Stomach Ulcer Quotes

My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless... I'm not going to have a happy ending.

The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL——IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate——it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me.

Can any man possibly be a success who is paying for business advancement with stomach ulcers and heart trouble?

Men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everything lovable about them.... In the world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals.... What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and to come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals?

The search for the soul mate, the perfect partner to complete you, is a bit like searching for the perfect food when you’ve got a giant ulcer in your stomach. No matter what you find, it will never be good enough.

In short, a diamond bracelet is a much more honest instrument of courtship than a perforated stomach. She has the option of throwing the jewelry back at him, but she cannot decently walk out on the ulcer. ("Look How Hard I've Been Trying")

I do not care about power and wealth, father. I want to marry for love.” “You want to marry for love?” The elder Valentino scoffed. “Que mierda. Marrying for love is like adding extra picante to your meal. It may seem like a good idea at the time, but your stomach will curse you for it with ulcers in the end.

We sat on a crate of oranges and thought what good men most biologists are, the tenors of the scientific world--temperamental, moody, lecherous, loud-laughing, and healthy. Once in a while one comes on the other kind--what used in the university to be called a 'dry-ball'--but such men are not really biologists. They are the embalmers of the field, the picklers who see only the preserved form of life without any of its principle. Out of their own crusted minds they create a world wrinkled with formaldehyde. The true biologist deals with life, with teeming boisterous life, and learns something from it, learns that the first rule of life is living. The dry-balls cannot possibly learn a thing every starfish knows in the core of his soul and in the vesicles between his rays. He must, so know the starfish and the student biologist who sits at the feet of living things, proliferate in all directions. Having certain tendencies, he must move along their lines to the limit of their potentialities. And we have known biologists who did proliferate in all directions: one or two have had a little trouble about it. Your true biologist will sing you a song as loud and off-key as will a blacksmith, for he knows that morals are too often diagnostic of prostatitis and stomach ulcers. Sometimes he may proliferate a little too much in all directions, but he is as easy to kill as any other organism, and meanwhile he is very good company, and at least he does not confuse a low hormone productivity with moral ethics.

Tick's strategy for dealing with lying adults is to say nothing and watch thee lies swell and constrict in their throats. when this happens, the lie takes on a physical life of its own and must be either expelled or swallowed. Most adults prefer to expel untruths with little burplike coughs behind their hands, while others chuckle or snort or make barking sounds. When Mr. Meyer's Adam's apple bobs once, Tick sees that he's a swallower, and that this particular lie has gone south down his esophagus and into his stomach. According to her father, the man suffers from bleeding ulcers. Tick can see why. She imagines all the lies a man in his position would have to tell, how they must just churn away down there in his intestines like chunks of indigestible food awaiting elimination. By the Tick suspects, lies seek open air. they don't like being confined in dark, cramped places.

It’s terrible when you can’t make something OK. As a hypochondriac, the typical response when I’m panicking is to acknowledge it will end. At some point, I will cease to be convinced that I have a brain tumour, or a stomach ulcer, or some degenerative condition of the nerves, and so at some point, the bad thing will end. When something bad is actually happening, it’s easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn’t real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless.

Our carelessness is all the more alarming since the discovery that many other ailments may be bacterial in origin. The process of discovery began in 1983 when Barry Marshall, a doctor in Perth, Western Australia, found that many stomach cancers and most stomach ulcers are caused by a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori.

What was it like when your mother passed away?” I asked Mimi. “I was twenty-eight years old. I had just given birth to John when I found out Mother had died from a stomach ulcer. A sudden infection. She had just made plans to come from Washington, D.C. to see him.” She paused. “I’ll never forget the telegram my sister Marion sent. I couldn’t believe it. It was so final. Suddenly, the world seemed very dark. I couldn’t imagine how I was going to live without her and I grieved deeply that she was never able to see her first grandchild. But I will tell you, Terry, you do get along. It isn’t easy. The void is always with you. But you will get by without your mother just fine and I promise you, you will become stronger and stronger each day.

