Upper GI Tract Inflammation: Gateway to Fatty Liver and Most of the Diseases that Ail Us

As a conventionally trained allopathic physician I have spent most of my career very skeptical about non conventional Western Medicine. of all forms. Amongst this has been the pontificating by non Physicians and some Physicians

describing that diet change has miraculously 'cured' all sorts of different characters from all sorts of different disease.

I had thought all quackery. But I now see it differently.

What GDD has taught me is to be more open-minded to health care variants. In fact it has been only over the last 5 months or so that I have come to recognize that essentially all patients with fatty liver, have some combination of distal esophageal, stomach, and duodenal inflammation, which have been the gateway for inflammation of the liver and of other internal organs. With an inflamed liver, all the functions of the liver then are thrown into disarray: immunology, protein production, blood clotting mechanisms - basically everything. The splanchnic system as a whole is thrown off: gastro-intestinal tract, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, all of them, and all things they effect - which is essentially everything.

So, can an anti-inflammatory diet change everything... well it can change many things. Probably a few important things: principally, rigorous adherence to an anti-inflammatory diet is crucial to manage this broad health condition. But diet alone may not be sufficient to treat severe gastrointestinal dysfunction. As with GDD, my opinion is a 10% health deficit can likely be (near)completely cured by appropriate diet and activities, but greater than that requires additional help (chelation in the case of GDD). The great majority of sufferers have inflammatory conditions of the upper gastro-intestinal tract that are around 10% deficit, so most likely can respond well to diet alone.

Many tangential disease I am certain also are directly caused by upper GI inflammation: acute acalculous cholecystitis, common bile duct dilation post cholecystectomy, mesenteric panniculitis, irritable bowel syndrome, type 2 diabetes, as examples.

It may not seem like much of a realization, but in my mind this causes a rethinking of many things.

Maybe the best starting point of treatment for most diseases is rigorous adherence to an anti-inflammatory diet.

This ofcourse is also essential with GDD: an anti-inflammatory diet.

Perhaps all of us should be on an anti-inflammatory diet.

I suspect that at least 30% of American adults have upper gastro-intestinal inflammation. We are sick to our stomachs.

Richard Semelka, MD