257: Gastritis - Root Causes and How You Can Fix It

0:00Gastritis is a condition that doesn't get talked about nearly enough. Now, someone on my YouTube channel actually asked about it, said, make a video, and I thought, hey, it's a great time to make a whole podcast episode dedicated to gastritis. Now, first of all, what is it? Well, the word gastritis breaks down into two parts. That's gastro, meaning stomach, and itis, which is inflammation. But your doctor doesn't really do anything for gastritis typically, except give you ant acids, which I believe is stupid, and it really only serves to make things worse in the long term. It might make you feel okay for now, but it will make things much, much worse down the road. Now, in this episode, we're going to talk about what gastritis actually is, why it happens, some of the complications, and of course, what you can do to begin healing your inflamed stomach. All right, today is all about gastritis, which is inflammation of the stomach, and this is one of those diagnoses that sound so simple. But in many respects, it gets massively oversimplified, especially in the Western medical world that

1:02wants to churn you out like cattle, get in, five to seven minutes, give you a drug, kick you out, see the next person. Because gastritis, it's not a root cause. You can't say, oh, you have it because you have it. It's simply a symptom or a downstream result of something else that's happening. Now, with gastritis, is your body telling you that something is damaging the lining of your stomach, and we're reacting to it now with inflammation? So, the real question isn't, how do we suppress the symptoms? This is what most doctors do, and I disagree about a lot of things that doctors do. And so, the question we need to be asking instead is what's actually causing the inflammation in the first place? This is the only way to stop chronic inflammation. If you manage it, you're only controlling the symptoms. And my issue, isn't the medication, my issue, is taking a chronic inflammatory response and using an acute treatment, like, and acids, and applying it chronically. That's not the way to get better. So, let's break down the pieces so we can put them together correctly. Now, your stomach has a protective barrier.

2:05It's made up of mucus, bicarbonate, and these tightly regulated and really tight cells that keep acid from actually getting through it, through that barrier, to damage the tissues of your stomach, which are sitting behind that barrier. It's like a shield. And now, when that barrier, that shield gets compromised, acid will irritate the tissues of your stomach. This is what's going to make you feel burning on this annoying pain in your upper abdomen. It can lead to nausea after eating, bloating, feeling full after just a few bites because that irritates the stomach. It's like, no, stop feeding me. It can lead to a loss of appetite and all kinds of stuff. And some people even feel nothing at all, which is why you can have what's called silent gastritis for years. So, let's break down the major drivers of gastritis. Because as I always say, you can't fix something until you understand how it works. Now, the first major driver of gastritis is going to be H. Pylori, and it's by far the most common cause. H. Pylori is helicobacter pylori bacteria. Now, this lives in the stomach lining and probably 50 percent of the global population

3:06has it in there. It's not necessarily a bad thing, and it can sit there for decades. But in many cases, while it's sitting there, it can be slowly irritating the stomach if you're not controlling it or keeping that bacteria to a point where it's non-problematic. And if it is just sitting there non-loyalist stomach and you don't know it's there, it is easy for it to get out of control under certain circumstances, which we're going to get into here. Now, the second big driver, especially if there's H. Pylori or other things under the surface, is NSAIDs. The stands for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, so you're ibuprofen, adbil, asperin these things. Now, these drugs block an enzyme called cyclooxygenase, where you might see the acronym COX. This is an enzyme that's responsible for producing the protective mucus layer in your stomach. Now, if you take NSAIDs and you block this cox enzyme, this cyclooxygenase, and prevent the proper production of a mucus layer, guess what happens? You remove that protection, your stomach acid is still there, but there's no protection

4:07so that acid erodes the stomach itself. So don't do that. Ibuprofen, adbil, these NSAIDs are horrific for your body. If you're going to take something, and you're like, oh, I've got to get something, Tylenol, or your acetaminophen is a better bet, because it's less gut destructive, but NSAIDs are just the worst. They punch holes in your gut and cause all kinds of issues, like gastritis. Now, a third major driver, because of its popularity, is actually alcohol. It is a direct irritant, especially on an anti-stomach, because it literally erodes that stomach lining, and it keeps inflammation active. There's not a lot to deal with in the situation, but yeah, alcohol is huge, and another one is chronic stress. I'd say that this one gets massively underestimated, and I think it's cause we're so good at compensating for stress. Our body has all these physiological and hormonal coping mechanisms, and so we just cope with it in our daily lives, because we don't notice how big of a problem it is. We're just like, oh, well, that's the way it is, or oh, I'm always busy, I'm always going to go, go, go, go. I get up before the kids do, I make myself breakfast, I make them breakfast, I rush them

