LAXATIVES

Hutt News, Volume 13, Issue 24, 22 November 1939, Page 1

LAXATIVES

(By S. K. and D. W. Adamson),

We want to say right now that no matter how useful laxatives may sometimes be as a temporary expedient, there is absolutely no excuse for their habitual use. There is no such thing as a "safe" laxative. All laxatives are unnatural agents, and they destroy the equilibrium of the whole digestive processes. Yet their users are legion. In fact, the sale of the scores of the different kinds of laxatives exceeds that of any other functional pick-me-up or irregulator, and the hundreds of thousands who blythely pin their faith to a pill or a potion for the purpose of "assisting" a deranged bowel function, could hot possibly have chosen a better method for aggravating the trouble. Laxatives generally work, at first, but how? Then, after a few months, or a year or two at most, according to the extent in which j lit is taken, the system becomes | used to them, and the dosage has either to be increased or the addict | i has to change to some other type. They are all habit-forming, and, as ! the user discovers sooner or later, it becomes impossible to get along without them. Impossible, that is, unless dne adopts the proper and natural treatment for over-coming the 'trouble. Now, in order to appreciate the folly of introducing foreign substances or irritants. into the intestinal tract, we append a brief outline of the canal and its functions. Under perfectly normal conditions, a period from 20 to 30 hours elapses from the time the food is taken in at the mouth till the undigested residues and refluse are passed from the bowel. From four to six hours of this period is spent in stomach. Not all the food stays in the stomach this period, but the average meal takes the normally strong digestion about this long to completely pass through the stomach and into the small intestines. The small intestine is something like 20 feet in length, and its lining contains millions of tiny structures or villi which absorb the digested food substances and pass them into the blood stream. In the course of a wellordered digestion some four or five hours are required for this job and for the refuse to be passed on to the large intestine, or colon, for the completion of the digestive process and ultimate vacuation. Up to this point, the contents are in a liquid state, but in the colon, which takes anyVhere from 10 to 15 hours for the refuse to be passed on to the lower bowel, most of the remaining liquid is absorbed, leaving only semi-solid residues to be excreted. The stomach may be regarded as the main mixing machine of the digestive tract. Here the food is churned and mixed with certain acids in order to facilitate its complete digestion in the intestines. Now to pass the contents of a meal along a narrow tube of 20 feet or so in length and coiled in folds upon and around itself, requires special propelling machinery. Nature solves the problem by incorporating the propelling plant in the walls of the tube, which throughout its entire length#

(Health Consultants.)

is fitted up with ring-like musclustructures that produce wave-like contractions and so squeeze tbe contents along. In the colon a somewhat similar method of propulsion takes place, but although this organ is about a third or a fourth as long as the sjnall intestines, it takes fully three or four times as long for it to pass on its contents to the lower bowel. The most important feature of colonic functioning is the part played by bacteria in completing the digestion of the residues passed on by the small intestines. Nutrients which are embedded in cellular material and which have escaped the action of the various digestive juices, are now liberated for absorption into the blood stre'n through the action of colonies or friendly bacteria. Not all bacteria that inhabit the colon are friendly by any means, but the cellulose feeding type which are found in prolific numbers in the normal colon are, and they represent a striking example of the economy and marvellous handiwork of mother Nature in completing the digestive profcess and preserving harmony in the upper and lower bowel. Under normal circumstances, the passage of food through the alimentary tract is smooth and uneventful, although a hundred and one factors may arise to disturb the regularity of the function. But the greatest of all destroyers of regularity is man himself with his unnatural and irrerational eating and drinking habits. His digestion slows up, fermentation takes place, and his bowel movements become sluggish and irregular before he is aware of it. Then, in an effort to overcome the effects of his own folly and without the slightest regard for the consequences, he resorts to purgatives. All purgatives are irritants. They would not act if they were not. Nature's reaction to all irritants, poisons and foreign substances is a call for their elimination. Every effort is made for their expulsion or destruction. In the blood stream the phagocytes attack and destroy invaders. In the digestive tract the defensive reaction is an acceleration of the muscular contractions and a hurried expulsion. The half-digest-ed contents of the stomach are emptied prematurely into the intestine. There is no time for adequate absorption of nutrients, as the violent contractions of the muscular wall hurry the contents along into the colon. Then, instead of remaining sufficiently long for the completion of bacterial action and further absorption of the nutrients, the half-digested meal is emptied into the bowel for evacuation. Digestion and absorption is never complete, and, worse still, the colonies of friendly bacteria are either ousted or destroyed. The continued use of purgatives destroys the delicate nerve sensibility of the entire tract, consequently larger and larger doses or periodic changes to new purgatives become necessary. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, laxatives may sometimes be excused as temporary expedients, but to depend upon them is fatal to normal health and function.