About 90 percent of the things in our lives are right, and about 10 percent are wrong. If we want to be happy, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 90 percent that are right, and ignore the 10 percent that are wrong. If we want to be worried and bitter and have stomach ulcers, all we have to do is to concentrate on the 10 percent that are wrong and ignore the 90 percent that are glorious.

Mack and the boys, too, spinning in their orbits. They are the Virtues, the Graces, the Beauties of the hurried mangled craziness of Monterey and the cosmic Monterey where men in fear and hunger destroy their stomachs in the fight to secure certain food, where men hungering for love destroy everthing lovable about them. Mack and the boys are the Beauties, the Virtues, the Graces. In a world ruled by tigers with ulcers, rutted by strictured bulls, scavenged by blind jackals, Mack and the boys dine delicately with the tigers, fondle the frantic heifers, and wrap up the crumbs to feed the sea gulls of Cannery Row. What can it profit a man to gain the whole world and come to his property with a gastric ulcer, a blown prostate, and bifocals? Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bums. Our father who art in nature, who has given the gift of survival to the coyote, the common brown rat, the English sparrow, the house fly and the moth, must have a great and overwhelming love for no-goods and blots-on-the-town and bums, and Mack and the boys. Virtues and graces and laziness and zest. Our Father who art in nature.

It has been found to possess antibiotic, antiviral, anti-inflammatory, anticarcinogenic, expectorant, antifungal, immune-stimulating, antiallergenic, laxative, antianemic, and tonic properties. Because honey increases calcium absorption in the body, it is also recommended for women in menopause to help prevent osteoporosis. In clinical trials, honey has been found to be especially effective in treating stomach ulceration (especially if caused by Helicobacter pylori bacteria), infected wounds, severe skin ulceration, and respiratory illnesses.

Other uses are: for tonifying the lungs, for shortness of breath, for frequent colds and flu infections; as a diuretic and for reduction of edema; for tonifying the blood and for blood loss, especially postpartum; for diabetes; for promoting the discharge of pus, for chronic ulcerations, including of the stomach, and for sores that have not drained or healed well.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). H. pylori is frequently accused of contributing to the development and progression of autoimmune disease (and is also one of the best-understood persistent infections). As mentioned in the previous section, H. pylori is a bacterium found in the upper gastrointestinal tract of approximately 50 percent of the population and is known to cause stomach ulcers in susceptible individuals. It also modulates the adaptive immune system through a very complex interaction. In fact, the interaction is so complex that acquiring H. pylori early in life prevents immune and autoimmune diseases. By contrast, acquiring H. pylori as an adult (which is more common in Western countries) increases the risk of immune dysfunction.

The adults continued having nightmares. They cried out in their sleep. In the mornings, they sat at the table and talked to us about their bad dreams: the war was around them, the land was falling to pieces, Pathet Lao and North Vietnamese soldiers were coming, the sound of guns raced with the beating of their hearts. In their dreams, they met people who were no longer alive but who had loved them back in their old lives. There were stomach ulcers from worrying and heads that throbbed late into the night. My aunts and uncles in California farmed on a small acreage, five or ten, to add to the money they received from welfare. My aunts and uncles in Minnesota, in the summers, did “under the table” work to help make ends meet if they could, like harvesting corn or picking baby cucumbers to make pickles. And the adults kept saying: how lucky we are to be in America. I wasn’t convinced.

But the pigs--seventy pounds of porcine weight that did not take kindly to weekly endoscopies--did not sprout any ulcers. And testing the theory on humans was ethically impossible: how could one justify infecting a human with a new, uncharacterized species of bacteria to prove that it caused gastritis and predisposed to cancer? In July 1984, with his experiments stalled and his grant applications in jeopardy, Marshall performed the ultimate experiment: "On the morning of the experiment, I omitted my breakfast….Two hours later, Neil Noakes scraped a heavily inoculated 4 day culture plate of Helicobacter and dispersed the bacteria in alkaline peptone water (a kind of meat broth used to keep bacteria alive). I fasted until 10 am when Neil handed me a 200 ml beaker about one quarter full of the cloudy brown liquid. I drank it down in one gulp then fasted for the rest of the day. A few stomach gurgles occurred. Was it the bacteria or was I just hungry?

