as a distensible saclike organ connecting the esophagus and the duodenum (throat and small intestine).  The stomach is a major protein-digesting organ and lies just below the diaphragm, to the right of the spleen and partly under the liver.  The stomach is made up of three parts, the fundus (base of a hollow organ, the part farthest from the opening), antrum (the cavity, the part adjoining the pylorus) and pylorus (the lower part of the stomach that leads to the duodenum). 

The Stomach sits at a slight angle, with the inlet at the cardiac orifice (throat) and the outlet at the pyloric sphincter (beginning of the small intestine).  The angle allows food to be bathed in the stomach acid solution (hydrochloric acid and pepsin) while being moved around or churned by the muscular action of the outer layers of the stomach.  It has the capacity to hold about 2-3 quarts of solid or liquid material and secretes up to 2 quarts of digestive juices per day that are between 1.5 and 3 pH (very high acid). The stomach continues the digestive process that starts in the mouth.  Gastric juices, hydrochloric acid and pepsin are secreted by glands in the mucosal lining and contribute to the digestive process.  The semi-liquefied and partly digested food is passed on to the duodenum.

There are about 35 million glands in the stomach consisting of two basic types.  The first type secretes acids.  The parietal cells secrete hydrochloric acid and the chief cells secrete pepsin.

The pH factor of hydrochloric acid (HCl) is 0.8 and is a major protein digestive enzyme.  The inability to produce HCl is generally seen as a consequence of aging, but some authorities feel it’s not age connected, but directly related to years of stomach abuse.  My own personal experience in years past would bear that out.  I thought indigestion was part of life until I changed my diet and eating patterns about 25 years ago. Now, I have indigestion so seldom, maybe once a year, that I can point directly to the cause, because I ate it.

Pepsin is the other major protein-digesting stomach acid.  Pepsin works best in a stomach pH environment of about 2. If pH gets as high as 5, which is not unusual for people on antacids, pepsin is inactivated.  High amounts of HCl and the lowering of stomach pH aid in digestion of meat collagen by pepsin.  Without pepsin the digestion of meat is drastically reduced.  This scenario leads to constipation and possibly colon cancer.

Stimulation of the vagus nerve will increase HCl and pepsin secretions in the stomach (more with pepsin than HCl).  The vagus nerve is the tenth cranial nerve and supplies nerve impulses to the muscles used for swallowing.  Sensory branches of the vagus nerve carry sensations of taste from the mouth to the brain.  The sensation of swallowing and food entering the stomach causes the antrum to produce gastrin.  When the circulation of gastrin reaches the gastric glands, it causes them to increase the secretion of pepsin three fold and HCl eight fold.  Smelling food and strong thoughts of food can increase the production of digestive stomach juices.  When you think about pickles and your mouth begins to water, your stomach is doing the same with HCl and pepsin.

The second type of stomach gland is the pyloric gland.  It secretes mucus that protects the stomach wall from being digested by HCl and pepsin.  Other mucus cells secrete small amounts of lipase (a fat-digesting enzyme), an intrinsic factor and a gel-like alkaline substance that adds protection to the stomach wall and acts as a lubricant in the digestive tract.  Without these elements for protection, a hole would be eaten in the stomach wall in about three hours.

The intrinsic factor combines with vitamin B-12 and aids its being absorbed in the small intestine.  Most cases of B-12 deficiencies can be traced to poor assimilation of B-12 due to inadequate amounts of the intrinsic factor, as opposed to insufficient dietary B-12.

When a beer belly, or prolapsed abdomen exists, nothing is correctly positioned below the stomach to hold it in place.  This allows the stomach to bulge out at the bottom, making a pocket for stomach acids to collect in.  This increases the likelihood of an ulcer in the lower parts of the stomach, in the region of the pylorus or in the duodenum.  This can also lead to pockets of food being left in the stomach, which results in putrefaction, indigestion and other digestive tract problems.

Antacids can result in overproduction of HCl and pepsin, A.K.A. acid rebound.  Habitual use of antacids eventually depletes the stomach’s ability to produce digestive juices. 

Many stomach problems may be due to a misalignment of the sixth thoracic vertebra, which is covered in my articles on the spinal column.  

 

 

      

    

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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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