Intestines - your other brain

Until now it has been thought to be a result of “unbalanced” work of our brain in response to various stressors. It turns out that over 90 percent of information comes from the intestine to the brain via vagus nerve, whereas inversely comes only about 10 percent. The intestines have hugely developed nervous system. Each of the intestinal villi (which are estimated about 40 per square millimeter of our intestinal surface that makes the area of approximately couple hundred square meters) has its own nervous circuit. Overall number of neurons inside the intestines reaches 100 million, which is less than in the brain itself, and still it is a huge excess. Why is that? If we, in pursuit for the answer to this question, abandon standard approach to the function of the nervous system, we will find the answer ourselves without any difficulty.

Let us answer a few questions, then:

• Does the term “instinctive nutrition” exist?
• What was the role of sweet and bitter tastes in human development?
• Why do we react differently to certain meals; for example one can salivate just on the smell and sight of greasy sausage, whereas others turn away in disgust?
• Why natural nutritional supplements (dietary supplements) are considered to better?
• Why do not we like sudden changes in dietary patterns and why do we suffer from diarrhea during exotic trips?

These questions can be multiplied, but all of them have a common denominator; all of them are factors (stressors) affecting directly our intestines. This is the information acquired by the brain and transferred to the "intestinal nervous system" or directly received by the intestines and transferred to the brain. This information is received immediately and processed into physiological reaction by the intestinal nervous system. The intestines inform the brain about the effects of this reaction (this makes 90% of information, look previous paragraph). This is where our general feeling comes from - either we are in good mood, or melancholic and then depressed. Tryptophan plays here one of the main roles.

This amino acid is found widely in milk, butter, bread, cereals, etc. and can be transformed into serotonin. Serotonin, on the other hand, is a neurotransmitter and the amount of it limits the speed of transfer of information through the nervous cells. If we do not “over-protein” our organism (there will not be too much protein in relation to carbohydrates in our meal), then tryptophan will cross the blood-brain barrier and there it will be transformed into hormone of happiness (serotonin) during the day, or into the hormone of good sleep (melatonin, which arises from serotonin in the pineal gland while sleeping) at night. Whereas there will be too much proteins e.g. for supper, then tryptophan cannot compete with other amino acids in crossing the blood-brain barrier. The excess of tryptophan is in that case converted into serotonin in the intestines and used for proper function of “intestinal nervous system”. Unfortunately, excessive serotonin circulating in our blood inhibits calcium absorption mechanisms in our bones. That is why overloaded with proteins diet (e.g. as if we drink one liter of milk per day) can lead to osteoporosis and depression.

Starvation diets and cleansing diets (in particular Gerson diet) not only contribute to correct functioning of the whole gastrointestinal tract, but also by its proper work, to adequate activity of the whole nervous system.

Ancient sages and philosophers before creating their works underwent obligatory, one-week starvation diet; perhaps it would be beneficial for us to perform such a diet for a day or two each month?!

Tastes also influence the nervous system. The most important is the sweet one. “Sweet meat means good, bitter one – poison” – that is the most brief and simplified method of pursuit of food among primitive people. Sweet taste immediately stimulates enzymatic and hormonal system to receive energetically-dense food (the blood becomes filled with LPL enzyme and the pancreas mobilizes its forces to insulin production). This is why human beastings produced at the very beginning of lactation contains great amount of lactose (a disaccharide consisting of glucose and galactose – the only monosaccharides that are absorbed in the intestine regardless of their concentration, even against the concentration gradient, which means in any quantity). Glucose is crucial for every cell function, especially neurons.

Digestion and absorption efficiency is dependent on the ‘intestinal nervous system”. The better is something prepared and does not make a stress for the intestine, the more efficiently it will be absorbed and used. That is how it works with nutritional supplements. If they are truly natural, even small doses prove to be satisfactory and their physiological effects are amazing. Although production of natural diet supplements is expensive, difficult, and sometimes impossible to achieve. That is why there are so few producers of natural diet supplements and so many synthetic supplements. “Synthetic” must be given in large quantities in order to work properly; alas, this excess is harmful, as I wrote before.

From individual, subjective point of view, our mood reflects what we eat. The brain and the intestines are in constant contiguity with each other exchanging countless amount of information (almost at ten times higher rate from the intestine to the brain).

Before putting anything into the mouth, regardless of it is being a sausage, a carrot, or chips, consider how did I feel once after having eaten exactly THIS?

How will my other brain react? Does your brain prefer classical music or entertainment music to crash of plane taking off or traffic noise? Does your “intestinal nervous system” prefer natural food and natural supplements to “food chemistry”? Sincere answer and conscious decision on nutrition and supplementation will let you find your appropriate nutritional way, and you will forget about constipation, diarrhea, bad mood and depression, allergies, joint disorders, etc...forever

dr n. med. S. Puczkowski