Consider this scenario: A man gets a stomachache after each meal. To “treat” this problem, he takes (either by prescription or by self-medication) some antacid or other nostrum. Then he gets a headache (which may or may not be a side effect of the stomach medication); to “treat” the headache he takes aspirin, which further irritates his stomach. Three years later he develops an ulcer, for which he takes another medication, plus large amounts of milk and cream (although an outmoded treatment, it is still being used today). Meanwhile, he is still taking antacids for his indigestion and eating the same way he always had. Eventually, he has an operation to remove his ulcer. He continues with his high-dairy diet. Soon thereafter he develops arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure and begins to take antihypertensive medication. The side effects of the latter include headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, diarrhea, slow heart rate, mental confusion, hallucinations, weight gain, and impotence. When his wife leaves him for a younger man, he takes antidepressants and sleeping pills. He has a heart attack and undergoes an operation to repair a heart valve. Painkillers keep him going as he slowly recuperates. A year or two later, he finds himself with an irreversible neurological disease such as ALS or Alzheimer’s, and he wonders what could have gone wrong. All that’s left for him to do is wait to die, which he can do in a nursing home, drugged into complaisance and painlessness.

Ostholm’s managerial compass at Astra had been consistent for twenty-four years. Once, he spotted a distraught person, possibly Swiss, at Basel airport. When he walked up to him, he learnt that the young man had failed in his job interview at a pharmaceutical company. The researcher had an idea of preventing acid secretion in the stomach by shutting down proton pumps. After Ostholm showed interest, right there at the airport, the man drew a diagram to explain the idea. Ostholm asked if he had a molecule in mind. Convinced by the man’s reply, he instantly wrote him an offer letter and invited him to Stockholm. Astra was already working on anti-ulcers and the drug that Ostholm’s offer letter propelled was the multi-billion-dollar anti-ulcer drug Omeprazole which turned around Astra’s fortunes. If Ostholm sensed a scientist’s passion, he would brook no barrier to his/her support.

So who are the unfortunate ones who fall prey to the damaging effects of H. pylori? What makes these bacteria lie dormant in some, while in others they compromise the defenses of the stomach lining and facilitate the development of ulcer disease? We know, at least in part, the answers to these questions. People who take NSAIDs and are at the same time infected with H. pylori are at least sixty-one times more likely to develop ulcers of the stomach and/or duodenum than are those who are not infected and do not take NSAIDs. In addition, those suffering from malnutrition (actually overnutrition) caused by the typical Western diet are more likely to develop ulcers in the presence of H. pylori. Research has shown that a healthful diet including lots of fruits and vegetables loaded with vitamin C protects against infection with H. pylori. Interestingly, extracts from a variety of plants, such as garlic, thyme, and East African herbal plants, inhibit the growth of H. pylori in the test tube.

Medicine once consisted of the knowledge of a few simples, to stop the flow of blood, or to heal wounds; then by degrees it reached its present stage of complicated variety. No wonder that in early days medicine had less to do! Men's bodies were still sound and strong; their food was light and not spoiled by art and luxury, whereas when they began to seek dishes not for the sake of removing, but of rousing, the appetite, and devised countless sauces to whet their gluttony, – then what before was nourishment to a hungry man became a burden to the full stomach. 16. Thence come paleness, and a trembling of wine-sodden muscles, and a repulsive thinness, due rather to indigestion than to hunger. Thence weak tottering steps, and a reeling gait just like that of drunkenness. Thence dropsy, spreading under the entire skin, and the belly growing to a paunch through an ill habit of taking more than it can hold. Thence yellow jaundice, discoloured countenances, and bodies that rot inwardly, and fingers that grow knotty when the joints stiffen, and muscles that are numbed and without power of feeling, and palpitation of the heart with its ceaseless pounding. 17. Why need I mention dizziness? Or speak of pain in the eye and in the ear, itching and aching[11] in the fevered brain, and internal ulcers throughout the digestive system? Besides these, there are countless kinds of fever, some acute in their malignity, others creeping upon us with subtle damage, and still others which approach us with chills and severe ague. 18. Why should I mention the other innumerable diseases, the tortures that result from high living?   Men used to be free from such ills, because they had not yet slackened their strength by indulgence, because they had control over themselves, and supplied their own needs.[12] They toughened their bodies by work and real toil, tiring themselves out by running or hunting or tilling the earth. They were refreshed by food in which only a hungry man could take pleasure. Hence, there was no need for all our mighty medical paraphernalia, for so many instruments and pill-boxes. For plain reasons they enjoyed plain health;

