Digestive Health and Joint Pain

There's a lot of discussion nowadays about the way certain foods affect our bodies. An especially hot topic is the idea of wheat and gluten sensitivity. It is believed by some that eating foods that contain gluten can trigger an allergic or autoimmune response in the body causing an inflammatory process to occur. As much of our diet includes gluten, this inflammatory process is more or less ongoing, and it can affect the gut or body joints or both. It's unclear if this sensitivity affects only some people or if it affects all of us, just to varying degrees.

Many of my colleagues, classmates, and teachers place greater emphasis on this than I do. I like to think my reluctance to frame the discussion in this context stems more from my preference to view health and wellness through the lens of Traditional Chinese Medicine than from my love of fried chicken...

So What Does Chinese Medicine Say?

Any machine will create heat while running, and when a machine is not running properly or efficiently, it will create more heat. The Spleen and Stomach, the body's chief digestive organs in Chinese medicine, are no different. There's a normal amount of physiological heat produced in the Spleen during digestion which is safely radiated up and out of the body by the Stomach. When the Spleen and Stomach are weak and digestion is poor, however, that heat is not properly funneled outward and instead retrocedes back into the Stomach. As that heat builds up in the Stomach, which is a Yang organ, it starts to spread to the other Yang organs - most commonly the Large Intestine because together the Stomach and Large Intestine are a paired system called the Yang Ming organs. 

When there is heat in the Yang Ming organs, there is a wide range of symptoms and conditions that one can experience: indigestion, vomiting, belching, heartburn, acid regurgitation, peptic ulcers, IBS, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and on and on. What's more is that this heat can spread to the Yang Ming meridians, as well, causing pain and inflammation along those pathways. 

 

As you can see, the Yang Ming meridians (Large Intestine in the upper body and Stomach in the lower body) cross every major joint. That knee pain, hip pain, ankle pain, shoulder pain, or elbow pain that feels like arthritis is probably caused or worsened by heat built up in your digestive tract and spreading to these channels. Chinese medicine doesn't really point the finger at gluten for causing this type of inflammation in the gut; there's no single culprit. Spleen-unfriendly (or dampness-engendering) foods can include greasy and fried foods, heavy, creamy foods, milk and milk products, sugars, and, of course, processed foods. Even overconsumption of cold and raw foods is said to damage the Spleen. 

The important thing to remember is a balanced diet is the best diet according to Chinese medicine. A good rule of thumb is to have all of the elements represented either in a dish or in a meal by using foods of every color. If your health situation demands that you're limiting your diet in some way - not eating meat, for example - make sure you're balancing your foods to fill that nutritional gap. Keep in mind that the gap created by removing milkshakes from your diet is relatively small :)