by Dr. Lawrence Wilson
© February 2013, L.D. Wilson Consultants, Inc.
All information in this article is for educational purposes only. It is not for the diagnosis, treatment, prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.
Definition. The following definition is adapted from the Encyclopedia Brittanica online:
Peyer patches are a set of nodules of lymphatic cells that aggregate to form bundles or patches and occur usually only in the lowest portion (ileum) of the small intestine. They are named for the 17th-century Swiss anatomist Hans Conrad Peyer.
Peyer’s patches are round or oval and are located in the mucous membrane lining of the intestine. They can be seen by the naked eye as elongated thickened areas, and their surface is free of the projections (villi) and depressions (Lieberkühn glands) that characterize the intestinal wall. Usually there are 30 to 40 patches in each individual.
In young adults they may be more numerous, and as a person ages they tend to become less prominent. They are lymphatic drainage channels. They play a role in immunologic response and contain B and T cells similar to those found in peripheral lymph nodes.
In typhoid fever, these patches may become sites of inflammation, in which case they may develop into ulcerations, hemorrhages, or perforations.
FACTORS THAT ARE HELPFUL AND HARMFUL FOR THE PEYER’S PATCHES
Helpful foods appear to be cooked vegetables in large quantities. Helpful procedures include the coffee enema, red heat lamp therapy, or using a heat lamp sauna. Plenty of rest, enough spring water, the proper nutritional supplements, belly breathing, and some exercise are also helpful.
Also, according to the book, The Oil That Heals by William McGary, MD, Edgar Cayce stated that castor oil packs are helpful for the Peyer’s patches.
Particularly harmful foods are sugars of all types including fruits. Consuming alcohol and heated vegetable oils is also harmful for the Peyer’s patches.
The emotion of anger is also harmful. Irradiation of the intestinal tract is also quite harmful. This occurs with lower GI x-rays, intravenous pyelograms (IVP), and can occur with other x-rays and CT scans of the abdomen, ovaries, colon, liver, stomach and spleen areas.
SKIN CONDITIONS INVOLVING THE FACE AND NECK, AND PERHAPS THE HANDS
Health conditions that are often related to problems with the Peyer’s patches include all of those related to the skin of the face and neck, and sometimes the hands. I do not know why this is so. It includes conditions such as acne, melasma, rosacea, eczema and dermatitis of the face, impetigo, spider veins, and petechiae.
All of these conditions are secretory, meaning they are types of toxin elimination that occurs often when the Peyer’s patches are not doing their job correctly. The body compensates by eliminating more toxins through the skin of the face. As the Peyer’s patches are strengthened with a nutritional balancing program, these conditions often go away. In this regard, the Peyer’s patches are directly involved with having beautiful skin on the face and neck, in particular.
Slow healing. An important note is that healing the Peyer’s patches usually takes a while, and is not the first thing to occur during a nutritional balancing program. For this reason, some skin conditions, such as rosacea, can take a while to resolve.
Other skin conditions are usually easier to resolve, such as acne, eczema and others, but some skin conditions that are directly tied to the Peyer’s patches can take much longer to heal. One must understand this and not become discouraged if skin conditions, especially on the face and neck, take some years to clear.
NUTRITIONAL BALANCING RESTORES THE PEYER’S PATCHES
Normally, as a person ages, the Peyer’s patches atrophy, meaning they become fewer in number and smaller. They also do not function as well, and this causes the proliferation of infection in the small intestine in many cases. It is a sign of aging that pathologists and others who study the human body in detail are well aware of.
Nutritional balancing changes all this. Slowly, the Peyer’s patches, which are very important lymphatic structures, are restored to their normal size and then they actually hypertrophy, or grow in size and number. This is a way for a surgeon, for example, to know if a person has been following a nutritional balancing program compared to all other nutritional or medical healing programs that I am aware of.
After a person has begun a nutritional balancing program, not only do the Peyer’s patches become restored and hypertrophy, but the same occurs with the thymus gland. This is another lymphatic organ or set of lymphatic tissues that normally atrophies as a person grows older.
Th process of restoration of the lymphatic tissue throughout the body is a mark of development, which is a direct result of a nutritional balancing program. This is the most important point of this article.