February 18 The peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:7 I decided to bring home the impact of this passage by paraphrasing it from a negative standpoint, turning this prescription for peace into a no-fail prescription for anxiety. My result looked like this: “Do not be calm about anything, but in everything, by dwelling on it constantly and feeling picked on by God, with thoughts like, ‘And this is the thanks I get,’ present your aggravations to everyone you know but Him. And the acid in your stomach, which transcends all milk products, will cause you an ulcer, and the doctor bills will cause you a heart attack, and you will lose your mind.

I'd been to see our family doctor for chronic stomach pains several times that semester. I didn't have an ulcer yet, so he prescribed Tums, stress reduction, and no more Diet Coke. My mother remarked that when she was a child, there was no such thing as stress. Back then, she said, it was just called life. It's good that the doctor gave us multiple options, because stress and Diet Coke were not leaving my routine any time soon.

Anti-inflammatory drugs commonly cause bleeding stomach ulcers, fluid retention, hypertension, weight gain, and a desire to join AARP.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). H. pylori is a bacteria found in the upper gastrointestinal tracts of more than half the people in the world (more in developing nations). While 80 percent of those infected are asymptomatic, H. pylori can cause chronic gastritis, the symptoms of which include nonulcer dyspepsia, stomach pains, nausea, bloating, belching, and sometimes vomiting or black stool. It is known to be responsible for stomach ulcers and increased risk of stomach cancer. It is also strongly correlated with immune thrombocytopenia, psoriasis, and sarcoidosis.

Cabbage juice has been quite effective at preventing and curing stomach ulcers because of its fantastic anti-inflammatory properties.

I remind them (patients) that the musculoskeletal system is not the only one where the brain can set up a diversion. It can do the same thing in the gastrointestinal tract; the head, with tension or migraine headache; the skin; the genitourinary tract. The brain can cause mischief in any organ or system in the body, so one must be on guard. I advise my patients to consult their regular physicians if a new symptom occurs but to let me know about it since it may be serving the same purpose as TMS. For example, stomach ulcers should be treated with proper medication, but it is almost more important to recognize that they are coming from tension factors. (page 112)

The slightest brushing of my hand against my penis was not only a religious sin, but would lead to blindness and pimples, kidney disease, bed-wetting, stooped shoulders, insomnia, weight loss, fatigue, stomach trouble, impotence, genital cancer, and ulcers.” In fact, he so deeply internalized his aunts’ great fear of sexual “filth” that the unintentional discovery that his foreskin could retract (and the sudden sight of his filth-encrusted glans) shocked him so deeply that he passed out cold.

But my favourite cautionary tale is of Australian junior doctor Barry Marshall and his pathologist colleague Robin Warren. In the early 1980s they disagreed with the general medical consensus that most stomach ulcers were caused by stress, bad diet, alcohol, smoking and genetic factors. Instead Marshall and Warren were convinced that a particular bacterium, Helicobacter pylori, was the cause. And if they were right, the solution to many patients’ ulcers could be a simple course of antibiotics, not the risky stomach surgery that was often on the cards. Barry must have picked the short straw, because instead of setting up a test on random members of the public – and having to convince those well-known fun-skewerers of human trials: ethics committees – he just went ahead and swallowed a bunch of the little bugs. Imagine the joy, as his hypothesis was proved right! Imagine the horror, as his stomach became infected, which led to gastritis, the first stage of the stomach ulcers! Imagine his poor wife and family, as the vomiting and halitosis became too much to bear! Dr Marshall lasted 14 days before taking antibiotics to kill the H. pylori, but it was another 20 years before he and Warren were awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. So, hang on, is self-experimenting really that bad if it wins you a Nobel Prize? I guess you can only have a go and find out…but please don’t go as far as US army surgeon Jesse Lazear: in trying to prove that yellow fever was contagious, and that infected blood could be transferred via mosquito bites, he was bitten by one and died. The mosquito that caused his death might not even have been part of his experiment. It’s thought that it could just have been a local specimen. But one that enjoyed both biting humans and dramatic irony. Gastrointestinal elements

The only procedures that African-Americans receive at higher rates than whites, Williams said, are shunts for renal disease, the removal of stomach tissue for ulcers, leg amputation, and the removal of testicles.

