Let's Listen to the Wall Who Really Matters for Health

If walls could talk, what an opportunity to tell my story, small as I am to stand up from a prone position and claim myself to be one of the most important functions in your digestive system; therefore, well-being. I follow from the mouth to the stomach with special abilities to prepare food to enter the intestines for more absorption and elimination of waste. I’m easy to overlook but important as the middle player with the right muscles and gastric juices to turn chewed food into digestible slime.

I hope you get to know me better because with more respect, the less grief I wish to avoid. I exist as the wall of the stomach, out of sight, but not always out of hearing when my collywobbles show some disturbances that may be embarrassing, and I apologize for that.

Let’s not forget, just like a room has walls to contain it, the main stomach organ has an inside wall with functional linings that reinforce its shape … a beautiful, strong, efficient wall for its valuable digestive purpose.

My wall has a few layers of tissue. The inner lining is a mucous membrane made up of glands and specialized cells that make mucus, hydrochloric acid and enzymes to break up proteins. When empty, my surface undulates with ripples but these ridges flatten out as the stomach fills with food.

Another circumscribing layer of tissue contains larger blood and lymph vessels and nerve cells.

I call the third layer covering the linings my Muscularis Externa. This strong muscle makes up two layers and is the manifesto of my job.

Lastly, there is a fibrous membrane that covers the outside of the stomach as well as the abdomen and pelvis area.

Let’s not quickly pass by the function of the hydrochloric acid I secrete as multi purpose to prevent food from fermenting or food poisoning and also to control yeast, parasites, viral and bacterial infections. Perhaps you may have tasted its acid reflux potency when it flows back and irritates the lining of the esophagus connecting your mouth and stomach.

So, what is my job? You can call me the Mix Master Extraordinaire, Rocking and Rolling Performance Player who can reduce a pound porterhouse steak to mush in a matter of a few hours.

So, how do I work?

All you have to do is imagine a double cheese burger deeply fried. Just thinking will activate your central nervous system to send a message to me, your stomach’s wall, to start making gastric juices for digestion like acids, enzymes and mucus. As well, endocrine cells release the hormone gastrin into the blood to help control the stomach’s function.

So, now the first part of digestion starts by chewing with teeth, tongue, and saliva, swallowing through an esophagus to the stomach. This is when my muscles gear up for duty to tighten or contract and relax or expand…the deep churning action that mixes the food with the acids and enzymes.

Give me credit for being a clever part of the design where the mucus layers help protect the lining of the stomach from the acids. Without credit, sometimes unavoidable damage can be done to this lining.

Within a few hours, the cheeseburger has broken down into a thick acidic, soupy mixture called chyme or slime as I prefer to view its appearance. Now at the bottom of the stomach is found the pyloric sphincter, a thick ring of muscle, that acts as a valve to control the emptying of the stomach. Then my muscles tighten and relax again to help move the slime into another part called the duodenum where digestion continues through the intestine in order to absorb more nutrients.

If I do a good job the normal stomach should be 90 percent empty after four hours. Solids take longer to digest than liquids and fats take longer to digest than protein or carbohydrates. Quite amazing the empty stomach weighs about 2 pounds but can expand 4 times to hold up to 11 pounds of food. Sometimes it's easy to forget how small things can play such a huge role in homeostasis.

Vomiting is not something I like to talk about in polite conversation but it’s my controlling reaction to any kind of threat that empties the stomach protectively from something that may be a poison or hazardous in some way.

But, as common to any reality, not everything works as planned. Dysfunction happens with ignorance or carelessness.

Unfortunately, my linings can suffer serious inflammation for shorter or longer duration. I become the incubator of gastritis which causes abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, bloating, heartburn and even loss of appetite. Complications multiply with stomach bleeding, stomach ulcers, and stomach tumors.

Some doctors think my infection may be caused by a bacteria called Helicobacter Pylori or perhaps by the overuse of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Less common causes can include personal choices of alcohol, smoking, cocaine, or victims of severe illness or radiation therapy.

