Optimizing Digestive Health

We take digestion for granted. Food in, waste out. There is an immense amount more to it, and your health depends on optimized digestion.

After eating, your body should receive and appreciate the nourishment you provided. Is that your experience?

Consistent indigestion, acid reflux, etc signal your body isn’t appreciative. In addition, suboptimal digestion can cause symptoms, most often requiring the use millions of prescriptions that can cause much harm.

How about brain fog? Countless people accept that as normal after eating – it is not!

Digestive System

Let’s start with an overly simple look at your digestive system. You swallow food, it heads south to the stomach where an acidic environment allows protein breakdown and antimicrobial support. Contents continue their journey, where they run into other digestive aids such as bile and other digestive enzymes. Then in the lower intestinal region nutrients are separated from waste and absorb through the intestinal wall. Along the way, the resident bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms feed on the contents as well. Sounds simple, but many opportunities for complications are present.

Disruptors can enter it any step of the process. First, we require an appropriate level of acidity. Acid levels decrease naturally with age and artificially by medications. ACID REFLUX IS NOT CAUSED BY TOO MUCH ACID, RATHER TOO LITTLE IN MOST CASES. I sat down to put a few point together on this and it turned into a 30 page whitepaper. I encourage you to take a look. Low acid can produce a host of bad outcomes, including automimmunity and skin disorders.

Digestive Problems

Gallbladder troubles? The gallbladder stores bile used in digesting fats. The low fat mantra could cause a backup of bile leading to stones and potentially gallbladder removal – this is unacceptable. Further, certain foods that contain lectins can precipitate gallstones. Please read this article if you or someone you know is affected by a bothersome gallbladder BEFORE it is too late. No gallbladder? We can help here too, there are supplements that provide bile to help digest fats – of critical importance to access fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.

Histamine containing foods are prevalent and can be troublesome for many. Further, genetic variations make processing histamine more difficult.

Digestive Fixes

The digestive system has many overlapping parts and requires individual assessments to proceed. Please reach out for a free consulatation.

I normally start with assessing acidity though. There are a couple options that can be done at home in the whitepaper mentioned earlier. Often supporting acidity is the next step.

Then looking at avoidances. Did you know Roundup (glyphosate), the most common herbicide in the world, was first patented as an antibiotic? Buying probiotic supplements, and chasing them with glyphosate-laden foods is not going to improve your microbiome..

Triggers such as grains and lectins are relevant for many and offer methods to validate this sensitivty and support/educate along the way. Sugars and harmful types of fats (vegetable/seed oils) can degrade digestive health and microbial blanance of the microbiome. Often times holidays from standard foods consumed can be enlightening on what may trigger digestive issues.

Another tried and true approach is simply eating less often. Intermittent fasting, or time restricted eating, can have a variety of metabolic benefits, but here giving out digestive system a break can help greatly. I wrote a detailed whitepaper on the different strategies that factor into decisions on When To Eat.

Sorting this out can be a chore, but that is the reason we offer this service. Further, the effort is superior to suppressing symptoms by drugs such as proton pump inhibitors that cause deleterious effects. Please reach out for a free consultation.

Recommended Content Elsewhere on the site:

Whitepapers

• When To Eat
• Addressing GERD

Posts:

• Wheat: The Gallbladder Blocker
• Other posts tagged ‘digestive’ found below