Expert: Glen Aukerman, M.D. - 6/6/2010

Question
Do you know of any herbs I could try for this condition? I have suffered from an uncomfortable  distended (not fat) abdomen for the last few years.Two doctors said it was 'visceral fat and I needed to eat less and exercise more'. I already eat like a bird and jog every day!
The third doctor said my blood sugar was on the high side and I was 'pre-diabetic', and this could be gastroparesis which is a side effect of diabetes. Diabetes and big hard bellies run in my family but I never thought to connect the two!
He said to cut out the carbs and sugar which I am going to do -my only real vice was  chocolate-not much-but every day, and a few daily handfulls of raisins or M&M's from the dispenser at work.
I have tried digestive enzymes with no success, and I take ginger every night to avoid the morning nausea.
A friend gave me some herbal tea bags with senna. They seemed to help but getting the runs is no fun, and a google search said senna is harmfull.
Thanks!

Answer
Get to a nutrigenomic center like www.medicalcenter.osu.edu/go/integrative or you need to have your doctor get your blood magnesium, calcium, and vit d levels into the upper 10% of the reference range for the gastroparesis to go away in 90-120 days. Dark chocolate has 50 mg of magnesiuim in each square so that is why you crave chocolate. You have this set of conditions due to the magnesium and calcium being out of soft, city and bottled waters for the last 30 years, see Magnesium fact sheet, calcium fact sheet and vit D fact sheet at www.nih.gov as search for each.

However, to let the magnesium oxide work by absorbing, your doctor will need to do a antigliadin level so you can get that to less than 1.0 by stopping all gluten which blocks the absorption of Calcium, magnesium, Vit D, and by the way, vit A, E, B-12, K, and B vitamins which causes your morning nausea so a time released B-100 in morning and at noon will be needed by ask your doctor about you. The B vit deficiency is confirmed by your low HDL and high CRP lab tests if your doctor wants to do those.

When you get better stop the ginger and senna as both are irritants to the GI tract