Optimizing digestion is the key to healing
Good health starts in your gut!
This article is Part 1 of the digestion series:
Having a healthy digestive system is fundamental to having a healthy body.
Every single cell is impacted by the digestive system. Every single organ relies on the digestive system to provide the raw materials it needs to preform it’s job. It’s as simple as this; healthy digestion = healthy body. Dysfunctional digestion = cellular chaos!
Imagine a tiny city inside each cell. When your digestion is working well your cells have plenty of materials to maintain roads, construct buildings, and run public utilities. When your digestion is out of whack, your cells don't receive enough materials or the right kind of materials. You end up with pot holes, crumbling buildings, and flickering lights.
When someone presents with a nutritional deficiency it’s often due to one of two things; either they’re not getting enough of the nutrient in their diet, or their digestive system isn’t absorbing the nutrients from the diet. It's vital to make sure you’re properly absorbing the nutrients from your food. If that part is not working, you can eat as many salads and green smoothies as you want, and none of them will make a difference until your body starts absorbing!
Your body is a complex creation. It can seem counter intuitive that one system could impact everything else in your body. But in the case of digestion - it’s absolutely true!
Every single cell in your body becomes stronger or weaker based on how well your digestive system is running.
6 Ways Digestion Impacts Health
Hair, Skin, Nails, Teeth, Bones
These tissues require a lot of minerals to grow well. Minerals (think rocks and metal; calcium, iron, etc) require a certain amount of “digestive fire” to properly pull them out of your food and absorb them into your blood stream. Someone with low stomach acid (yes, it’s more common than too much stomach acid!) will not have enough acidity to start the chemical reactions needed to digest the minerals in their food.
Muscles
You need protein to build strong muscles. Just like minerals, your body requires stomach acid to break down proteins. Proteins are BIG molecules. When you eat protein (meat, beans, etc) your stomach excretes pepsinogen. When Pepsinogen comes into contact with the Hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) in your stomach it is converted into an active form called Pepsin. Pepsin is what breaks those big proteins into small, bite sized pieces called peptides which your body can easily absorb. It's basically like a meat cleaver inside your stomach. But what happens if your stomach acid isn’t very acidic? All or some of the pepsinogen won’t get converted into the active form, which means your proteins don’t get cut into smaller pieces. Imagine what can happen when huge pieces of undigested protein get farther along the digestive system - it's not pretty!
Ability to Detox
The liver is the major detox organ in your body. This amazing organ is responsible for more than 400 important jobs! Your liver can multitask like no one’s business, but it can’t do everything at once. The liver has to prioritize it’s work based on importance. For example, your liver is in charge of regulating your blood sugar by turning excess carbs into fat for storage (yeah you read that right!) Your blood sugar levels are of life and death importance. If blood sugar gets too low your brain runs out of energy. Ever gotten shaky or irritable if you skipped lunch? That’s whats happening. If your diet contains a lot of processed carbohydrates (pasta, bread, muffins, etc) your liver is going to be juggling blood sugar tasks all day long. That means detoxification get pushed to the back burner and all of the toxins you’re exposed to from cleaning supplies, make up, car exhaust, etc., keep circulating in your blood stream causing all kinds of damage to your arteries.
Hormones
Hormones are the spice of life. They’re a huge part of your personality. Hormones dictate if you’re happy, sad, anxious, your sex drive, how you handle stress, and so much more. Hormones are produced by many different organs and glands inside the body (this is your endocrine system). Each endocrine gland requires specific nutrients to make their unique hormones. For example, your thyroid needs the mineral Iodine and the protein Tyrosine to produce the thyroid hormones, T3 and T4. If your digestive system isn’t working well your endocrine system won’t have the raw materials it needs to produce the many unique hormones your body relies on every day. Additionally, a liver that is focused on regulating blood sugar from a processed food diet won’t have the time to detoxify used up hormones, which means they continue to circulate in your blood long after they should have been removed.
Fertility
Fertility is deeply linked to hormonal balance. Hormones control when you ovulate, how much cervial fluid you produce, how long your luteal phase lasts, etc. Any hormonal imbalance will negatively impact fertility. Additionally, making a baby pulls huge withdraws from your “nutrient bank account”. Having a well run digestive system is imperative to being able to provide your growing baby with all of the nutrients it needs, plus more for your own body to continue running well! No one is ever going to be more nourished at the end of a pregnancy, and that's why it's so important to build up your nutrient stores before you begin trying to conceive.
Energy & Mental Clarity
Energy seems like such an elusive treasure. Sometimes we have tons and other times we can’t find a single ounce! A big part of digesting food is managing blood sugar during and after meals. Never before in the history of mankind have we had an emergency need to LOWER blood sugar. All of our previous generations have been concerned with finding enough food to RAISE their blood sugar. This is why our body has 3 mechanisms to raise blood sugar and only 1 mechanism to lower blood sugar. Unfortunately our modern diet is so full of processed, refined carbohydrates that our bodies are constantly trying to rebalance blood sugar levels. If your blood sugar isn’t being properly regulated, you’re energy is going to feel like a rollercoaster all day, up and down, up and down! This will also put a huge burden on your brain making it difficult to concentrate and think clearly.
What should you do now?
The first step is figuring out which part of your digestive system needs support. Are we dealing with low stomach acid, an overworked liver, or a confused pancreas? Use your phone or an old fashioned piece of paper and keep a Food & Mood journal for at least 3 days. Write down what time you wake up and go to bed, what you eat, when you exercise, and when you have any changes in your digestion or mood. Feel a little gassy around 2? Write it down! Have a headache at 5? Yep, write that down too.
Keeping track of your Food & Mood (and everything in between!) can help you or your practitioner spot trends that can indicate which areas of your body need support the most. It’s amazing how much information we can get from our own bodies if we choose to listen.
Download a printable Food & Mood journal.