Digestive Problems Treatments

A Digestive Disease is any health problem that occurs in the digestive tract. Conditions may range from mild to serious. Some common problems include heartburn, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea and lactose intolerance. Other digestive diseases include: Gallstones, cholecystitis, and cholangitis, irritable bowel syndrome, Ulcerative colitis, IBD.

The digestive system is an intricate and extensive part of the body. It ranges all the way from the mouth to the rectum. The digestive system helps your body absorb essential nutrients and is responsible for getting rid of waste.

The typical duration of digestion through the GI tract is about 4–6 hours, depending on the Agni that is digestive fire and constitution of individual. According to one of Ayurveda’s teachings is that we are not what we eat, but rather what we digest. This play on the well-known saying, “You are what you eat” is meant to illustrate that digestion is of utmost importance in staying healthy. However, one should understand about the digestive process. Ayurveda provides us with an in-depth view that goes beyond what is commonly known. A few key features of the Ayurvedic take on digestion include the idea that the whole process happens in three stages, that digestion happens on a subtle level as well as a gross physical one, and that it takes a full 36 days to complete the digestive process. Here is a break-down with more information.

One way to describe how subtle digestion nourishes these tissue layers is through the analogy of irrigation; an irrigation channel full of water nourishes each row of crops, with the nearest portion receiving water first and the portion at the end receiving water last. In this same way, the nutrient fluid is carried from one tissue to the next in its proper order.

Ama

The normal process that should take place in the body is as follows: All the food we eat should be fully digested. Half of it is absorbed into the body as nutrients and the rest of it expelled out of the body as waste products. Quality of this process mainly depend on quality of Agni (digestive fire).

But sometimes due to external negative influences (e.g., stress, strain, adverse weather, inappropriate food and habits) not all the food we eat is fully digested. Perhaps just one third of the food is fully digested and absorbed as nutrients; the other third is fully digested and expelled out of the body as waste products. But there still remains a third of the food which is in a half-digested condition. Because of this, it cannot be identified as either nutrients or waste products. Therefore, it is neither absorbed nor expelled out. This half-digested unmetabolized food product circulates in the body as toxins. Ayurveda has named such toxin as "Ama". Ama is a Sanskrit word which literally means undigested or uncooked. The pathogenesis of many of the diseases starts from appearance of Ama in the body. This again lead to vitiation of Doshas (Vata, Pitta, Kapha).