Rebellious Stomach for Nobel Prize
By Simon Yu, MD
Medical dogma held that stress and lifestyle factors were the major causes of peptic ulcer disease. Australian Dr. Barry Marshall and pathologist Robin Warren rebutted this theory through self-experimentation – Marshall drank an H. pylori cocktail to cause the disease, and took antibiotics to cure it. This discovery in 1982 paved the way to show that gram-negative bacteria H. pylori caused more than 90% of duodenal ulcers and up to 80% of gastric ulcers. A new paradigm shift in medical thinking emerged: infection is the cause of inflammation, ulcers, gastro-esophageal reflux, and esophageal/ stomach cancers. The unexpected finding that H. pylori caused gastritis and peptic ulcers won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology; it created an uproar in the old medical establishment and paved the way for a new path to Global Healing.
If you have severe acid reflux, burping, nausea, gas, indigestion, gastritis or peptic ulcer disease, you may have an imbalance show in your Stomach meridian in acupuncture meridian assessment (AMA), an adjunct diagnostic tool I use as part of my comprehensive patient evaluation. Ancient acupuncture texts describe these symptoms as rebellious stomach or global whining as a metaphor. The Stomach is one of the most complex meridians that regulate not only digestion, but also your brain, central nervous system, and neuromuscular system down to your toes.
The Stomach meridian regulates the vagus nerve (CN10), Hypoglossal nerve (CN12), Submandibular Ganglion, and most of the plexus (network of nerves) of the vagus nerve of the GI tract, pulmonary, and testicular/ovarian plexus. See Voll Electroacupuncture Desk Reference Manual from Praxis2Practice.
The Stomach and Spleen/Pancreas meridians (the Earth phase according to Five Elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine) are paired meridians that control digestion, muscles and fat, and the limbs. The Spleen/Pancreas is the principal organ of digestion. It transports nutrients, produces and regulates the blood, and is responsible for the transformation of food into nourishment. The Stomach moves things downward; the Spleen filters blood and moves Chi energy upward. The other paired flow of Chi energy circuitry of the Stomach and Spleen/Pancreas meridians are the Large Intestine and Lung meridians.
Acid reflux and indigestion often respond to apple cider vinegar, and/or to hydrochloric acid and OTC digestive enzymes. For a more detailed explanation, see my article, “Acid Reflux and Rebellious Stomach: Killing the Messenger for Profit.” More advanced cases with abdominal pain, bloating, gastritis and ulcer may respond to doxycycline/tinidazole to cover H. pylori and microscopic GI parasites, along with adding bile products and pancreatic enzymes. The selection of the medications is based on acupuncture meridian assessment (AMA), and the origin of the problem is often not located in the stomach, but usually in the pancreas, gallbladder, liver or small intestine. Most patients also have hidden dental infections, individual unique parasites/fungal problems, and/or environmental toxins.
Stomach/esophageal cancer is often a painful, lethal, aggressive disease; H. pylori infection is one of many risk factors. H. pylori is very common, and most people colonized with it never develop esophageal/stomach cancer. As an example, Indians rarely develop gastric cancer compared to Japanese people. The difference might be there are different diets/parasites/bacterial infections between Indians and Japanese, which may have different interactions, and help to counteract bacterial infections. We cannot ignore stress, lifestyle, smoking, alcohol, drugs, environmental toxins, and/or pollution.
I recently lost a patient who died from stage 4 esophageal cancer who also had parasites, fungi, and bacterial infections, and was exposed to massive xylene petrochemical products while working on a road crew many years ago. He had a 20+ year history of acid reflux, diabetes, and was unable to swallow food. He did not respond to natural remedies, antiparasitics, or antifungal meds while going through radiation and chemotherapy. He was too far advanced for any response. A very high xylene level was a surprise for everyone, since he had been promoted to a supervisor and therefore was not directly exposed to and did not use any petrochemical products for many years in his job.
In addition, if you have unresolved emotional conflicts, or are living with someone you love who has unresolved feelings, it can make you more vulnerable to different organ systems according to acupuncture meridian principles. The unresolved emotion linked to the Stomach meridian is associated with “anxiety, dislike, stressed out or obsessed.” The Spleen/Pancreas meridian is associated with a sense of “not good enough, overly sensitive and feeling inadequate.”
Ancient understanding of Rebellious Stomach eventually led to H. pylori and the Nobel Prize by Dr. Marshall and Warren. This major paradigm shift in medical history is only the beginning. Parasites, fungi, and bacterial infections (along with environmental toxins, dental/medical complex and EMF) are the driving forces for inflammation, and metabolic derangement down to mitochondrial dysfunction. It may manifest in a thousand different medical diagnoses, from autism, asthma, cancer, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, Lyme, and migraine headache, to neurodegenerative conditions like MS, Parkinson’s disease and ALS, and every known chronic complex illness.
Responding to every physical symptom and medical diagnosis is like responding to Global Whining. We face a Global COVID-19 Pandemic and Global Warming, but without an effective early Global Warning System – whether for climate change, or for patients’ medical problems – we can only face troubling and unpredictable outcomes.
Now is the time to focus on learning, understanding, preventing and correcting the underlying problems and move from Global Whining and Global Fearmongering to Global Healing. We need a paradigm shift in global medical education and clinical practice, learning to integrate the inherent intelligence of ancient energy medicine to identify and address underlying causes. Embrace acupuncture meridian assessment (AMA) — a 5,000-year-old new disruptive technology — as an early warning system, a true partner of new Medicine.
Dr. Simon Yu, M.D. is a Board Certified Internist. He practices Internal Medicine with an emphasis on Integrative Medicine to use the best each has to offer. For more articles and information about integrative medicine, patient success stories, and Dr. Yu’s new book, AcciDental Blow Up in Medicine: Battle Plan for Your Life, visit his website at www.preventionandhealing.com or call Prevention and Healing, Inc., 314-432-7802. You can attend a free monthly presentation and discussion on Integrative Medicine at his office on the second Tuesday each month at 6:30 pm. Call to verify the date. Seating is limited, arrive early.