Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000086A
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00:01 The following program presents principles designed
00:02 to promote good health 00:04 and is not intended to take the place 00:05 of personalized professional care. 00:07 The opinion and ideas expressed are those of the speaker. 00:10 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions 00:13 about the information presented. 00:16 Just about everyone will experience abdominal pain 00:19 at some time in their life. 00:20 Many of the causes of abdominal pain 00:22 are not serious and can be easily treated. 00:24 However, improperly diagnosed abdominal pain 00:28 could lead to some serious trouble. 00:29 Learn to recognize the symptoms of severe condition 00:32 on today's program. 00:35 I'm Dr. James Marcum, are you interested 00:38 in discovering the reason why? 00:40 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problem? 00:43 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:46 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription. 00:51 Whether a slightly unsettled stomach, 00:53 stomach cramps or even sharp pains. 00:56 Abdominal pain can be caused 00:57 by a number of different things. 00:59 As a practicing physician for the past 25 years, 01:01 Dr. James Marcum has a few ideas 01:03 about what might be causing such pains, 01:06 and he's here to share with us on today's program. 01:08 You're watching the Ultimate Prescription 01:09 and I'm your host Nick Evenson. 01:11 Dr. Marcum, welcome 01:12 and what do you know about abdominal pain? 01:14 You know, abdominal pain is, 01:16 we've been talking about pain the last few programs. 01:19 Right. What pain is? 01:21 When it's serious? 01:23 And abdominal pain is a big one because everyone has it. 01:26 And whether it comes from, 01:28 you know, eating too much food or, 01:30 you know, not moving the food through the tube, 01:32 it's a problem that we have. 01:34 And I think, you know, in approaching it, you know, 01:37 I want to educate our audience and if can know some, 01:40 you know, some of the big, big physiologic principles. 01:44 Yeah, we can sort of understand this, this so, 01:46 so the digestion system is just a big tube. 01:50 So, Nick, think if it's like a big tube that runs 01:53 from your mouth to when it exits your body. 01:56 And the function of this tube 01:58 is to extract energy from your food. 02:01 That's what it does. 02:02 So it's big tube that pulls energy into your body. 02:06 Holds out the nutrients that you need 02:08 and it passes through the things 02:09 that you don't need. 02:10 It keeps out what goes out. 02:12 So that sort of helps you. Right. 02:13 It's one big tube, it's different types of tissue 02:15 and it goes at different speeds 02:16 and different parts pull different things out, 02:18 but that's what it's for. 02:19 So if you think about it, it starts in the mouth, 02:23 the tube starts in your mouth 02:24 and that's where actually digestion starts. 02:27 And we can help maintain the tube in this part 02:29 by just chewing our food well. 02:31 Yeah. Okay. 02:33 It keep, cuts down the work load downstream. 02:36 So digestion starts there, we want to, 02:38 we call this mastication, a big word mastication chewing. 02:44 Amylase, lipids different amylase chemicals 02:45 start to digest the food, 02:47 we chew it that helps to break it down. 02:48 Now amylase is that like, what's in you saliva? 02:50 Yeah, yeah, that's a saliva, that's a enzyme 02:53 that starts to break down protein 02:55 right there in your saliva. 02:59 And then it starts moving down 03:01 and then as it moves down the tube, 03:04 different things happen. 03:05 You know, first it gets, 03:06 you know, the esophagus you swallow it, 03:08 okay. 03:09 And it decides to go down the right tube. 03:10 You know, there's tube that goes to your lungs 03:12 right there at the same spot. 03:13 Right, we don't want it to go down that tube. 03:15 No, and the epiglottis 03:16 keeps it going down the big tube 03:17 and it goes down the esophagus 03:19 and then it eventually gets into your stomach. 