Zeb was born a sphere.  Of course, he was a baby boy, but topologically, he was a sphere.  That is how I comforted myself.

Topology is rubber geometry, it studies properties that survive shrinking and stretching, but no tearing allowed. 

So we are doughnuts because we all have a tube that goes right through us from our mouth to esophagus to stomach to small intestine to large intestine to anus.  Think of shrinking down our arms and legs and increasing the diameter of our digestive system, keeping our mouth and anus wide open.  What have you got?  A doughnut.  This has all kinds of interesting consequences, like our digestive system is really outside of our bodies.

Zeb was born with a gap in his esophagus.  That is, as a fetus the top of the esophagus did not grow down to connect to the bottom of the esophagus growing upward from the stomach to meet it. 

So mother’s milk, if put in his mouth, had nowhere to go. (That made him a sphere, there was no tube going all the way through his body.) 

So on his first day, Dr. Ginsburg, put in a stomach tube so that he could be fed.

When he was two months old, Dr. Ginsburg connected the top of Zeb’s esophagus to the bottom so that he could eat normally.  One consequence of the operation was that there was a lot of tension on his stomach.  Now, there is no valve or sphincter, at the top of the stomach, just a muscle which works to keep the top of the stomach closed.  Under the tension of the esophagus this got stretched so that Zeb has a lot of reflux.  That is, the stomach acids slosh upward into the throat and burn.

Acid Reflux

Have you ever been attacked by the acid from your stomach when you have just gone to bed and have literally just fallen into that deep sleep period?  I say attacked because that is exaclty what it feels like.  It feels like a severe burning in your throat where it is almost hard to breathe.  The acid is coming out of your nose and throat while you are running to the bathroom trying not to be sick.  To avoid this you can’t eat too late at night, you have to sleep almost sitting up, you have to take Prilosec or Zantac or another antacid every day. 

Prilosec and Zantac shut down the cells in the stomach that make acid.  That helps the reflux, but makes it harder to digest foods.  You no longer have a lot of hydrochloric acid breaking up the foods in your stomach.

People who suffer from acid reflux need more digestive enzymes than their bodies produce.  Therefore it is necessary to include more digestive enzymes in your daily diet.  You can get these extra digestive enzymes through various supplements.

Supplements for Acid Reflux

• Protease is a digestive enzyme that breaks down proteins.
• Diastase digests vegetable starch.
• Lactase breaks down lactose or milk sugars.
• Invertase is a yeast enzyme that splits sucrose into glucose and fructose.
• Lipase digests fat in the body.

Supplements for Healthy Digestion

Healthy digestion takes place while we rest, eat, sleep and work.  In fact, you will only notice your digestion when something is not right.  For example, when you eat something that does not agree with your body or you drink too much alcohol, you can become constipated or bloated.

Even if you do not have symptoms of an unhealthy digestive system today, it can take time for the negative effects to accumulate and begin to create health problems.  It is important to take steps today to rejuvenate and maintain the health of your digestive system.

For optimum health you will not only want to maintain a healthy diet rich in fiber, exercise regularly and eat slowly, you will want to add a digestive aid supplement into your daily routine.  Adding a digestive supplement into your diet will help to ensure that your digestive tract is getting the nutrients needed to work efficiently. 

Here are some ingredients to look for in a digestive supplement.

• Lipase is a digestive enzymes needed to digest fat in the body.
• Papain Enzyme is a digestive enzyme that is needed to digest fat in the body.
• Papaya Enzyme helps to break down proteins, fats and carbohydrates.  Papaya is used to treat chronic diarrhea, celiac disease, gastrointestinal discomforts and intestinal parasites.
• Acidophilus is a bacteria that aids the digestion process. It is found in yogurt that has live cultures.  When acidophilus is ingested, it helps restore healthy bacterial levels in the digestive system. That’s why the doctor tells you to eat yogurt when he prescribes antibiotics that kill the bacteria in our guts.  We need the “good” bacteria to help us digest food, which helps us absorb nutrients, produce certain vitamins and help keep the harmful bacteria from taking over.

Take care of your digestive system by including digestive enzymes in your daily diet through supplements.