Okay okay, this title might be a bit of a stretch. Unfortunately, improving your digestion isn’t the miracle cure to all of life’s problems (I wish!).
Having said that, this over-the-top title does illustrate an important point that I want to make clear to you: Taking the time to work on your digestion is always worth the extra effort.
Why?
Because your digestive health is something that can impact how you feel in multiple areas of your life. In other words, when your digestion is movin’ and groovin’ in the way that nature intended, all systems in your body can function more optimally.
Have I piqued your interest?
Excellent!
Let’s chat all about how digestion can impact multiple areas of your health so we can get you feeling your best. Who’s in?
Improve your digestion, improve your hormones
While it may not be as simplistic as “improve your digestion, improve your hormones”, there is some truth to the fact that if you put time into improving your digestion, by extension, your hormonal health will also start to improve.
Think of it this way: Have you ever heard the saying, “You are what you eat”? Well, in this case, your hormones are made from what you eat. Or, more specifically, they are made from what you’re able to absorb.
When your digestion is working optimally, you’re able to absorb vitamins and minerals appropriately, which ensures that your hormones have all the appropriate nutrients for formation.
Let’s take the adrenals, for example.
In a well-functioning person, the adrenals regulate blood sugar, inflammation, and mineral balance (particularly sodium and potassium). The adrenals also produce sex hormones (particularly in boys, girls, men, and post-menopausal women).
In order for these all-too-important adrenals to function properly, the digestive system needs to be able to absorb Vitamin C, antioxidants, magnesium, and B vitamins like B5 and B6.
The same goes for the gonads. They also have important functions like producing sex hormones and require certain nutrients.
For instance, in order for the gonads to produce sex hormones, the digestive system needs to appropriately absorb essential fatty acids, B vitamins (especially folate), fat-soluble vitamins (A,D,E, and K), and minerals like selenium, zinc, iodine, iron, calcium, and magnesium.
Even something as seemingly simple as ensuring that the protein you’re eating is being broken down and absorbed is incredibly important because you need quality protein to make thyroid hormones.
And what do you need to ensure the protein is being broken down and absorbed? Stomach acid! (HCL). And guess how many people are estimated to have low stomach acid? Researchers estimate that 20 percent of the U.S. population suffers with GERD, which is often associated with stomach acid dysfunction (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.).
Essentially, all of this means before we even touch on hormonal health, we HAVE to get your digestion into a better place.
Improve your digestion, improve your immune system
Did you know that 70-80 percent of immune cells reside in your gut? (Wiertsema, van Bergenhenegouwen, Garssen, & Knippels, 2021)
So really, it goes without saying that improving your digestion will naturally improve your immune function by extension.
Let’s get a better idea of how this works…
I want you to think about your digestive system as a tube that runs from your mouth to your anus. Everything within this tube is considered “outside” the body. Everything that you take into your mouth and swallow remains “outside” the body unless the body absorbs it.
Having said that, for those who have any gut dysfunction, it’s likely that things we want to remain within the tube escape and enter the body inappropriately, potentially causing the immune system to get alerted of a foreign invader.
I know, I know it can be a bit strange to think of your digestive system as residing outside your body, but once you understand it, it makes sense why we so diligently protect our digestive system, especially if we want to keep our immune health intact.
Specific ways digestive health can impact the immune system
We’ll focus on two.
First, stomach acid (HCL) and pepsin are two of the first lines of defense that the immune system uses to ensure that pathogens and antigens don’t enter the body by way of food. However, if we’re not producing either adequate stomach acid or pepsin, it’s likely that foreign invaders sneak their way past the stomach and get into the small intestine, which is where absorption occurs.
Not to mention, if something like protein isn’t broken down appropriately in the stomach, these undigested food items can cause irritation and inflammation in the small intestine, further leading to dysfunction.
In addition, the mucous that lines the small intestine is only one cell thick, meaning it doesn’t take much to break down the protective barrier and get things flowing into the body inappropriately, often resulting in an immune response.
To put it very simply, to keep your immune system in check, you want to ensure:
- Appropriate stomach acid
- Healthy liver and gallbladder health
- Small intestine with tight junctions
- Large intestine integrity with regular bowel movements
Working with an NTP can help you check off all those boxes and get your digestion in order. If you’re interested in working with me, you can check out my service page here.
Improve your digestion, improve your cardiovascular health
Wait, what?
I know it might sound a little unbelievable to suggest that your digestive system can impact your cardiovascular health, but I’m here to let you know that it absolutely can!
Here are just a couple of things that I want you to keep in mind the next time you’re preparing a meal:
- You need to be able to digest protein in order for the heart to have critical amino acids like taurine and carnitine.
- Your stomach needs to be at the proper pH in order to absorb calcium and B vitamins
- Your liver/gallbladder needs to be functioning optimally in order for healthy fats to get absorbed
- You need proper bowel flora in order to produce vitamins B1, B2, B12, and K2
You might read that list and think, okay, so what? What do all these vitamins and nutrients have to do with the heart?
Good question, so let’s summarize the key vitamins and nutrients listed.