5:07off to school, I rush over to work, I'm at work, and I'm feeling rushed, I got 10 projects on the go, then I come home, I'm going to pick up the kids from school, then I got to make dinner, then I got to exercise, I got to do this, got to do that, got my bedtime routine, or go, go, go, and we just live like this. We don't know how much of a problem it is, but this chronic stress, which is a byproduct of modernity, our modern world. It reduces blood flow to the stomach, it weakens your protective lining, it keeps inflammation turned on and ramps up your immune system just all the time. Having low grade inflammation all the time is a huge problem, so even if you fix everything else, the alcohol and H. Pylori, if you're using alcohol to compensate for the stress, this chronic stress alone can keep gastritis going. Now another issue, though, seemingly less common, is bile reflux. This is where bile from your small intestine flows backward into the stomach, and it bile shouldn't be in your stomach, it should be in your intestines, so it's extremely irritating. But if this is the problem causing your gastritis and your doctor gives you ant acids, it's not going to help, because bile isn't acidic, in fact it's actually slightly alkaline.

6:12If a neutral pH is 7, bile actually sits somewhere between 7 and 8, so it's not an acid. And that's just the thing, Western medicine often says gastritis is too much acid. So we're going to suppress the acid with ant acids, like PPI's, like Omeprazole, over the counter, ant acids, like your thumbs, and yes, it can reduce symptoms, even temporarily but they don't address the root cause. So here's another perspective, gastritis can also be linked to low stomach acid. Low acid means food isn't properly being broken down, and if you're chronically stressed, you have low acid. If you're deficient in zinc or sodium, you're not producing proper stomach acid because you need those to make it. If you have low stomach acid, bacteria aren't properly killing off bacteria in the stomach, including H. Pylori, so these microbes and others can thrive in your stomach, creating irritation. Excess bacteria in undigested food leads to fermentation, which causes gas, which causes pressure in irritation. And two little stomach acid, the number one driver of acid reflux, we just talked about

7:15in episode 253. Two little acid also means a protective stomach lining atrophies, which leaves the stomachs susceptible to direct irritation and inflammation from nearly everything, especially stress alcohol and says it even food. Now this is debated, and it really shouldn't be, it's just common sense. But here's what's not debated. H. Pylori, NSAIDs, alcohol, stress, and bile reflux are real and notable in very easily proven causes, and most doctors just jump straight to and acids anyway. So regardless of where you stand on the acid levels, which you shouldn't really stand anywhere except the logic of it, but regardless, you still have to address these very known well-established root causes. For as most people just suppress symptoms with and acids, they feel better temporarily, they never address the root cause ended up on PPI's for months and years and even decades. Doctors don't come back and check, they just refill a permanent prescription of PPI's. Meanwhile, the directed are connected to all kinds of other diseases, and the root cause

8:16is still there. Digestion worsens, microbiomes change, which can destroy your gut, nutrient absorption drops, and again, other diseases start to develop under chronic low acid directly linked to PPI's and and acids, like osteoporosis, Alzheimer's, and bowel diseases, and dozens of other things that are well-established to be related to long-term and acid use. So our step here is to talk about the 5Rs, which is a root cause approach, and I use it all the time in bowel disease for my Crohn's, Colitis, Diberticulitis, and even IBS clients, and it applies to all gut conditions, even gastritis, and most other diseases as well. So step one is to remove the trigger or triggers, test for and address H. Pilari. There are lots of natural antimicrobials for this, like oregano, mastic gum, raw honey, olive oil, even probiotics can help control or get rid of H. Pilari, apple cider vinegar, lots of great stuff. Stop using NSAIDs. I was going to say stop or reduce, but just stop. They're just brutal on your stomach.

