Many people have this kind of trouble. As soon as they go out, whether they go to school, work or travel, they immediately start to have diarrhea, and they go to the toilet all day long. What a curse. Especially during the Golden Week of the 11th National Day, when the holiday travel peak is reached, there are more people who start to have diarrhea and go to the toilet when they arrive in a different place.
People often refer to this phenomenon as “acclimatization to the soil and water”, which means that when a person goes to a foreign land and is not used to the soil and water there, it is easy to have diarrhea.
Then we can’t help but ask, is this so-called “unacceptable to the soil and water”, is it unacceptable to the water or the soil?
Source: Internet
Intestinal flora is the first to express dissatisfaction with soil and water
For the human body, there is a close division of labor among various tissues and organs. Among them, the largest division of labor is our digestive tract. The “huge” here does not mean It is the volume of the digestive tract, but there are a large number of bacteria living in the digestive tract, about 10 trillion. If you look at the total number of cells, the total number of these bacteria is similar to the number of cells in the entire human body [5] (there is also an estimate The method is that the number of intestinal bacteria cells is 10 times the number of human cells), and these bacteria help us digest food and resist the invasion of pathogenic bacteria.
These bacteria that live in the digestive tract are not only numerous, but also many types, hundreds of species. The fact that so many types and numbers of bacteria can colonize our digestive tracts for long periods of time, with us and with each other, is a very delicate balance between these bacteria and our gastrointestinal tract.
And this balance is actually formed in the relatively fixed living and eating environment of our human body.
There are two main sources of intestinal flora, one is the bacteria we inherit from the mother’s birth canal when we are just born; the other is the food we eat and drink the day after tomorrow. The drinking water is gradually adapted and settled by foreign bacteria in the environment formed by the digestive tract. As the so-called “one side of the water and soil raises the other side”, that is the truth.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
If we have been living in a relatively stable environment, our gut flora will grow and stabilize according to this environment. It’s like saying that I, a Beijinger, likes to eat fried noodles, then my intestinal flora also likes to eat fried noodles. After eating fried noodles, my flora and I feel very comfortable. But once our living environment has undergone major changes, for example, I was eating fried noodles, and suddenly went to Shanghai to eat Benbang dishes, even if my brain liked it, the flora in my digestive tract couldn’t accept it.
For the bacteria that have been screened and stabilized according to the fried sauce noodles, the Shanghai local dishes I eat are probably not nutrients at all for them, but only decompose and utilize the fried sauce. If the flora of the noodles cannot cope with these dishes, the flora will starve and die [4].
Once the dominant bacteria die in large numbers, other bacterial forces that have been suppressed by the dominant bacteria for a long time will take the opportunity to rise, or they will give rise to all kinds of messy foreign pathogens. freed up space. The proliferation of these non-main force bacteria groups has broken the original balance, and the obvious manifestation brought to our human body is that diarrhea begins not long after arriving in a different place.
Therefore, this acclimatization due to imbalanced flora is actually more related to changes in dietary structure.
If you insist on having something to do with “water” or “soil”, it may only be explained as: because of the difference in water quality and soil quality, the crops produced in different places are different. The nutrients rich in it are also different, so that the dietary structure of each place is different, which in turn causes the imbalance of the human flora, which will make people uncomfortable.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
Interestingly, the acclimatization caused by dysbacteriosis may take several months to completely subside, by which time the intestinal flora has adapted to the new place and new diet environment, regained a state of equilibrium and stabilized. If you suddenly return to the hometown environment where you used to live at this time, there will be new acclimatization and stomach upsets.
For example, I ate fried noodles in Beijing and went to school in Shanghai.After about a month, my stomach will be fine; after half a year, I will go back to Beijing for winter vacation and start eating fried noodles again. I will probably have stomach troubles, because my intestinal flora has become “Shanghai style”, and I start to worry about it. Beijing is not acclimatized.
Pathogens are also dissatisfied with soil and water
Research has shown that people with a cleaner, more monolithic diet have less “elasticity” of their gut flora, and these people are more prone to acclimatization.
For example, in many sophisticated families, children do not eat all kinds of snacks since childhood, nor do they eat roadside stalls and small restaurants outside, and their daily meals are clean and safe meals made by themselves at home. When these children go to college, even if the college is only 1 km away from home, even if they are still in their hometown, they are still prone to acclimatization.
