This month’s health observance is about scoliosis.(Wikipedia entry) Basically, scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of your spine when looking at you from the front or back. Some of the side effects of scoliosis include back pain and altered function of the organs within your abdominal & chest cavity.
www.healthsystem.virginia.edu
Arthritis (specifically Rheumatoid Arthritis) affects millions of people worldwide and researchers have found a link to leaky gut syndrome.
Leaky Gut? What’s that doc?
Well your intestines function as a selective barrier, meaning that they let in the “good” stuff while keeping out the “bad” stuff. So when you ingest food, the job of the intestine is to absorb the nutrients while keeping out potential pathogens.
Sometimes, however, the “bad” guys get through the intestinal barrier and can stir up an immunological response. When I use the term “bad” guys I mean relatively large particles. So instead of absorbing amino acids (which are the smallest portions of protein), macropeptides (or long chains of amino acids) are absorbed. Your body dislikes this kind of activity because absorbing large particles makes the immune system think a pathogenic invader has entered the system. (A pathogenic invader can be a parasite, bacteria or virus which have protein coats on it).
So here’s the link between Rheumatoid Arthritis and Leaky Gut: a heightened immune response due to absorption of large particles causes an auto-immune reaction where your body’s own immune system begins to attack itself. The protein coats from pathogenic invaders is similar to the protein content of the joint in your body. The immune system cannot distinguish between the two.
