It is amazing how much the stomach affects our lives and yet how little we know about our stomach and how to resolve its problems. In this article I will give explain how the stomach works and how to fix its problems.

When the stomach and related organs are working well, we feel well, but when they don't work properly we can be flat miserable.

So here are the basics of how the stomach works and some of it's related diseases.

The purpose of the stomach is to digest your food. No, it doesn't absorb nutrition or supply vitamins and minerals to your body...it just digests (breaks your food down and turns it into something the intestines can absorb).

When the stomach is done breaking down your food it is allowed to flow into the intestines where it is filtered and its nutrition is absorbed into the body.

The stomach is an elastic bag positioned between esophagus and the intestines. It is not unusual to see how elastic your stomach is after a nice Thanksgiving dinner and you're groaning, "My, did I ever eat too much."

Once food enters the stomach, gastric juices also enter to do their job of breaking down the food. The stomach absorbs very few substances, but it does absorb alcohol.

The stomach has 5 layers; the innermost layer is the mucosa (mucus) layer, which is important for the stomach's protection. When the stomach goes to work, a layer of muscles starts moving to mix everything in your stomach up for better assimilation.

Okay, so that's how the stomach works, but why do we have so many problems with this most important organ of digestion?

Here are two of the most common discomforts most people have to deal with:

• Gastritis: Inflammation of the lining of the stomach that causes nausea, loss of appetite and discomfort after eating.
• Heartburn: A painful burning sensation in the chest caused by acid reflux (this can hurt enough to feel like a heart attack... I know by personal experience).

The above problems are fairly common and you should always see a doctor when you are not sure what our problem is. However most stomach problems are actually caused by poor eating habits that can also cause irritable bowel syndrome.

Most people's digestive problems can often be completely cured by some very simple changes to diet.