You may not believe it, but your heartburn may not be caused by stress and strain. This is especially true if you feel an unpleasant contraction below the ribs in the left side of your body and in addition often have diarrhea. Below the ribs is where the pancreas and the spleen are located, and it is the spleen that we are concerned with in this case.



That feeling of contraction could be that your spleen is working too hard. The function of the spleen is to filter the blood, and something has created the need for extra blood filtering in your body. While this is happening, your stomach reacts by over producing extra gastric juice, which then brings on your heartburn.

The reason for this has happened is that you have eaten something your body can not handle well and recognizes as harmful to you. If you recognize the above symptoms, then it's highly likely that your digestion doesn't handle wheat and cereals very well. However, it does not necessarily mean than you are gluten intolerant only that your body may have problems producing certain enzymes necessary to break down wheat products. Therefore, the over production of stomach acid could be an attempt of your body to compensate the lack of these enzymes.

Here are some steps you can take. The first thing is to stop eating wheat and cereals altogether and eat more fruits and nuts instead. Fruit fibers have the same function as cereal fibers and are much healthier for the body anyway.

The next thing you can do is eat less carbohydrates. You can continue to eat rice, corn and potatoes, but reduce these foods to be a much smaller percentage of your food intake. You can swap wheat-based pasta for rice noodles and naturally gluten-free pasta.

Another thing you can do is reducing the amount of salt you are using. You can always use instant bouillon powder instead of ordinary salt.

Try eating more fat fish and small animals from the sea. Mankind's step from being monkeys and the development of our brains began during a period when we started to hunt small animals along the beaches in Africa. Our nails are flat today because we had to pry open clams and nuts. Our nervous systems need fish oils in order to work properly.

You must never stuff yourself while eating. This is especially true for grown men who have grown up with the idea that they have to eat up everything which is put on their plate and that nothing should go to waste.

Avoid being without food for long periods of time. Eat small amounts often and slowly. You can treat yourself to a pizza if you really want one, but see to that the dough is well baked, preferably close to being burned.

Forget the myth that sugar is dangerous. Pretty much everything we eat is broken down into simple sugar molecules - glucose - in our digestion and the brain's fuel is almost 100% glucose. Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame could be harmful since they pass through the membranes of the brain where only glucose would normally pass, but sugar is only dangerous if it's not used up by the body.