Melatonin and Acid Reflux: Melatonin is an indole that is said to cause sleep. It plays a significant role in stimulating the activity of the lower esophageal sphincter so that stomach contents will not back up into the esophagus. This conclusion is based on animal studies as reported by the Life Extension Foundation.  Melatonin has been proven effective in healing sores and ulcers in the digestive tract. Its presence in the GI tract through the enterochromaffin cells can prevent and cure irritable bowel syndrome, stomach upset, and dyspepsia. Taking melatonin along with natural food supplements is more effective than proton-pump inhibitors, particularly omeprazole.  Chapter 7: Natural Remedies for Acid Reflux, LPR and GERD Organic Honey, Fresh Basil, Holy Basil Tea, and Indian Gooseberry Some of the natural GERD remedies I am going to talk about are natural and holistic food and herbal therapies.

The consumer society and its harassed citizens had other things to think of. Although it was a month to Christmas, the advertising orgy had begun and the buying hysteria spread as swiftly and ruthlessly as the Black Death along the festooned shopping streets. The epidemic swept all before it and there was no escape. It ate its way into homes and apartments, poisoning and braking down everything and everyone in its path. Children were already howling from exhaustion and fathers of families were plunged into debt until their next vacation. The gigantic legalized confidence trick claimed victims everywhere. The hospitals had a boom in cardiac infractions, nervous breakdowns, and burst stomach ulcers. The police stations downtown had frequent visits from the outriders of the great family festival, in the shape of Santa Clauses who were dragged blind drunk out of doorways and public urinals. . .two exhausted patrolmen dropped a drunken Father Christmas in the gutter when they tried to get him into a taxi.

Fear, worry, hate, supreme selfishness, and the inability to adjust themselves to the world of reality—these were largely the causes of their stomach illnesses and stomach ulcers

For many years I was under the impression that TMS was a kind of physical expression or discharge of the repressed emotions just described. In fact, this is what I suggested in the first edition of this book. I had been aware since the early 1970s that these common back and neck pain syndromes were due to repressed emotions. Eighty-eight percent of a large group of patients with TMS had a history of other tension-related disorders, like stomach ulcers, colitis, tension headache, and migraine headache. But the idea of TMS as a physical manifestation of nervous tension was somehow unsatisfactory and incomplete. Most important, it did not explain the repeated observation that making a patient aware of the role of the pain as participant in a psychological process would lead to cessation of pain, to a "cure." (page 56)

If the pain is caused by your stomach that dislikes what you ate, a beginning ulcer, or your liver that has a challenging task ahead, anxiety is not going to fix any of that. Since we eat/drink things that our body dislikes, since we catch viruses and more, pains are possible. I always go for full acceptance and when a symptom persists, I have it checked and try to figure out what’s causing it.

When the young person in question is an agnostic whose ancestors were Puritans, you get a very regrettable state of mind. The Puritan conscience works on without the Puritan theology—like millstones grinding nothing; like digestive juices working on an empty stomach and producing ulcers. The unhappy youth applies to literature all the scruples, the rigorism, the self-examination, the distrust of pleasure, which his forebears applied to the spiritual life; and perhaps soon all the intolerance and self-righteousness.

Along with doubt about the accuracy of conventional diagnoses, there came the realization that the primary tissue involved was muscle, specifically the muscles of the neck, shoulders, back, and buttocks. But even more important was the observation that 88 percent of the people seen had histories of such things as tension or migraine headache, heartburn, hiatus hernia, stomach ulcer, colitis, spastic colon, irritable bowel syndrome, hay fever, asthma, eczema, and a variety of other disorders, all of which were strongly suspected of being related to tension.

