This month's column concludes my discussion of the importance, to the practicing chiropractor, of supporting the Reticuloendothelial System with food supplements to combat the process of autointoxication.

Previously, I discussed the putrefaction of inadequately digested food in the bowel as a source of irritation to the bowel wall. This irritation eventually overwhelms the protective action of macrophages in the aggregate lymphatic follicles, such as Peyer's Patches, and allows inflammation of the mucosal lining of the G.I. tract.

Inflammation increases the permeability of the gut wall for the passage of large food molecules into the blood. Once in the blood these particles have passed any possible normal digestive process and since they are too large to enter the cells and be utilized as food, they must be attacked as foreign invaders.

It is obvious that reducing the permeability of the gut to foreign matter is a primary preventive and therapeutic tool in the care of many chronic conditions. It is clinically prudent to consider autointoxication, or the so-called "leaky gut syndrome" as an integral part of any chronic condition.

The protective mucosal barrier is composed of:

*** The ability of the body to produce and maintain normal, healthy, well nourished mucosal cells to protect the epithelial walls of the G.I. tract.

*** Adequate HCI/pepsin in the stomach.

*** Adequate biliary secretion to emulsify the fats ingested.

*** Adequate pancreatic enzyme production.

*** Microvillous enzyme activity in the jejunum to digest simple sugars.

*** Healthy intestinal microflora (lactobacillus).

*** Healthy mucus to trap food digestive remnants and adequate mucosal, secretory IgA antibodies to neutralize those that are immunoreactive.

*** An intact barrier in the intestine to resist invasion by large molecules while allowing absorption of essential nutritive and energetic factors.

*** Gut-associated lymphoid tissues of Peyer (Peyer's Patches) to trap foreign invaders that manage to elude the primary trapping systems.

Once the mucosal barrier is breached, the body's immune system must assume responsibility for destroying the products of poor digestion. This includes:

1. Digestive Leucocytosis -- T-cell defense against foreign invaders and clean-up inflammatory debris;

2. Removal of damaged cells and immune complexes by the Reticuloendothelial System (the sinusoidal cells of the liver and the spleen); and

3. Antibody production.

Digestive Leucocytosis

Leucocytosis is a pathological condition commonly found in cases of infection, intoxication, and poisoning. It was discovered in 1897 that the number of circulating white blood cells increased following the ingestion of food. The leukocytes are rich in enzymes and are called upon to finish digestion not completed in the gut. Is it any wonder that chronic degenerative diseases are increasing, and appearing at earlier stages of life now that enzymes are removed from food to increase shelf-life?

The liver and spleen

The liver destroys old and worn-out erythrocytes and removes bacteria and foreign bodies from the blood via its Kupffer cells (the same aggregate lymphoid follicles as Peyer's Patches), which are a part of the Reticuloendothelial System.

The inner surfaces of all the liver sinusoids are loaded with many Kupffer cells, which protrude into the flowing blood. These cells are highly phagocytic, so much so that they can remove 99 per (or more) of bacteria in the portal venous blood before they can pass all the way through the liver sinus.

The portal blood drains from the intestines, and it almost always contains a considerable number of bacilli. Interestingly, the number of Kupffer cells in the sinusoids increases markedly when quantities of particulate matter or other debris increases. Therefore, the importance of the Kupffer filtration system is readily apparent.

The spleen also filters microorganisms from the blood and, along with other lymphoid tissues, participates in the immune response. While an individual can survive with no apparent disability if the spleen has been removed, you can see that its removal may profoundly affect several important body functions.

When the digestive system is inadequate and food particles and/or foreign matter evade the protection of the mucosal lining of the G.I. tract and enter the blood, they initiate an immune response within the body. If long continued, the increasing number of these particles eventually exhaust the blood's ability to keep them in circulation and they flocculate into the tissues.

They can produce an inflammatory immune response -- caused by immune complex deposits in specific organs and tissues -- productive of fever, redness, swelling, pain, and aberrant motion. This can lead to chronic pain syndromes such as fibromyalgia, as well as symptoms of infection, even without an infectious agent because immune responses to foreign invaders are identical, be they infectious or not.

Initially, like back pain, fibromyalgia was believed to be a psychiatric disease. It is now widely accepted that fibromyalgia is an independent physical illness. The obvious medical approach is to treat this syndrome with antacids, laxatives, and pain relievers.

Chiropractors can and should do better.