Searching For The Cause
Not many people try to find out why their stomach becomes irritated or in what ways they may have
contributed to their own illnesses. Instead, they feel they are doing all they can to become well by simply
treating the symptoms of their illness as they manifest one by one. Unfortunately, even by removing the
final stage of the symptom of disease, which in the above case is a cancerous tumor, the physician has
done nothing to address the cause of the very first symptom of disease, stomach pain. Eating irritating
foods and bottled salad dressings or having too much refined salt or hot chili may have caused the pain.
Others causes may include feeling emotionally upset, smoking, drinking too much alcohol, regular intake
of coffee, soft drinks, or artificial sweeteners, overeating, liver congestion, or not drinking enough water.
The latter is probably the most common, yet the least known cause of stomach problems and many
other illnesses. I am using the example of stomach disorders to describe the basic mechanisms leading to
disease. Most stomach pains are signals of advanced dehydration of the mucus lining. Consisting of 98
percent water and 2 percent water-holding scaffolding, the mucus layer serves as a natural buffer of
protection against stomach acids. The cells below the mucus layer secrete sodium bicarbonate, which is
kept there to neutralize any of the hydrochloric acid that may pass through the mucus lining. The resulting
chemical reaction between the two chemicals produces salt from the sodium bicarbonate and chlorine
from the hydrochloric acid. Consumption of foods that require the secretion of large amounts of
hydrochloric acid, such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, and other high protein foods, thus causes high salt
production inside the stomach. This alters considerably the water-holding properties of the scaffolding
material of the mucus lining. Regular consumption of such foods in large amounts leads to an intensified
acid neutralization, and subsequently, to an accumulation of salt deposits in this layer. This causes
“erosion” which will allow the acid to reach the stomach wall; the result is the well-known pain of
dyspepsia.
As long as the mucus barrier is properly hydrated through regular water intake, and protein and fat
consumption is moderate, any salt deposits are washed away. In addition, sodium bicarbonate is retained,
and the hydrochloric acid is neutralized before it even has the chance to penetrate the mucus layer. Thus,
there can be no better acid barrier to the stomach wall than water. Yet the stomach pain, which in most
cases is rather a thirst pain, is usually combated with antacids and other medications. These drugs,
however, do not offer efficient protection against the natural action of the hydrochloric acid. Most people
with stomach ulcers and severe abdominal or dyspeptic pain, experience almost instant and total relief of
their discomfort after drinking 1-2 glasses of water. Caffeine-containing beverages such as most soft
drinks, tea or coffee, on the other hand, have a diuretic effect, and draw water from the protective stomach
lining. One cup of coffee or an alcoholic drink can easily bring on a painful attack.
The stomach pain is the first signal to tell a person that something is off balance with regard to his
eating habits or the hydrating of his body. The suppression of this pain through drugs usually prevents the
patient from finding out what is causing it. Thus, the ignorance about the mechanism of water
metabolism—mistaking the thirst pain for a disease, which is a gross misdiagnosis—can be held
responsible for the suppression of the initial symptoms of discomfort that could eventually end up as
cancer. Most cancers are the result of repeatedly suppressing mild symptoms of illness such as a cold,
pain, infection, or headache and treating them as if they were real diseases.
The purely clinical approach to treatment focuses on the progressive stages of pathological symptoms
and keeps producing new findings that promise a cure for each of these problems. In 1982, a bacterium
was discovered by Marshall and Warren, which supposedly causes more than 90 percent of duodenal
ulcers and up to 80 percent of gastric ulcers. The microbe is a spiral-shaped gram-negative bacterium
known as Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori).