Tropical Sprue

Your intestine can no longer absorb what you give it. The lining of the small intestinal villi — those gossamer-thin structures that normally filter nutrients from food — atrophies and retreats. What you eat passes through you without nourishing you. Folate, vitamin B12, iron — everything your blood, your nervous system, your eyes require is no longer absorbed. You grow tired. You grow pale. Your vision deteriorates. Diarrhea becomes a permanent state.

Medically, tropical sprue is a chronic intestinal disease that occurs primarily in tropical regions, whose precise cause has not yet been fully established. From a psychosomatic perspective, a different question arises: What does it mean when your body loses the ability to nourish itself from what is available to it? When it starves in the midst of abundance?