9:18They're unforgiving, and some people are, you may not know it, but you might be teetering on this edge of healthy and not, and a couple of NSAIDs might push you over the edge. We want to remove alcohol completely. It's not good for you, anyway. So I have a glass of wine for the antioxidants. No, it's bad for you. Have some berries instead, okay? Now we also want to identify bile reflux. If bile reflux is present, that also needs to be addressed, and then of course address your stressors. This is a non-negotiable. If stress stays high, inflammation stays active, and we can't really stop stress from happening, right? Everywhere. But we can control how we respond to stress through things like vagal toning that's your humming, your breath work, even cold bath, or even a cold washcloth on your neck will do. Meditation, therapy, if you need it. Even supplements can help calm your nerves, L-theanine and Valerian hops, and all kinds of stuff. They can help calm your nerves. Torine can be really helpful for stress as well. So step one is removing the trigger. Step two, replenish the nutrients you need for good stomach acid production, and for

10:22healthy gut-related tissues. These are things like your zinc carnazine, sodium, algalutamine, and many more, which means we're using real salt on your food, by the way. Don't avoid salt. Salt is necessary for everything. Your third step is to repair the gut lining itself. So if you want to repair the barrier, which is going to protect your stomach, there are supplements you can take for meals which often help. Like DGL, that's a deglycerinated licorice root, aloe vera can be great in capsules or in liquid form, or just if you want to slurp back the inner leaf of an aloe plant, that's great. Slippery elm bark powder. I like to mix mine up with water when I was using it, and I just mix it up so it's kind of gloopy that kind of runs off the spoon. If you kind of mash yellow in your hand, I guess would be the description I would use. Zinc carnazine is great for the gut and gut tissues, even bone broth. Lots of great nutrients in it if you're tolerating high histamine foods. Now these act, your DGL and aloe, slippery elms, zinc carnazine, bone broth, and many others act like the soothing and cooling bandage for your gut lining. And some of these are also mucogenic, muco-meaning mucus, genic, like genesis or creation.

11:27So these are mucogenic meaning they help to produce a mucus barrier. Now step four is going to be to rebuild your microbiome. If you've been on an acid for a while or dealing with gastritis, it's a very high likelihood that your gut microbiome is disrupted, which feeds back into nutrient deficiencies, it feeds back into stress, and all kinds of other immune reactions, which can worsen the situation already going on in your stomach. Now in the case of chronic inflammatory conditions, you know, crones, colitis, diverticulitis, and I specialize in, step five of the five R's is to typically rejuvenate or rebalance your immune responses. But if you're not dealing with these types of things, we're going to replace step five, make it very specific to gastritis. If you're on PPI's, this would be a good time in this process to come off. But do not stop suddenly, bold, underlying, capital letters, do not stop suddenly and go cold turkey. Because you can get this rebound acid hypersecretion, it feels much worse than before, and it can really do some serious damage, especially if there's no protective lining left in your

12:31stomach. And so they need to be tapered properly with the right support using protective supplements like we just talked about in step three, your DGLs and allos, et cetera. And there's a process after this to even slowly adding acid back in through HCl pills, which diluted apple cider vinegar or something else. But ultimately, gastritis is not just about acid. It's about what's damaging or gut lining in any regard. And if you don't identify that, you're just managing your symptoms, not fixing the root cause of the actual problem. So you've taken this chronic inflammatory response and taken acute treatments and then applied them chronically that will never get you better. I describe it like having a nail stuck in your foot and you just put numbing cream on it. And once the numbing cream wears off, you use more and more and more, you never pull the nail out. That's not the way to get better. So remember this. If you've been struggling with gastritis and you feel like nothing is working, there's usually a piece missing and once you find it, things can change very quickly. Now, this episode helped you do share it with somebody who's been told to just take ant acids.

13:31And if it's the acid reflux conversation, send them 253 as well. We just did that episode a couple episodes ago. That's 253 because I promise you, whenever it comes to a chronic condition, there's always more to the story than what you're often told. On that note, thanks so much for being here. We're going to see you next time. If you're enjoying this show as much as I enjoy making it, I want to ask you a huge favor. If you haven't yet, I'd love to ask for you to leave a review. I know it seems small and it literally just takes a few seconds, but your reviews actually make or break my ability to get these world-class guests on the show, and it's a key factor in the show's growth. So it would mean the world to me if you left one now before moving on to support the work we're doing to help me continue bringing our A-list guests to you. Thank you so much.