03:21 So there in the stomach really work starts to happen. 03:24 Yeah. 03:26 And there is a little valve leading into the stomach 03:27 called upper esophageal sphincter, okay. 03:30 And it gets in the stomach and then the stomach starts 03:32 digesting the food breaking it down more. 03:34 So if you chewed it up petty well, guess what? 03:37 And if you eat food that's easy to digest, 03:39 the stomach doesn't have as much work to do. 03:42 So it's easy on your stomach if you chew the food well. 03:44 I know, that something that sometimes 03:46 I rush through a meal 03:47 and I'm not doing myself any favor, 03:48 is that where am I? 03:50 Yeah, and also you don't want to hit the stomach 03:51 with too much food all at once because then he's got to do is, 03:54 "Man, my workload is too hard today." 03:56 Yeah. So he likes to rest too. 03:58 So it makes a lot of different chemicals 04:00 to start breaking down the food even further, 04:02 so it can be absorbed downstream 04:05 in the intestines. 04:06 So it breaks down the food especially proteins, 04:09 a lot of, you know, breaks down proteins. 04:11 Hydrochloric acid is made in the stomach 04:13 and that's a pretty powerful acid 04:15 to break down food. 04:16 So the stomach is very acidic, very acidic. 04:19 And we want to keep the acid in the stomach. 04:21 We're gonna learn that some disease conditions happen 04:24 because the acid either goes upstream 04:26 into the esophagus or it causes damage 04:29 within the stomach lining itself. 04:31 I'm assuming that the stomach is made to hold this acid... 04:33 Yes, it is. 04:34 And so it can do that very well. 04:35 But when the acid gets out into other parts of the body... 04:37 Not so very good. Okay. 04:38 Not so very good. 04:40 So anyway, the food eventually gets into the small intestine 04:42 and the large intestine and that's where the water 04:44 and the nutrients are processed. 04:48 The intestines aside, what gets in your body, 04:51 what doesn't get in your body. 04:53 We have a very a trillion bacteria 04:55 live in this tube downstream 04:57 and we call that the microbiome. 04:59 Okay. 05:01 All sorts of species of bacteria 05:02 and we want to have the good ones out 05:04 with the bad because they decide 05:05 what gets in your gut, what gets out of your gut. 05:08 The bacteria down there also make chemicals 05:10 that affect your mood, 05:12 it affects inflammation on their body, 05:14 it affects all sorts of things. 05:15 You know, it can even affect 05:17 you know different disease states 05:20 down in your intestine. 05:21 Well, you know, the microbiome, 05:23 that you talk about all these bacteria, 05:26 I just think of them just dealing with the food 05:28 but it sounds like they play a much bigger role 05:30 than just dealing with food. 05:32 Yes, they help with the food, they help decide 05:33 what gets in and out of the body. 05:35 The bad bacteria have their own things that they do. 05:39 And if you think of our genetics, 05:40 there's more genetic material in the bowels 05:43 than in the rest of the body. 05:44 Really? That's fascinating. Yeah. 05:45 A trillion bacteria they all have DNA. 05:47 DNA makes different things. 05:49 And so that's you know why, you know, 05:50 the brain and the gut are connected 05:52 because it makes chemicals like serotonin 05:54 which affects our moods. 05:55 So if the guts not happy, a lot of it's not happy. 05:58 So anyway, it moves through the big tube, 06:01 the small and large intestine. 06:02 Eventually it gets 06:04 once all the nutrients have been pulled out, 06:06 the waste is excreted. 06:08 Right. And then you're done. 06:10 So that's in short what this big tube does. 06:13 Okay. 06:15 So now when we sort of got a feel for this, it helps us, 06:17 it's gonna help us understand abdominal pain 06:20 and also pain up higher too. 06:21 Right, yeah. 06:22 So if you think what causes malfunction of the tube. 06:25 If we sort of know what it's supposed to do, 06:27 what can cause malfunction? 