WHY DOES A NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAM RESTORE THE PEYER’S PATCHES, COMPARED TO OTHER HEALING PROGRAMS
It appears to be due to a combination of factors, including:
- The diet of mainly cooked, not raw vegetables. This provides many phytonutrients the patches require.
- Targeted supplements based on the metabolic type and other factors that are specifically used not to combat symptoms, but to balance the hair tissue mineral ratios.
- Making the body more yang.
- Detoxification of the entire body.
- Moving energy downward through the body.
- Balancing and strengthening the autonomic or vegetative nervous system.
PEYER’S PATCHES INVOLVED IN ELIMINATION, TOO
Peyer’s patches are involved in not only protecting the intestines from infection, but are also eliminative organs. This is a major function of the Peyer’s patches.
The lymphatic system. This has to do with their role as a central part of the human lymphatic system. All of the seven major energy centers or sectors of the body have lymphatic tissue, which is crucial for elimination. Roughly, here is the distribution of this tissue:
1st center. Groin lymph nodes
2nd center. Ovaries, testes and groin lymph nodes.
3rd center. Peyer’s patches.
4th center. Underarm lymph nodes and thymus “gland” (really it is mainly lymphatic tissue, as are some other glands.
5th center. Lymph nodes of the neck.
6th center. Tonsils and adenoids.
7th center. Lymphatics of the head.
The fact that the Peyer’s patches are involved in elimination or detoxification is extremely important to appreciate. In order to restore the body, one must eliminate all of the toxic metals and hundreds of toxic chemicals from the body. This is a long and complex process. There are no short cuts such as chelation or any other simple way to do this. Chelation is dangerous, from my perspective, and I discuss this in another article.
Thus, the Peyer’s patches have a special role in detoxification or elimination of wastes. They are, in fact, an important part of the small intestine’s eliminative role.
Unlike all other lymphatic tissue, the Peyer’s patches, due to their location, are able to direct toxins either back to the bloodstream through the lymph channels, or toxins can be moved directly into the small intestine for elimination through the feces. This is quite unique and important for certain types of toxin elimination.
THE SMALL INTESTINE’S ELIMINATIVE ROLE
The small intestine is a major organ of detoxification. It is not just an organ that absorbs nutrients, as one learns in school. Here are the ways the small intestine participates in the process of elimination of waste matter from the body:
- The bile is eliminated through the small intestine. Bile is a waste product of the liver and pancreas, to a degree, although it also contains certain enzymes and other nutrients the body requires. This is why some of it is re-absorbed.
- Normal rapid turnover of the cells of the small intestinal lining. These can be used to eliminate some toxins. During a nutritional balancing program, the body may actually ‘shed’ entire, though small sections of small intestine that are very toxic. This comes out in the bowel movement as longer, twisted strings or pieces of tissue. Some people mistake them for tapeworms, on occasion.
- Excretion through the Peyer’s patches, as explained above in brief.
- Diarrhea, which is a more extreme and faster method of eliminating toxins from the stomach, liver or elsewhere.
- Development of polyps, cysts, tumors and “draining infections”, on occasion. While some of these are simply pathological, others are a method by which the body walls off toxic material and then eliminates it. The latter occurs, at times, during a nutritional balancing programs. Symptoms may include some pain, some mild bleeding into the intestines, and the development of cysts and tumors that occasionally need surgical removal, although most will drop off by themselves after a time.
PEYER’S PATCHES INVOLVED WITH YOUR “GUT” FEELINGS
Peyer’s patches are located mainly near the navel or bellybutton in the lower abdomen. While it may sound odd, they may have something to do with what people call their “gut feelings”, which tend to be located in this area. The area can tighten up when something is not right, even if your brain says it is okay.
CONCLUSION
Peyer’s patches are not simply part of the body’s immune system, as is currently taught. They are also part of the body’s complex eliminative or detoxification systems.
On a nutritional balancing program, the Peyer’s patches are restored and even may hypertrophy as part of what I call “mental or spiritual development” of a human being.
References
- McGary, W. A., The Oil That Heals, A Physician’s Successes With Castor Oil Treatments, A.R.E. Press, 1993.