For many years I was under the impression that TMS was a kind of physical expression or discharge of the repressed emotions just described. In fact, this is what I suggested in the first edition of this book. I had been aware since the early 1970s that these common back and neck pain syndromes were due to repressed emotions. Eighty-eight percent of a large group of patients with TMS had a history of other tension-related disorders, like stomach ulcers, colitis, tension headache, and migraine headache. But the idea of TMS as a physical manifestation of nervous tension was somehow unsatisfactory and incomplete. Most important, it did not explain the repeated observation that making a patient aware of the role of the pain as participant in a psychological process would lead to cessation of pain, to a “cure.” It was a psychoanalyst colleague, Dr. Stanley Coen, who suggested in the course of our working on a medical paper together that the role of the pain syndrome was not to express the hidden emotions but to prevent them from becoming conscious. This, he explained, is what is referred to as a defense. In other words, the pain of TMS (or the discomfort of a peptic ulcer, of colitis, of tension headache, or the terror of an asthmatic attack) is created in order to distract the attention of the sufferer from what is going on in the emotional sphere. It is intended to focus one’s attention on the body instead of the mind. It is a response to the need to keep those terrible, antisocial, unkind, childish, angry, selfish feelings (the prisoners) from becoming conscious. It follows from this that far from being a physical disorder in the usual sense, TMS is really part of a psychological process.

As a hypochondriac, the typical response when I'm panicking is to acknowledge it will end. At some point, I will cease to be conviced that I have a brain tumor, or a stomach ulcer, or some degenerative condition of the nerves, and so at some point, the bad thing will end. When something bad is actually happening, it's easy to underreact, because a part of you is wired to assume it isn't real. When you stop underreacting, the horror is unique because it is, unfortunately, endless.

They are always tired; because they are so exposed to other people's energy, they constantly feel drained and tired. This tiredness is so extreme that even sleep can’t relieve it. Empaths are often diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME). They suffer from back problems and digestive disorders. The center of the abdomen is where the solar plexus chakra is located (see chapter 10). Empaths feel the emotions of others in this area, which weakens it and can lead to irritable bowel syndrome, stomach ulcers, and lower back problems. The empath who doesn’t understand their gift will typically suffer from such physical problems. They catch illnesses quickly; an empath develops the physical symptoms of those around them. They often catch the flu, eye infections, and aches and pains in the body and joints. When they are close to someone who is unwell, they often experience sympathy pains.

The Oregon researchers began by creating, as a starting point, a very simple algorithm, in which the likelihood that an ulcer was malignant depended on the seven factors the doctors had mentioned, equally weighted. The researchers then asked the doctors to judge the probability of cancer in ninety-six different individual stomach ulcers, on a seven-point scale from “definitely malignant” to “definitely benign.” Without telling the doctors what they were up to, they showed them each ulcer twice, mixing up the duplicates randomly in the pile so the doctors wouldn’t notice they were being asked to diagnose the exact same ulcer they had already diagnosed. The researchers didn’t have a computer. They transferred all of their data onto punch cards, which they mailed to UCLA, where the data was analyzed by the university’s big computer. The researchers’ goal was to see if they could create an algorithm that would mimic the decision making of doctors. This simple first attempt, Goldberg assumed, was just a starting point. The algorithm would need to become more complex; it would require more advanced mathematics. It would need to account for the subtleties of the doctors’ thinking about the cues. For instance, if an ulcer was particularly big, it might lead them to reconsider the meaning of the other six cues. But then UCLA sent back the analyzed data, and the story became unsettling. (Goldberg described the results as “generally terrifying.”) In the first place, the simple model that the researchers had created as their starting point for understanding how doctors rendered their diagnoses proved to be extremely good at predicting the doctors’ diagnoses.

My first comment is that all over-the-counter pain killers lower copper, these are Tylenol, Ibuprofin, and Aspirin.  All three of them cause bleeding, and cause death through bleeding.  All three of them cause bleeding ulcers.  The mechanism of action of causing bleeding ulcers is copper depletion of the stomach lining where the ulcer takes place.

