Digestion and the Kitchen Sink

Unless you’re one of the extremely lucky few, everyone experiences plumbing issues at some point in their lives, from both a domestic and digestive perspective. Recently, while dealing with a particularly reticent clog in our kitchen sink, the similarities of those two perspectives really came to light for me. So I thought I’d pen some comparisons...

Over last year, I’ve been dealing with a recurring clog in the main drain line from our kitchen sink. In running various unclogging devices through, it should come as no surprise that the unauthorized and frequent resident of the line can be described as a thick, dark grey, poiniently odiferous, slimy goo. While I haven’t (yet) run a lab analysis on it, these simple visual and olfactory clues indicate to me that the vast majority of the material is comprised of bacteria. Since our house was constructed over 40 years ago, I can estimate with a fairly high degree of certainty that its plumbing network is lined with a well-established and quite prolific bacterial colony - not entirely dissimilar to our own digestive tracts, cringe though you may. Since about 80% of the dry weight of stool is composed of spent bacteria, this comparison may be more accurate than you might think.

While a prolific colony of good bacteria is essential for human health (about 80% of your immune system depends on the health your gut bacteria), I don’t necessarily wish my home to emulate that concept. Instead, I would wish the polar opposite for my home’s plumbing - minimal bacteria. So, in realizing that my past strategy (calling a plumber to remove the goo) has been proven ineffective, I had to take a step back and attack the problem from a different angle. The first step in this strategy was to rephrase the question of the problem from “How do I unclog this drain line?” to “How do I limit the propagation of bacteria in the plumbing?” Or, with respect to my digestive tract line of thought: “How do I keep the house regular?” The solution, of course, would be to think of what a human would do to completely devastate his/her gut bacteria. Thus, I came up with a few possible strategies:

1. Begin feeding bread and/or other wheat-containing products into the garbage disposal frequently, in hopes of causing celiac-esque reactions. However, gluten promotes Leaky Gut, which brought to mind a disturbing vision of my basement filled with the end products of digestive processes. Not pretty...

2. Beans, perhaps? After all, they have plenty of saponins (soap-like compounds) that stick to everything. But since saponins and soap tend to bind to all bacteria (good and bad), and promote a severe inflammatory response, this could create more constipation in the plumbing...

3. Flush the lines with whole milk and bank on lactose intolerance? Having personal experience with this, I feared acute gas buildup and subsequent olfactory repercussions - probably not amenable to good spousal relations...

4. Glyphosate! How about pouring a few gallons of Roundup into the drain? Upon further review, even minor amounts of glyphosate kills the good bacteria and promotes the growth of bad bacteria, so I feared that the problem would only worsen...

Obviously, none of the above solutions appeared adequate to solve our home’s plumbing issue. I eventually arrived at the conclusion that the only way to rid the lines of all bacteria was an extended course of strong antibiotics, otherwise known as drain cleaner... While a good antibiotic is quite effective in targeting specific “bad” bacteria, even the best specifically-targeted antibiotics have the side effect of wiping out similar species of “good” bacteria, leaving a potentially barren wasteland in your gut, compromising health. Therefore, you should always replenish your gut bacteria with copious quantities of reputable priobiotics subsequent to taking a course of antibiotics, helping your digestive tract get “reseeded” for proper digestion and good health.

In this instance, however, since I was going for the polar opposite effect in my home’s plumbing, I needed a great general antibiotic - a highly concentrated drain cleaner. After the initial application, we’ve seen promising results. But we’re still in the midst of the gut-cleaning project (did I mention that our house is over 40 years old, with cast iron piping?...), and I expect that it will take many more applications to get the system fully functional again.

The point being: Please take a minute and reread the above 4 points, keeping in mind that in order to maintain effective gut bacteria and sustain consistent health, you want to AVOID dumping such products into your own digestive system. And, if you’re like millions of others trying to mend from bacterial infections and other maladies, please make sure to supplement with high quality prebiotics (like soil-based organisms) and probiotics.

#gut #guthealth #bacteria #gutbacteria #gluten #prebiotics #probiotics #health