Gut Feelings

[Auset]

"The etymology of the gut leads us back to the Middle English word guttas which then takes us to sometime before the twelfth century (C.E.) to the Old English word gEotan, meaning 'to pour.' Your gut, the dictionary says, is 'the basic visceral or emotional part of a person,' also, 'the alimentary canal or part of it (as the intestine or stomach),' or 'the inner essential parts.' As we go along, keep these definitions in mind.

It turns out that both our gut and our brain originate early in embryogenesis from a clump of tissue called the neural crest, which appears and divides during fetal development. While one section turns into the central nervous system, another piece migrates to become the enteric nervous system, and thus form both thinking machines. Only later are the two nervous systems connected via a cable called the vagus nerve, the longest of all the cranial nerves whose name is derived from Latin, meaning 'wandering....' the vagus nerve meanders from the brain stem through organs in the neck and thorax and finally ends up in the abdomen. There's the brain-gut connection.

So produndly influential is the state of the gut upon people's health that I have coined the term---gastro-neuro-immunology to try and capture the essence of the link betweeen our two brains and even our immune function.
It is frm the healthy gut that we enjoy neurological and psychological as well as immunological health. This is not to discount the highly important mass of gray between our ears---the human brain. This is simply to say that the body has two brains---the brain we all know of ... and the second brain, our gut.

[Auset]

GASTRO-NEURO-IMMUNOLOGY

...."Did you know that our capacity for feeling and emotional expression depends primarily on the gut and, to a lesser extent, the brain?
"Did you know that your gastrointestinal health is a major key to your overall and total health?

.....We take our gastronintestinal tract or gut for granted. We really shouldn't. I was reading an article recently by Sandra Blakeslee, originally published in the January 23, 1996 issue of The New York Times. It tends to be widely circulated on the web and captured the link between our gut and brain perfectly.

.....Have your ever wondered why people get butterflies in the stomach before going on stage? And why do anti-depresants targeted for the brain cause nausea or abdominal upset in millions of people who take such drugs. The reason for these common experiences is because each of us literally has two brains---the familiar one encased in our skulls and a lesser-known but vitally important one found in the human gut. Like Siamese twins the two brains are interconnected; when one gets upset, the other does too.

The gut's brain, known as the enteric nervous system (ENS), is located in sheaths of tissue lining the esophagus, stomach, small intestine and colon. (Enteric is derived from the word entera, simply meaning we also have a nervous system in our entera or intestinal tract.)
...Considered a single entity, it is packed with neurons, neurotransmitters and proteins that zap messages between neurons, support cells like those found in the brain. It contains a complex circuitry that enables it to act independently, learn, remember and, as the saying goes, produce gut feelings, says the Times article.

"In his book The Second Brain (HarperCollins 1998), Dr. Michael Gershon a professor anatomy and cell biology at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, dubs the entire gastrointestinal system the body's second nervous system.

...'The brain is not the only place in the body that's full of neurotransmitters,' says Dr. Gershon. 'A hundred million neurotransmitters line the length of the gut, approximately the same number that is found in the brain... The brain in the bowel has got to work right or no one will have the luxury to think at all. '"