Back then, Ron Howell’s job might have seemed easy enough: he sold the gasoline and other fuels that Koch Industries produced at its refineries. As the senior vice president of supply and trading at Koch, Howell made sure that Koch’s fuel went straight from the refineries to the highest-paying customer. Gasoline was the kind of product that seemed to sell itself—there was always demand for fuel. People at Koch referred to Howell’s job as the “dispossession of molecules,” meaning that he simply had to find a home for the various fuels that Koch produced. This seemed straightforward. But Howell’s job was the kind of job that produced insomnia and ulcers. It forced him to retire when he was in his thirties before the job killed him. When he talked about oil trading, even decades later, Howell often used words like whippin’ and savage. The savagery of Howell’s average workday began when he walked into the office in Houston every morning and picked up the phone to sell the first barrel of gasoline or diesel fuel. The stomach acids started to boil the instant Howell tried to establish what might seem like a basic, simple fact: the price of oil that day. Determining the price of oil at any given minute was an arcane art practiced by a network of traders around the world. They spent their days on the phone with one another, arguing, cajoling, bluffing, and bullying. The fact is that nobody really knew the price of a barrel of oil, or gasoline, or diesel fuel. Everybody had to guess, and the person who could guess with the most precision walked away with profits that were almost limitless. The person who guessed wrong faced instant, brutal downsides in the market. There was a common misperception that the price of oil floats up and down on a global market. Every day, business commentators and journalists talked about the “price of oil” as if it were like the price of General Electric stock—a price that was determined by millions of buyers and sellers who traded on large, open exchanges. In fact, there was no global market for oil. Oil was bought and sold inside a constellation of thousands of tiny nodes where transactions and prices were totally hidden to outsiders.

Aspirin is toxic to the stomach and can cause ulcers, while paracetamol is toxic to the liver.

Chart 4.4: Disease Groupings Observed in Rural China Disease of Affluence (Nutritional extravagance) Cancer (colon, lung, breast, leukemia, childhood brain, stomach, liver), diabetes, coronary heart disease Disease of Poverty (Nutritional inadequacy and poor sanitation) Pneumonia, intestinal obstruction, peptic ulcer, digestive disease, pulmonary tuberculosis, parasitic disease, rheumatic heart disease, metabolic and endocrine disease other than diabetes, diseases of pregnancy, and many others Disease associations of this

What is it about our modern life that distorts our innate sense of compassion and generosity?” “We have been brought up to think that we have to obey the laws of the jungle. Eat or be eaten. We are ruthless in our competitiveness. So much so that now stomach ulcers are status symbols. They show just how very hard we work. We work hard not only to supply our needs and the needs of our families, but we are trying to outdo the other.

ULCERS are no more than fear — tremendous fear of “not being good enough.” We fear not being good enough for a parent, we fear not being good enough for a boss. We can’t stomach who we are. We rip our guts apart trying to please others. No matter how important our job is, our inner self-esteem is very low. We are afraid they will find out about us.

Was that the boss you were talking about? That man today?’ The wine was delicious. I took another sip. I hadn’t dared drink while Lily had been with me: I might have let my guard down. ‘Yup.’ ‘I know the type. If it’s any consolation, within five years he’ll either have a stomach ulcer or enough hypertension to cause erectile dysfunction.’ I laughed. ‘Both those thoughts are oddly comforting.

Dispassionate scrutiny may well help us to find the sort of person we should fall in love with in order to have the best chances of being happy; but by itself it does not do much to make us fall in love. There are precise laws of physics that can describe mathematically all of the forces at play as I pedal and turn my bicycle, but it is the feel for the thing, and not my knowledge of mathematics, that allowed me to learn to ride it. No amount of biochemical facts is sufficient to prevent chronic stress from producing ulcers in my stomach. And no accumulation of facts about the way things are can ever dispel the mystery of why there is something rather than nothing.