06:29 We're eating the wrong types of food. 06:31 Okay, eating food with toxins in it. 06:33 You know, that doesn't agree with the system. 06:36 Now what kind of things would be toxins? 06:37 Well, think about it, lets say, you eat spoilt food. 06:41 Okay. It has bacteria in it. 06:42 It's gonna make you get sick and throw up. 06:45 Let's say you eat a lot of chemicals 06:47 that your body can't handle. 06:49 Okay, a lot of people you hear gluten insensitivities 06:52 and a lot of people do poor, for instance, 06:55 if you are a meat eater, 06:56 if you think of all the chemicals 06:58 that come with meat, 06:59 the antibiotics, the growth hormones, 07:03 the disease itself in animals that gets in you. 07:06 Sometimes that can act as a toxin in the body. 07:09 So that's gonna hurt the system, 07:11 the system needs good old water, okay. 07:13 That's right. 07:14 Yeah, little bit of water, it's very important. 07:15 To push it through. 07:17 So not getting enough water could hurt help dysfunctions. 07:20 We know that people who don't drink enough water 07:22 sometimes they get constipated. 07:24 Right. Have you ever been constipated? 07:27 Not too bad, I usually drink a good amount of water. 07:29 You know, I haven't either, thank goodness. 07:32 And when you said they've been practicing 07:33 for 25 years I said, 07:35 "Man! I'm getting up there, you know." 07:36 Yeah, yeah. 07:38 But that's a good thing not to have 07:39 and just keep drinking lots of water, lots of fiber 07:41 are good ways to keep from being constipate. 07:43 Now gravity, the tube needs gravity, so just, 07:47 you know just standing up and moving. 07:49 And when we move and exercise, guess what? 07:52 There's muscles involved in this process as well. 07:55 Muscles in the esophagus 07:56 that put the food down into the stomach. 07:59 The bowels also have, 08:00 we call it motility where the food moves. 08:02 So just a good exercise program 08:05 helps move things through as well. 08:07 Yeah. 08:08 Now if you're a couch potato and don't exercise 08:09 and lay down after you eat every meal, 08:11 the tube can't work as efficiently. 08:13 So this process can't move from A to B as easy. 08:17 So gravity is our friend 08:18 when it comes to moving the food 08:19 through the systems. 08:21 Exactly. Okay. 08:22 One of our greatest friends of this tube is fiber. 08:24 Okay. 08:25 I've read a statistic recently 08:27 that 95 percent of Americans don't get enough fiber. 08:32 This tube needs fiber for couple of reasons. 08:34 Fiber helps move things through, 08:36 it speeds up the motility of the bowel, 08:39 so the bowel moves things through faster. 08:42 Of course that will help with constipation. 08:44 It also helps move water in and out 08:46 but more than that fiber helps regulate 08:49 all the bacteria downstream. 08:51 Right. 08:52 This microbiome, and we know that people 08:53 that don't get enough fiber, 08:55 it hurts the flora or the bacteria in the gut. 08:59 Right, mm-hmm. 09:00 You make more bad bacteria and less good bacteria. 09:02 Mm-hmm. 09:04 So just getting fiber helps in the regulation 09:05 and the movement of the gut bacteria. 09:08 So that's a very good thing. 09:10 And of course other things that affect the tube 09:13 through time is inflammation. 09:15 If you have, what would cause inflammation? 09:17 Eating the wrong foods, having a disease state 09:20 that we're gonna talk about a little bit later. 09:22 If you have a malignancy, that can cause problems. 09:24 So that it gives us a general understanding. 09:27 Well, let's talk about the pain, okay. 09:29 Mm-hmm. 09:31 You know, I'm talking about pain 09:32 usually from the waist down. 09:33 Okay. 09:35 Now sometimes heart pain 09:36 can sort of feel like abdominal pain. 09:38 So you want to make sure you're not having heart pain. 09:39 So if the pain won't go away, 09:41 if a pain happens when you walk, 09:43 those pains need to be evaluated right away. 09:45 Yeah. Okay. 09:46 But chronic abdominal pain that goes on 09:49 for a long periods of time, it's not anything serious, 09:52 that really requires a complete evaluation. 