Digestive Health

I apologize for not keeping up with my posts for the past couple of weeks. I am still in the process of settling into my new environment at the homestead.

Many people do not realize the importance of maintaining a health digestive tract - ignoring digestive issues and believing that it is just a normal part of life. As this is true to some extent, many people dismiss digestive concerns and never try to figure out what is causing their discomfort. For a long while I thought that regularly having stomach aches was something that everyone else experienced in the same way I did. When you get used to feeling a certain way, it is hard to realize that you really do not feel well until you resolve whatever has been causing the issue. Often times, when a person says they feel "fine" this means that they have grown accustomed to not feeling well.

Going back to an idea I mentioned in my previous post, around 80% of your body's immunity resides in the gut. This is due to the fact that the digestive tract is responsible for absorbing nutrients from food and also keeping toxins from entering the bloodstream.

A great deal of current medicine practice is approached in a reductionist manner. For instance, if you have eczema, you are given a cream to rub on your skin. If you have chronic fatigue, you get medication. So on and so forth. Understanding the interconnectedness of every system in your body is extremely important in addressing any health concern. Just because a particular area of your body aches, does not mean that is where the underlying issue lies.

From my personal standpoint, I believe that the first step in balancing almost any health ailment should be to look at the health of the digestive tract. If the digestive tract is not functioning well, important nutrients will not be absorbed - making the immune system weaken, and other potential toxins will be able to enter the body with ease.

Leaky gut is one of the most common issues in the digestive tract. Within the lining of healthy intestines, the cells are held together by what are known as tight junctions. Essentially, tight junctions are the gatekeepers that allow or block particles from entering the gut to move into the body’s circulation. When the integrity of the intestinal lining is compromised, particles begin to “leak” through these cells and their junctions, and pass into the bloodstream or lymphatic system. Anything from digested chunks of food, waste, toxins, microbes, and even antigens and pathogens may enter your blood stream. Essentially, your digestive tract becomes like a pair of jeans that have been worn everyday and begin to develop holes and rips.

In the case of the leaky gut, when the particles leak into your bloodstream your immune system senses that something is wrong and stimulates the inflammatory response. Leaky gut and inflammation have a chicken and egg relationship. Inflammation causes leaky gut and leaky gut furthers inflammation. Leaky gut and inflammation also have many of the same causes. This means that by reducing inflammation we are helping to heal leaky gut and by healing leaky gut we are helping to reduce inflammation.

 There are a wide variety of things that may cause inflammation and damage the gut:

• Excess stress
• Alcohol consumption
• Exposure to environmental toxins (pesticides, food additives, pollution)
• Consumption of food allergens or sensitivities
• Hormone imbalances
• Parasites and bacterial overgrowth (candida)
• Antibiotics
• Antacids
• NSAIDS (non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs), aspirin, ibuprofen
• Sugar
• Not chewing your food well enough
• Cigarette smoking
• Low stomach acid

Leaky gut can become a serious condition if it is not addressed. In the case of leaky gut, a chronically inflamed body is the perfect setting for many health conditions to settle. When your immune system is unable to function well and your body is constantly inflamed, this sets the stage for other conditions and diseases to develop.

There are many different factors that come into play if the digestive tract needs some repair work. Just because you do not commonly have stomach issues does not mean that your digestive tract is healthy. As I said before, if you have leaky gut, particles that are not regularly allowed outside of the gut may enter the bloodstream. Anything that gets into your bloodstream is capable of being carried throughout your entire body. This means that even though you do not have common digestive issues, leaky gut can still create other symptoms.

Leaky gut also creates a great deal of stress on the liver, which is responsible for processing and neutralizing toxins from the bloodstream. Therefore, the jobs that the liver normally does, such as processing and balancing hormones, will be pushed to the side.

Below are a list of symptoms and ailments related to leaky gut:

• Allergies
• Autoimmune disease
  
• Celiac disease
  
• Crohn's disease
  
• Hives
• Acne
• Depression
  
• Asthma
  
• Inflammatory joint disease / arthritis
  
• Intestinal infections
• Headaches
  
• Pancreatic insufficiency
  
• Ulcerative colitis
  
• Giardia
• Hormonal imbalances
  
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
  
• Eczema
  
• Psoriasis
  
• Food allergies and sensitivities
  
• Liver dysfunction
  
• Rheumatoid arthritis
  
• Irritable bowel syndrome

Since leaky gut can manifest itself in so many different ways, most practitioners have a difficult time in the diagnosis process, or do not even recognize leaky gut as a real health condition. Paying attention to the signals that your body gives you is the best way of truly knowing what is happening.

 In order to heal the gut, there are a few steps we need to take, also known as the four Rs.

1. Remove the offenders: Removing harmful substances, common food allergens (gluten and dairy) reducing stress, and anything else that may damage your digestive tract.
2. Repair: Use dietary choices, supplements, and herbs to seal the cracks.
3. Reinoculate: Give your digestive tract a boost with probiotics and antioxidants.
4. Regulate: Once again, prevention is the best cure. Take care of your body to prevent leaky gut from developing again.

Below is a list of dietary suggestions, supplements, and herbs that are helpful in helping your body repair.

