Your Digestive System Explained (in Simple Terms)

Learn about the ins and outs of your digestive system!

hey guys dr. Berg here in this video I want to  discuss probably one of the most important body systems that you have it’s the digestive system  ok so you have 33 feet of intestines and that’s a like you can mention a water hose in your backyard  it’s a very long hose and it’s all wrapped around and there’s a lot of things that happen from start  to finish so let’s just time to take from the top you’ve got the stomach here which normally what’s  interesting about the stomach is that people don’t realize how acid the stomach should be if you  understand pH neutral is 7 and it goes down to be more acid and higher to be more alkaline for  every number let’s say we go from 7 to 6 going down that’s 10 times more acid so it it compounds  so you can imagine a pH of 1 to 3 that is super super acidic okay that’s what the stomach should  be normally and the stomach actually helps you release the stomach releases the acid triggers  enzymes that then help you break down protein so they have very powerful proto lytic enzymes so  if there’s a problem with the valve on the top of the stomach then that enzyme gets up into  the esophagus they can literally digest your tissues up into your throat so it’s that powerful  it helps you absorb minerals so if you don’t have the right acid in your stomach you can’t absorb  like iron you become anemic like even b12 will not be absorbing either and that’s another type  of anemia it also kills microbes because microbes have a hard time living in that acid and either  even h pylori which is a very nasty bacteria that causes ulcers and other issues if your stomach is  very acidic that thing will stay in a mission or not invade your tissues but if the stomach is not  asked enough it will not release these to other organs called the pancreas and the gallbladder so  what controls a pancreas in and the gallbladder is really the pH of the stomach pH of that stomach  also controls the valve of the top of the stomach so without that stomach being acidic you you  can get GERD acid reflux and then people take any acids which is the exact opposite but what  happens if you you can’t release the pancreas now we don’t we don’t get the release of enzymes  so the pancreas has all these different enzymes for carbohydrates proteins fats collagen you name  it and it’s constantly released depending on which you eat so signals from your mouth are telling  the pancreas what to release and what to create when you start eating so so we have this enzyme  breakdown and then we have the gallbladder release bile bile helps you break down fats break down fat  so you can absorb fat side with vitamins vitamin A D and K and then also help you it helps you  detoxify certain chemicals in the liver so without the gallbladder we can’t get that full detox  let these two work together and then the bile is alkalyn so it helps to neutralize this incredibly  strong acid coming into the small intestine so if we didn’t have the bile we couldn’t neutralize  that and you would get an ulcer in your small intestine and then we have the pancreas that also  makes this other alkaline fluid called bicarbonate that helps neutralize the acid at this point too  so we go from a strong acid to a very alkaline fluid inside the small intestine so the small  intestine is alkaline okay and it’s so funny when people say well you need to be alkaline well  what part of the body you’re talking about because your stomach better not the alkaline definitely  the small intestine should be alkaline but the large intestine should be acidic so you have  different PHS so now in the small intestine this is where 90% of the digestion occurs and you have  helped though you have microbes you have a lot of microbes in fact in your body you have a thousand  trillion bacteria or microbes in your body outside and inside that’s a thousand trillion that’s a lot  you only have a hundred trillion cells so these bacteria or these microbes have are ten times  more than your own self so if you take a body it’s mostly microbes so but they’re very small  so you don’t there’s like probably about three or four maybe five pounds of microbes per body  weight but the microbes basically help you break down your food and help so you can absorb the food  there’s thousands tens of thousands of different strains of microbes in your gut you have good  bacteria and then you have bad bacteria they’re called pathogenic now antibiotics destroy both  good and bad bacteria what’s happening now is the bad bacteria is adapting to the antibiotics  and they’re becoming more resistant so now the antibiotics don’t work but the good news is  this that the good bacteria also adapts to the antibiotics if it didn’t you’d be probably be dead  by now so your microbes are very intelligent and they have developed new strategies of surviving  so if you take a let’s say someone comes in your house and they try to steal something and then you  take a bat and you whack them right well the next time they come in their house they’re they wear a  helmet so these microbes basically have different ways of adapting to survive one of the interesting  strategies some of these microbes pulled off is they basically can mimic and adapt to your vitamin  D receptors they mimic the vitamin D receptor so when your vitamin D goes into the wrong receptor  it doesn’t work anymore so it’s just as fascinated because you need vitamin D for the immune system  so there’s all these different types of strategies that use one type of micro adapted without a  cell wall so they can move into the joints and then they can travel and they can do this and they  can hide so your immune system can’t detect them very intelligent sneaky little guys but thank  goodness that our good bacteria also adapt so we have 90% of the nutrient nutrition absorption  occurs at this level with other another thing that’s interesting about this is that you  have something called the enteric nervous system so you have the sympathetic which is a  flight-or-fight that’s like the stress nervous system and then we have the parasympathetic which  is part of the rest and digest which controls a lot of this - that’s that’s kind of like the  opposite of the stress nervous system but then you have the enteric which controls like all this  intestines and the peristalsis the pumping action of the whole thing and if years someone cut your  spinal column for example you could this will still work because it’s an independent nervous  system it can work on its own that’s what I call the second brain but the challenge is that a  lot of the information that happens down here is transmitted up to the brain so whatever’s going  on your digestion can affect your mood you could it could have create depression anxiety and a  lot of tension in your neck and even a lot of headaches so it’s interesting how the digestion  can affect your mood and also your mood could affect your digestion both ways because it’s a  second brain the bacteria also makes a lot of B vitamins so what happens when I see people with  vitamin B deficiencies it’s not because they’re not consuming them is because they don’t have  the microbes or they they don’t have the good digestive system to absorb those vitamin B  over those B vitamins or they they make them but they can’t get absorbed because the surface  lining of the intestines is damaged so I’ll get to that in a little bit but what these microbes  eat or consume is fiber preferably when we want to feed them a vegetable fiber and they turn it  into something called butyrate which is a type of acid that then will feed the colon cells so it’s  it’s interesting these microbes actually exchange with us we help them they we provide a house and  they give us food as well so that’s what happens in the small intestine and the large intestine is  mainly responsible for reabsorption of water and mine