Digestive harmony

Many common ailments stem from insufficient, incorrect or unbalanced digestion. Alternatively, a busy lifestyle full of stress, poor dietary choices and emotional turmoils can adversely affect harmonious digestion. Some ailments may be genetic or hereditary in nature.

Without strong efficient digestion and proper elimination of waste, it doesn’t matter how much good food and vitamins you place into the body. The middle jiao (or heater, burner) energy must be strong in order to ward off all diseases.

Acupuncture and/or Chinese Herbs can promote more efficient digestion by balancing the secretion of HCL by the parietal cells in the stomach walls, balance stomach and bowel gastricity, and mobility of peristalsis. It can help the pancreas to secrete more efficiently bicarbonate for carbohydrate digestion, trypsin, pepsin etc. for protein metabolism and the secretion of bile from the gall bladder for emulsification of ingested fats.

One of the most important areas of focus in Chinese Medicine, is the promotion of free flow of Liver Qi and Blood. In TCM, the liver rules the free flow of Qi in the whole body, the tendons and ligaments and the eyes. When the liver gets tight and congested, the whole body and mind can get (up)tight. From Western Medicine, we know that everything we eat and drink, after passing through the bowel wall, is filtered and detoxified by the liver first before it reaches the rest of the body.

Another very important aspect of health is bowel wall or mucosal integrity and efficient peristalsis. At Bayside Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Clinic, we combine Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, nutritional supplements, dietary modification, vitamins and minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids to achieve digestive harmony.