Tests Done Once and in Response to a Specific Symptom Some tests should be done once and also if a problem is suspected: MTHFR. A persistently high level of homocysteine, a frequently measured blood marker, could indicate an MTHFR deficiency. See “Do You Have MTHFR Deficiency?” in chapter 8 for details. H. pylori is a stomach bacteria and a nasty one. It causes stomach cancer, ulcers, and other serious problems. It is fairly common in the west, but endemic in much of the developing world. It should be treated with antibiotics. It is a tough bacteria, and several courses of antibiotics could be needed. Normal practice is to treat it when a symptom develops. It’s better to be preemptive. H. pylori should be tested once, and retested again after any trips to countries having a strong prevalence. Re-test for this if living in Asia, visiting, or experiencing chronic stomach distress.

Within these operations, it is both cheaper and less time-consuming to feed the animals corn and soy in confined spaces, even though these grain-based, immobile diets are not well adapted to the way God created these animals. For example, cattle have rumens, which are designed to digest various grasses and plants, not massive amounts of grain, and as a result these cattle are more prone to disease and general ill health, such as stomach ulcers, while they are less nutritious to consume.

Let’s walk this out step by step. Let’s say you have a problem with a disease by the label of “acid reflux.” You experience stress. Stress decreases muscle tone around the lower esophagus, because that requires blood and energy, which we are using to fight or flee. Now the acid in the stomach washes back up into the esophagus, damaging the lining of the esophagus. These cells get repeatedly damaged, causing pain and eventually ulcers or cancer. But they only do that because they’re not in growth and healing and repair mode, or they could protect themselves from the acid bath. So you manifest the disease “acid reflux.” The medical solution is to give a purple pill to stop the acid. This works quite effectively for reducing the acid, but the problem is that the acid is needed to digest food. Acid also functions to kill bacteria that we have ingested with the food. In masking our symptom, we’ve created two new problems. The extra bacterial load burdens the immune system. The food remains in the stomach longer until the stomach finally produces enough acid to digest it, but now there’s a longer exposure period of the acid to the esophagus. It becomes a vicious cycle. So, do we want to mask the symptom or heal the source?

Stomachs that were merely cauldrons of acid, bubbling, foaming, always shooting spears of sliver-thin pain into our chests. It was the pain of the terminal ulcer, terminal cancer, terminal paresis. It was unending pain … And we passed through the cavern of rats. And we passed through the path of boiling steam. And we passed through the country of the blind. And we passed through the slough of despond. And we passed through the vale of tears. And we came, finally, to the ice caverns.

You do not get stomach ulcers from what you eat. You get ulcers from what is eating you.

The practice of tipping a paint brush started contaminating everybody and everything in a watch dial factory. Painters noticed that after sneezing into a handkerchief, it would glow. You could see the brush twirlers walking home after dark. Their hair showed a ghostly green excitation, and they could spell out words in the air with their luminous fingers. Some, thinking outside the box, started painting their teeth, fingernails, eyelashes, and other body parts with the luminous paint, then stealing away to the bathroom, turning out the lights, and admiring the effect in the mirror. There was no problem finding gross radium contamination in a factory. There was no need for a radiation detection instrument. All you had to do was close the blinds. Everything glowed; even the ceiling. Most workers were each swallowing about 1.75 grams of radioactive paint per day. By 1922, things started going bad in the radium dial industry. In the next two years, nine young radium painters in the West Orange factory died, and 12 were suffering from devastating illnesses. US Radium, the biggest watch-dial maker in town, strongly denied that anything in their plant could be causing this. No autopsies were performed, and the death certificates recorded anemia, syphilis, stomach ulcers, and necrosis of the jaw as causes. The dead and ailing, however, had dentists in common, and these health professionals had noticed unusual breakdowns of the jaws and teeth in all of these women. It was beginning to look like another case of an occupational hazard, following closely behind tetraethyl lead exposure at General Motors and “phossy jaw” from white phosphorus fumes in the match industry. Could it be the radium?

While it was widely reported that Hunter believed he was suffering from terminal cancer, an autopsy revealed his condition to be a treatable stomach ulcer.

They are not only able to change how we feel—they can actually have physical effects in our bodies. For example, a placebo can make an inflamed jaw go back to normal. A placebo can cure3 a stomach ulcer. A placebo can soothe—at least a little—most medical problems to some degree. If you expect it to work, for many of us it will work.