But forgive me for the pain. I am only one piece of the body’s equipment mixing and rocking food to make slime for easier absorption. I am only the wall of an organ like a paper on which to write or paint or score music. You are the composer.

My wall is ingeniously designed but I am a frequent hapless victim to careless selfish behaviour. There is no way to signal prevention without some pain to worry about. And I apologize for that, too.

Sometimes people may underestimate their highly complex organization of interconnected organs all made from individual living cells where every cell has its wall to contain it with functions to absorb nutrients and eliminate waste.

Never underestimate this story that all cellular healthy walls is the story of healthy people.

I depose that I am only a wall but like any other physical synergistic connector I wish to function well cooperatively protecting your whole personal well-being.

But I can only react to whatever you feed me with your spoon or fork or what you drink.

Or I can only react to stress by producing more hydrochloric acid.

I am helpless to the kind of food or medication that enters this small chamber programmed to secrete acid, churn and mix everything. I can’t prevent gastritis because I am what it can become. You can't make yourself an accident without some outside interference. But you can control it from the source before it happens.

Oh no! Here comes a NSAIDS that will reduce a prostaglandin substance that protects my stomach. These drugs are inflammatory and typically not dangerous with infrequent use; however, regular use can lead to gastritis.

But here comes another one - an ibuprofen. How many hit me on a weekly basis?

Perhaps, this time, it is joined with an antibiotic pill that research has suggested may be responsible for causing gastritis because the drugs may disrupt the balance of bacteria in the gut, leading to an overgrowth of harmful bacteria.

Let me say as loudly as I can if I could, “For health's sake, if you need to take any medication, please add a sandwich at least or take with a full meal to help absorb the acid.”

Generally speaking, I have reason to fear liquids.

The trickle of alcohol can irritate and erode my mucous linings with an increase of the amount of stomach acid. Fermented alcoholic products like beer and wine are the worst stimulants that increase gastrin release and stomach acid secretion.

Too many caffeinated drinks like coffee, tea, colas and other sodas can increase excess stomach acid and aggravate the symptoms of acid reflux.

I feel so haplessly frustrated just doing my job hoping that excess acid production doesn’t produce a horrible peptic ulcer caused by excess acid erosion of the digestive tract which can create a painful open sore that may bleed.

How awful for a hole or perforation to start on myself which can extend into my small intestine. Now there is a risk of serious infection of the abdominal cavity called peritonitis. Now other medications are needed to reduce stomach acid and ease the ulcer pain like a domino effect.

Now I can only hope that certain spicy foods are reduced to not to make ulcers worse and more difficult to heal.

Not only do I continue to fear diets but also stress … the ever indomitable stress factor.

Believe me, I can sense stress in the environment with the body ... the indigestion, headaches, sleep problems, high blood pressure, fatigue, and depression all affecting a nervous stomach.

I can feel myself producing significant greater amounts of gastric juices as stimulated from stomach nerves directly affected by feelings of emotional or physical stress. Hope beyond hope that my mucus linings weather the storm without another painful peptic ulcer.

And, so, here we are at the same spot too many times, a wall of the stomach waiting for the hit by the next ibuprofen pill washed down with a glass of wine following a spicy pizza at a time of an argument with a family member.

I overheard someone say that I had a robot-like efficiency in doing my job. But trust me that I am not a mechanical adjunct of some kind. I am integrated as organically and holistically as can be with all parts of the human body with the job of breaking down food to be assimilated by the living cells.

Therefore, your behaviour will preclude what kind of reactions and effects I will produce to myself and yourself as a consequence. Help me reduce injury to my mucus lining by heeding my words and making better choices to start with. Avoid excessive alcohol consumption and use caution with pain relievers or find natural remedies.

You wouldn't deface a normal construction wall with its purpose to defend or delineate. Why would you deface a stomach's wall knowing a little gratitude for its value?

This is my story from the inside world from the smallest to the outside world for the largest impact. We are all interdependent and interconnected...my simple wall with your well-being. Universal synergy can't be clearer than this to master our fates.

Annemarie Berukoff