09:56 From looking at all the things, the common sense things 09:58 that we've talked about to looking at things like 10:01 inflammation, infection, malignancies 10:05 and doctors can do that now fairly easy 10:07 by looking down with different scopes. 10:09 We can look above in the esophagus, 10:12 in the stomach we call that an EGD. 10:15 Okay. 10:16 And we can look below through a colonoscopy. 10:18 Now the small bowel is a little bit harder to see, 10:21 but now we have pill cams and other ways 10:23 to look at the small bowel as well. 10:25 Okay, right. 10:26 So we look in there to see if there's a disease state. 10:29 So if a person has pain, Nick, that will not go away, 10:32 that the belly is tight, and they're running a fever 10:35 and they feel bloated 10:36 and things like exploding inside of them, 10:38 that's a trip to the emergency room. 10:40 Okay. Okay. 10:41 A little bit of pain if the belly 10:43 is not tight, no fever, 10:44 you know, that's a keep an eye on type of pain. 10:46 Right, right. 10:47 But the pain that where the belly gets tight, 10:48 you're running a fever, 10:50 you're getting nausea and vomiting, 10:51 those are serious symptoms from the GI tract, 10:53 you need to get help right away. 10:55 Now also when the GI tract, not only you have pain 10:58 but pain associated with diarrhea 11:01 that might be a serious symptom as well. 11:03 Because diarrhea in the bowels 11:05 changing the way they function, 11:06 that could be a sign that you have something, 11:09 I'm going on that's more than just you know, 11:11 the bowel not working well. 11:12 You might have food poisoning. 11:14 You might have some bad inflammation. 11:16 But the real danger 11:18 is if you have lots of diarrhea, 11:19 you lose electrolytes in water. 11:21 And you can get dehydrated pretty quickly 11:24 with severe diarrhea. 11:26 So and talking about this, 11:28 those are some just general approaches 11:31 so you know, we want to make sure 11:32 our maintenance is good, 11:34 we chew well, we get lots of water, 11:36 have lots of gravity. 11:38 The bowel needs rest, you can't eat all the time, you know. 11:41 That's right, yeah. 11:42 That you need to rest your bowel, 11:43 especially we don't want to eat big at night. 11:45 We want to let the bowel rest at night, so it can recover. 11:49 It can sort of have a break, 11:51 it can sort of get itself together. 11:52 You think people will sleep better 11:54 with that strategy? 11:55 Absolutely, absolutely. Because when you... 11:57 And part of your body is working, 11:58 you won't sleep as well. 11:59 Yeah, right. 12:01 You got the bacteria going, they're making hormones, 12:02 you know, things are going on. 12:03 So I tell people you should try not to eat four or five hours 12:05 before you go bed at night, 12:07 you will rest much better. 12:09 So nutrition, the biome, all these things are important 12:13 as we approach bowel pains, 12:15 what to do about it, what not to do about it. 12:18 And then also if we have serious symptoms 12:21 associated with nausea, vomiting, 12:22 fever, bowel's tight feels like a drum, 12:24 those are trips to the emergency room. 12:26 Occasional bowel pains, sometimes we can just work 12:29 on the maintenance of the bowel and it goes away. 12:31 But if it doesn't go away, 12:33 it's gonna need some of these serious 12:35 test like an EGD or colonoscopy, 12:38 some of those types of testing. 12:39 Very good. 12:41 So that's a general approach to abdominal pain. 12:42 Very good. 12:44 Well, we got a bunch of questions 12:45 that have come in from our website 12:47 at heartwiseministries.org. 12:48 If you have a question, we want you to visit, 12:49 ask your question, request prayer 12:51 and you can read a bunch of health articles 12:52 and radio programs and TV programs, 12:54 lot of good info there on health. 12:56 And so visit the website 12:58 and we're gonna be back on more, 12:59 more on abdominal pain in just a moment. |
Revised 2016-12-26