234 Diet Wise
time secretions turn the liquefied food back to an alkaline mix, or chyle, as it
is known. The gallbladder is really a liver storage reservoir and bile salts are
secreted by the liver, not by the gallbladder. Bile acids are vital because they
enable fats to emulsify. This term means fats in suspensions as tiny droplets
in the watery liquid (milk is an emulsion).
The duodenum (which literally means “twelve fingers,” from its
dimensions) has been likened to a second stomach. It is a good analogy.
Many animals, as you know, have more than one stomach. Most of the
digestive process takes place here, leaving mainly simple sugars, amino acids,
simplified peptides and fatty acids. From there on down the rest of the gut,
absorption is the name of the game.
The wall of the small intestine is lined with tiny hair-like growths,
which increase the absorption area. These can be damaged, causing difficulty
in absorption. If the loss of functional capacity is severe enough, as in celiac
disease, the patient may simply waste away and die. Nowadays we know the
cause is gluten allergy and by avoiding gluten, the individuals’ gut returns to
normal and absorbs quite satisfactorily.
Finally, the large bowel (colon) absorbs most of the fluid content,
compacting food into feces, ready for expulsion. The familiar color and
smell come from the breakdown of bile acids into two compounds, indole
and skatol and the putrefactive process, releasing hydrogen sulfide, methyl
mercaptan and ammonia.
Nobody (to my knowledge) treats the smell of feces;
it’s not as critical diagnostically as smelly urine. But if
you should wish to reduce the odor of your feces, be
advised that proanthocyanadins from grapeseed extract
will do just that, and do it very well, according so a study
published in 2001 [Jun Yamakoshi, Shoichi Tokutake,
Mamoru Kikuchi, Yoshiro Kubota, Hiroyasu Konishi,
Tomotari Mitsuoka, Effect of Proanthocyanidin-Rich
Extract from Grape Seeds on Human Fecal Flora and
Fecal Odor, Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease, Volume
13, Number 1/February 1, 2001].
Green tea also has measurable but smaller effect in
reducing offensive odors in the stool.
See also the box on Flatulence, page 000)