This is because the cleaner and simpler the diet, the simpler the composition of the intestinal flora, and this environment is relatively fragile. Once the hygiene conditions change, there will be less The entry of polypathogenic bacteria into this environment will cause more damage to the relatively single intestinal flora.
It seems that the intestinal flora of ordinary people comes from people from agriculture, industry, business, and three religions. But these family-conscious children’s intestinal flora has only a group of scholars. Similarly, in the face of a group of pathogenic bacteria rogues that invaded, the ordinary people are more resilient and can hold on for a while, while the flora of children who pay attention to families may be “killed”.
Similarly, even if they are not so particular since childhood, if ordinary people go to places with poor hygiene conditions, such as India, and eat vegetables washed in the Ganges River, pathogenic bacteria, especially highly pathogenic bacteria If a large number of powerful pathogenic bacteria invade, it is estimated that no matter how elastic the flora can’t stand it, it will basically immediately “acclimate” to diarrhea.
Research shows that living in an area with poor hygiene can take several years to fully adapt to the intestinal flora, no longer have diarrhea, like the local people have “steel-like” stomach”.
Is it useful to eat water and soil from my hometown?
There are some “home remedies” for people who are not accustomed to the soil and water: use a little hometown soil, mix a little hometown water, and drink it.
Using “water” and “soil” to treat the problem of acclimatization seems reasonable at first glance. However, as can be seen from the above description, diarrhea caused by the unacceptable soil and water is caused by the imbalance of intestinal flora or the invasion of pathogenic bacteria.
So, to study, work or travel in a new environment, is there any way to prevent and relieve diarrhea caused by acclimatization?
There are still ways:
Prevention
Just arrived in a new environment, the most important thing is to prevent acclimatization.
First, make sure to eat as clean as possible, avoid raw or cold food, boil or simply drink bottled water, peel fruit, try not to Eat a lot of food such as roadside stalls that are not hygienic.
Secondly, try to keep your original eating habits as much as possible and gradually transition to local eating.
Nowadays, food cultures around the world are blending together, and it is not very difficult to find original eating habits in a new environment. Local food, especially local stimulant food, should not be used as the main food immediately. You can try it as a snack first, and gradually increase the variety and proportion of flower samples in food [3].
Conditions requiring a doctor’s visit
In most cases, diarrhea caused by acclimatization (there is a medical term for it: traveler’s diarrhea) can be self-diagnosed and treated, such as with milder antibiotics strong> (berberine hydrochloride tablets, etc.), can quickly improve diarrhea symptoms.
However,some serious and complicated conditions require a doctor’s visit. For example: when high fever, abdominal pain, bloody diarrhea or vomiting occurs, and self-medication with antibiotics is ineffective; when symptoms persist for 10 to 14 days without significant relief [1].
In addition to the above two situations that need to seek medical attention as soon as possible, most of the time the intestinal flora will gradually adjust itself and eventually form a new stable state, and the problem of diarrhea due to acclimatization is solved. .
Therefore, when you experience diarrhea, firstly replenish the water lost due to diarrhea, and then eat relatively digestible food to be kind to your gut bacteria Give them time to breathe and adjust, trusting that you and your flora will soon be able to find a new normal of peaceful coexistence.
Image source: Zhanku Hailuo
References
[1] Mark S. Riddle, Bradley A. Connor, Nicholas J. Beeching, Guidelines for the prevention and treatment of travelers’ diarrhea: a graded expert panel report..Travel Med. 2017 Apr; 24(Suppl 1): S63CS80.
[2] Diptyanusa A, Ngamprasertchai T, Piyaphanee W. A review of antibiotic prophylaxis for traveler’s diarrhea: past to present.Trop Dis TravelMed Vaccines. 2018 Nov 7;4:14.
[3]Gu Zhongyi, Zhang Shiguo. What should I do if I am not accustomed to the soil and water? [J] Public Health 2010,(7):88-89.
[4] Lynne S. Garcia, Michael Arrowood, Evelyne Kokoskin, et al. Laboratory Diagnosis of Parasites from the Gastrointestinal Tract. Clinical Microbiology Reviews Nov 2017, 31 (1) e00025-17.
[5] Sender Ron, Fuchs Shai, Milo Ron. Are We Really Vastly Outnumbered? Revisiting the Ratio of Bacterial to Host Cells in Humans.Cell. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2016.01 .013.
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