• L-Glutamine (an amino acid, or protein building block)
• Slippery Elm Bark
• Aloe Vera juice
• Milk Thistle
• Marshmallow Root
• Licorice Root
• Dandelion
• Turmeric
• Probiotics
• Omega 3s

Most of the supplements are aimed at reducing inflammation and creating a protective layer in the digestive tract.

If you do not know what many of these supplements are and think that you may have leaky gut, visit your local health food store and talk to someone in the supplement section. They should be able to direct you in a good direction. I also encourage you to do your own research.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need more clarification!

Sources

Olson, Scott. "Leaky Gut Syndrome: The Hidden Root Cause to Many Digestive       

http://www.jigsawhealth.com/resources/leaky-gut-probiotics

Lipski, Elizabeth. Digestive Wellness. 3. McGraw-Hill , 2005. 88-89. Print.

Ehlrich, Steven. “University of Maryland Medical Center.” <http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/milk-thistle-000266.html

Pick, Marcelle. "Leaky gut syndrome — how healing your digestive tract promotes total wellness." http://www.womentowomen.com/digestionandgihealth/leakygutsyndrome intestinalpermeability

 

 

 

Relationship to Food

Before I go deeper into specific health topics, I would like to cover some different facets of the way we relate to food. While eating healthy food is certainly an important component of health, there are others aspects of eating that need to be explored.

Why We Eat
It is quite obvious that we eat mainly because we cannot live without food. Although this is the essential foundation of why we eat, most people eat for many other reasons. Eating habits may be based around emotional comfort, convenience, identity, safety, boredom, compulsion, instant gratification, or self-rewarding. Food can be like a drug for many people. Unfortunately, unlike other substances, food is something that we cannot eliminate. We have to eat. This means that we have to learn to develop a better relationship with food in order to improve our health.

How We Eat
Most of us do not make much of an effort to really stop and think about how we are eating. Do you eat fast? Do you eat while you are doing five other things? Do you eat when you are stressed? The way we eat has a huge affect on our bodies. If you eat too fast and don't chew well enough, your body will have a difficult time digesting and utilizing nutrients. This means that even if you eat the healthiest meal possible, your body will not be able to absorb all the possible nutrients.

Here are some tips for improving the way you eat:

• Smell your food before eating (it gets the digestive juices going).
• Sit down while eating.
• Put your fork down between each bite.
• Don't eat in front of a screen or while driving.
• Chew slower.
• If you are stressed, find a way to calm down before eating. 
• If possible, try and eat in a peaceful environment. 
• Cook and eat with people you care about.

Understanding Your Relationship to Food
Before making any diet or lifestyle changes to improve your health, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of not just what you would like to change, but why you would like to change.  

1. Keep A Food Journal
 Recording what you eat for a week, or even a few days, is a helpful way to understand what you are actually eating. When I did my first food journal, I was shocked to see what my diet looked like on paper. If you are a high-tech i-Phone kind of person, take pictures of everything you eat and drink for a week. When you record what you eat, make a note of how you are feeling before and after you eat: tired, emotional, bored, hungry, bloated, etc. Additionally, keeping note of your digestive patterns can be important as well.

2. Find Meaningful Reasons To Change
Many people try to be healthier simply to lose weight. While being a healthy weight is important, the desire to be skinny is often not enough to stay motivated. I am sure that many of you can relate with the "getting fit" New Years resolution that rarely comes to fruition. There needs to be deeper underlying reasons for change to happen. Motivation comes and goes. Maybe you want to be more emotionally and mentally stable, have more energy for a relationship or job, get healthy before having a baby, set an example for loved ones, or are just tired of feeling sick all the time. Having a meaningful reason to change will give you an extra wind when moments of weakness arise (and they will).

3. Don't Beat Yourself Up
Thinking about food in a "good" and "bad" mentality can be very detrimental. Working with nutrition the past few years, I have heard too many people call themselves good or bad in regards to what they eat.

I came up with an analogy to help me view health choices in a different light (I apologize for the cheesy inspirational writing). Say you make a budget to save up for an expensive trip to a place you have always wanted to go. In order to have enough money for your trip, you will have to make some changes here and there, plan, and focus on your end goal in moments of temptation. Making dietary changes works in a similar way. Instead of thinking a food as good or bad, think about whether the food is helping you achieve your end goal.

 3. Make Realistic Goals
When I first started school for nutrition, I became overwhelmed by all the new health information I was learning. I became obsessed with what I should and should not be eating (and probably drove the people around me crazy). Deciding what to eat was suddenly very stressful for me. After some time, I came to the realization that the expectations I had for myself were unrealistic. Unless you are the rare personality type that can make an extreme change overnight and stick to it, change is very gradual. From my personal experiences and observation, gradual change is the most effective way of making dietary habits that will last. For instance, I began focusing on what I wanted to eat more of, versus what I wanted to eat less of. I began by eating 1-2 more servings of vegetables a day. Once this goal was accomplished, I focused on eating a healthy breakfast every morning. So on and so forth. Just like any change, adjusting takes time. Before you know it, the changes that seem so difficult will be a part of your everyday routine.

Take some time to figure out what it is you would like to develop and accomplish with your own health. The way you decide to make changes should be unique to your personal needs and goals. Gaining an understanding of your body and eating habits is vitally important in being healthy.

As Dead Prez says, be healthy y'all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTAhSJt_8x8