It’s not a big mystery what causes gastritis, for one thing, gastritis isn’t a drug deficiency . . . you can rule that out.

Gastritis like any disorder or degenerative health issue, it’s a matter of nurturing proper nutrition and having healthy lifestyle habits.

When you ask what causes gastritis you are really asking what causes the stomachs protective layer of specialized cells to become weakened?

Normally you have a protective mucus lining that shields your naked stomach cells from corrosive stomach acid.

Your digestive system isn’t designed to digest itself.

Once you identify the underlying root cause of your gastritis and remove the cause, your body heals relatively fast.

Here’s a list of gastritis triggers and possible causes:

• Helicobacter pylori is the name of a bacteria found in ulcerations of people with gastritis. The interesting thing is millions of people have these bacteria and they don’t have any gastritis symptoms. The reason is bacteria, like viruses are opportunistic organisms, which means if the conditions are right they will flourish and thrive . . . so the condition is a cause of gastritis, not the bacterium.
• Pain drugs like Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) often irritate the stomach environment, changing the conditions. Taking aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen can upset the delicate digestive system leaving it vulnerable to infection and inflammation causing gastritis.
• Alcohol is literally more addictive than crack cocaine and because of this fact it’s considered a socially acceptable drug because getting everyone to stop taking alcohol is impossible . . . prohibition never works. Alcohol, like NSAIDs changes the conditions of your digestive system’s environment, making it subject to bacterial infection and causing gastritis.
• Stress will also change your internal conditions making your stomach more vulnerable to the cause of gastritis.
• When your cells lose inner-net communication they can end up causing an immune reaction and attacks itself without realizing it. This is called an auto-immune dysfunction, which is rare but it does happens more often in people with other auto-immune disorders like diabetes type 1, Hashimoto’s disease or Addison’s disease. The cause of autoimmune gastritis can be a simple communication breakdown triggered by a nutritional deficiency and lifestyle factors.
• Gastritis can be triggered from eating too much animal proteins and fats in which case bile reflux disease can develop often causing gastritis. Bile helps you digest animal fats. Bile is made in your liver and stored in your gallbladder and prevented from contaminating your small intestine by a valve . . . if bile leaks by it will inflame and turn into acute gastritis.
• Other problems that can cause gastritis or are associated with it are AIDS, Crohn’s disease, parasites, liver failure, kidney dysfunction and some connective tissue disorders.

Bottom line is if you learn to keep your internal conditions properly balanced though right diet and lifestyle you can prevent or even reverse the cause of gastritis.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate

An acute attack of gastritis is a severe and sudden short term condition, whereas chronic gastritis would be a long term condition.

Acute gastritis may happen suddenly, but usually there have been some underlying factors that built up enough to cause a severe and sudden digestive upset.

Here are some causes of acute gastritis:

• Aspirin and other NSAIDS
• Corticosteroids
• Alcohol
• Consuming extremely acidic substances
• Physical or emotional stress
• Acidosis
• Parasitic, bacterial or viral infestation
• Standard American Diet (SAD)

Even though acute gastritis is sudden, there are signs that will tell you something is out of balance. For instance, if you notice you have hard dark stools that sink, you may be suffering from chronic dehydration and one of its complications is acute gastritis.

If you’ve noticed any indigestive issues like loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting you probably are experiencing the rapid onset of an acute gastritis attack.

Like everything else you have basically two approaches you can take for acute gastritis. The pharmaceutical approach isn’t going to cure the cause of your acute gastritis, but it may cover some symptoms . . . just beware of making things worse from side effects.

The nutritional approach is going to require you looking closely at your personal dietary habits. By using whole foods and the nutrient complexes within them you will naturally reverse all your gastritis pain, whether acute or chronic.

If you choose to ignore the cause of your acute gastritis and continue to try and drug your gastritis pain and symptoms away, your risk of it becoming chronic gastritis is worse.

Unfortunately, unless you address the root cause of your acute gastritis it could advance into a gastric ulcer.

That doesn’t necessarily mean you have too much stomach acid, it could mean you simply have an imbalance of digestive flora.

Only your stomach is acidic by nature, everything else is alkaline. Even the bacteria found in gastric ulcers are there because of the loss of an alkaline balance in your tissues. Once balance is restored the stomach and surrounding organs can function properly and the acute inflammation process will stop.

Acute gastritis improves rapidly with the right treatment, which sometimes involves using antacids to allow the ulcerations to heal. Keep in mind antacids should only be used in emergencies and for a short time.

Many of antacids are useless and often make acute gastric symptoms worse in the long run.

Eating more alkaline producing foods will benefit your recovery from acute gastritis without risking drug side effects.

You were born to heal,

Todd M. Faass

Health Advocate