Indigestion - Symptoms and Treatment

As soon as any substance is kept on our tongue, digestion starts. The saliva has an enzyme called ptylin that starts digesting sugar and hence digestion occurs throughout the gastro-intestinal tract (GI tract).

Digestion is a process of breaking down food into smaller, easily absorb-able substances. The nutrients are absorbed and they travel throughout the body via blood and give nutrition to every cell and tissue in the body.

When we talk about digestion, we talk about two major processes,

• Breaking down of food particles into smaller, easily absorb-able substances.

• Absorption of these particles  and transmission of these nutrients in blood.

A majority of breaking down occurs by the time the food exits the small intestine and a majority of absorption occurs when the food in is the large intestine.

Elimination is a process of removal of waste products, and here we will focus on faecal excretion.

I have seen that many-a-times there is a confusion where indigestion is understood to be constipation. This is incorrect as digestion and elimination are two different processes.

The ways in which to diagnose indigestion are as follows

Test 1

• Tongue - If your tongue is coated white, yellow, blue or black then it means you have indigestion and the colour of the coating in increasing order shows the intensity of it.

Test 2

• Stools - When you pass motions, if your stools (faecal matter) sinks in water, it is also an indication of indigestion.

Indigestion is the root cause for most diseases and hence must be treated immediately. For treatment of indigestion refer to this video below.

For treatment of constipation, view this video below.

For treatment of loose motions, view this video below.