We’ve got:
- Amino acids (taurine + carnitine)
- Calcium
- B vitamins
- Fat in general
- K2
And here are some of the reasons why these nutrients are important as they relate to cardiovascular health:
- B vitamins can regulate hypotension
- Vitamin K2 will ensure that calcium in the diet goes where it needs to (the bones) and it will keep it out of places you don’t want it (arteries)
- Calcium triggers contractions of the heart (i.e. pumping action)
- Fatty acids are the predominant source of energy for the heart
- Amino acids like taurine and carnitine inhibit the proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells, which essentially means these amino acids are important for the prevention of atherosclerosis (Xie. Yang, Zhou, Song, Li, Zhou, Hu, Peng, Tang, Yuan, Xiong, & Liao, 2010)
Do you see what’s going on here? Digestion and cardiovascular health might not seem super related, but once you boil things down to their individual nutrients, the connections become much clearer.
Improve your digestion, improve your ability to detox
You can probably more easily see how digestion and detox would go hand-in-hand, but here’s the thing: Even though the connection seems fairly obvious, so many people still attempt detox “cleanses” without putting in the work with their digestion.
This can have disastrous effects. Or, at the very least, uncomfortable ones.
Let me explain.
Detoxification is the body’s process of filtering and eliminating the byproducts of metabolism, toxins, and even used hormones, meaning if detox isn’t operating smoothly, toxins will continue to circulate around the body. Not to mention, excess hormones floating around the body can lead to our hormonal balance being off. For instance, excess estrogen can be a major issue for women, and in this study on estrogen dominance, researchers clearly state that “the unprecedented escalation in the polycystic ovary syndrome, infertility, breast cancer, ovary cancer, and gynecomastia cases are indicating that this [estrogen] sensitive hormone is getting exacerbated (Patel, Homaei, Raju, & Meher, 2018).
If this feels relatable, your inclination might be to start searching for methods to speed up your body’s detoxification, but before you can even think about detox, you need to think about digestion.
Why?
Because if you’re not eliminating through regular bowel movements, you can spend all the time in the world on your detoxification, but a constipated system is going to ensure all those by-products remain in the body. You HAVE to be pooping consistently for proper detoxification.
In addition, if you struggle to digest fats, this will likely result in clogged-up lymph. This often results in the liver also being compromised, which then means the liver is going to struggle to make bile, which is one of the main ways in which toxins are removed from the body.
Can you see how all systems in the body impact each other? Impact one organ or system and there is likely another organ/system that is also going to be impacted.
Improve digestion, improve your nervous system
This one might be a little underrated, but it shouldn’t be! Because, let me tell you, if you can make the connection between your digestion and your nervous system, everything in life runs a little bit smoother (and no, that’s not an exaggeration).
Here’s why…
Most of us can think of a time when our emotional state played a role in our digestion. For instance, you feel your stomach flip-flop when nervous. You get butterflies in your stomach before an exciting event. And, for some of us, having to use the bathroom when nervous is fairly common.
In these scenarios, we’re assuming that our emotional state is impacting our digestion, but what if things could be reversed?
In other words, what if our digestive state could impact our emotional state?
Well, research is showing that that idea isn’t that far off… Any type of irritation in the gastrointestinal tract can send signals to the central nervous system that can trigger mood changes (John Hopkins Medicine, 2021).
Did you know that researchers have even started referring to our gut as our second brain? Yes, it is that powerful.
And hey, if you can’t get on board with this new research and you’re not convinced, don’t forget that, just like any other organ in your body, your brain requires certain nutrients in order to function optimally. If you’re unable to digest and absorb those nutrients because of impaired digestion, you better believe you could suffer from mood disorders like anxiety and depression.
In fact, one study even came up with an antidepressant food scale that indicates what nutrients one should focus on to help manage depression (LaChance & Ramsey, 2018). One such nutrient is B12, which is a nutrient that requires adequate stomach acid in order for the protein source to be broken down and the B12 released.
That is just one example, but it goes to show that your digestion needs to be working optimally in order to protect brain health/mental health/the central nervous system.
Can you see why focusing on digestion is so critical to good health?
At this point, it should be pretty clear that digestion will almost always be one of the first places we start when trying to make any supportive changes to your diet and/or lifestyle.
Whether it be hormonal imbalances, autoimmune conditions, high blood pressure, or toxic build-up in the body, we HAVE to get digestion working FIRST before we can even touch on any specific supplements or protocols that relate specifically to your health concerns.
Think of digestion as your master control that sets the tone for all other processes in your body.
And hey, when you think of it this way, “improve your digestion, improve your life” really doesn’t seem like that far-fetched of a statement, now does it?
References
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Definition & Facts for Ger & Gerd – Niddk. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Retrieved May 7, 2023, from https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/digestive-diseases/acid-reflux-ger-gerd-adults/definition-facts
Wiertsema, S. P., van Bergenhenegouwen, J., Garssen, J., & Knippels, L. M. J. (2021). The Interplay between the Gut Microbiome and the Immune System in the Context of Infectious Diseases throughout Life and the Role of Nutrition in Optimizing Treatment Strategies. Nutrients, 13(3), 886. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13030886
Xie, H., Yang, B., Zhou, X. M., Song, F. L., Li, J. M., Zhou, K., Hu, W., Peng, Y. Q., Tang, S. Y., Yuan, L. Q., Xiong, S. Y., & Liao, X. B. (2010). L-carnitine and taurine synergistically inhibit the proliferation and osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells. Acta pharmacologica Sinica, 31(3), 289–296. https://doi.org/10.1038/aps.2009.206
Patel, S., Homaei, A., Raju, A. B., & Meher, B. R. (2018). Estrogen: The necessary evil for human health, and ways to tame it. Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie, 102, 403–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2018.03.078
John Hopkins Medicine. (2021, November 1). The brain-gut connection. The Brain-Gut Connection | . Retrieved May 7, 2023, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection
Leave a Reply