Jillian Teta, ND from Fix Your Digestion is an expert on gut health. I was recently able to ask her a few questions about why the gut is so important to our overall health. In Part 1 of this 2 part series, this is what she had to say:
Most people think of GI Health as something only related to GERD or bowel function. Why is gut health something that everyone should pay attention to?
This is a great question. It’s so easy to think of the digestive tract as a single, linear system – food goes in, something else comes out. However, there are multiple steps involved in this seemingly simple process and the digestive system is intricately linked to every other system in the body. It’s the Central Station of your body.
It is the avenue through which food is broken down, absorbed and assimilated into the body. This process requires several steps to be executed correctly. Your body must produce adequate digestive factors such as digestive enzymes, acid and bile to appropriately break down your food into easy-to-absorb particles. The small intestine, which is a major site of absorption of nutrients, must be intact and healthy. The microbiome – the collective of 100 trillion healthy, beneficial bacteria – should be healthy and robust. The motility of the gut, the pace at which food moves down and out needs to be well-coordinated. As you can see, digestion itself is far more than chew and swallow.
In addition to what your digestive system does to keep you nourished, it also serves a myriad of other roles to keep you in optimal health. A compromise in digestion can lead to body-wide trouble.
Defense: The digestive system has a major role in defense. The mighty stomach acid – packing a very low pH of 1-2 (the rest of your body is about 7!) helps kill any harmful bugs that you inadvertently swallow. The beneficial bacterial cells of your microbiome will actively seek out and kill harmful bacterial, parasitic, yeast and fungal interlopers in order to maintain proper harmony in your gut. Additionally, about two thirds of your immune system resides within your gut. From here your gut helps keep you safe from pathogens like deleterious bacteria, viruses, harmful environmental compounds and more. Studies show that children born via Cesearean section – which bypasses the initial inoculation of healthy, beneficial bacteria – are more prone to environmental and food allergies, eczema and asthma. Kids and adults with undiscovered food sensitivities have higher rates of ear infection and recurring colds.
Hormones: When we hear the word “digestive system” the last thing on our mind is hormones and the endocrine system, but the two are inextricably linked. Hormones are chemical messengers…little e-mails that the body uses to communicate and coordinate actions which keep the whole operation running smoothly and you feeling grounded. Several hormones are generated within the gastrointestinal system itself, such as insulin, glucagon and leptin, messengers which help manage blood sugar and feelings of satiety.
The digestive system is the platform through which hormones are balanced. Your gut also helps break down, recycle and excrete used and spent hormones. A classic example of this is the removal of spent estrogens from the body. As part of the process, the liver removes circulating estrogen from the blood, packages it up, and sends it to the large intestine to be pooped out. Women who are constipated therefore are not readily removing estrogen from their system. The large intestine has a blood supply, of course, and if things aren’t moving along those hormones are resorbed back into general circulation, ending back up at the liver where the process starts again. Symptoms of estrogen dominance or imbalance can then ensue: acne, menstrual irregularities, low libido, bloating, headaches, irritability and so forth. Often hormonal problems can be greatly helped by optimizing the digestive system.
Mind/Body: Ask anyone with digestive issues if they feel mentally and emotionally well. Chances are, they may struggle in these areas. Issues with digestion can greatly impact mental and emotional health. Imagine knowing where every public bathroom in your town is in case you have to “go”. Imagine not wanting to be intimate with your partner because you feel too bloated and uncomfortable to get in the mood. The pain, discomfort and social anxiety of digestive issues is real and can greatly impede sufferers from engaging fully in and enjoying their lives.
Detoxification: The large intestine is one of the five major organs of detoxification, sharing the stage with the lungs, skin, kidneys and liver. In the above example estrogen was discussed, but on a daily basis your large intestine is neutralizing and excreting hundreds and thousands of harmful compounds. A compromise in such a heavy hitter in detoxification will echo throughout the system, preventing you from feeling your best.
Brain/Nervous system: Your digestive system is so important that it even has its own brain. From the esophagus all the way down to the anus there is a large collection of nerve cells – as many as the spinal cord, in fact. This body of nerves is known as the “enteric nervous system” – your second brain. The enteric nervous system coordinates all aspects of digestion on a second to second basis, making minute adjustments and compensations in real time.
The second brain can operate independently of the brain and central nervous system, though they are certainly on a first name basis with one another. Coordination of digestion outside the central nervous system is a brilliant natural adaption for two reasons. One, if all of the nerves that manage digestive function had to go to the brain via the spinal cord, your spinal cord would be so thick you couldn’t bend over to tie your shoe! Not very practical. Next, by removing the control of digestion from the central nervous system, spinal cord injuries will not hamper this critical function at all, and those with spinal cord injuries will not starve to death because they can digest just fine.
Digestion is a multilayered, multitextured process that has reverberations throughout your entire body. There is no aspect of health that digestion does not impact because of this intricate weaving in with all other systems and cells and the central necessity your gut provides with the breakdown, absorption and assimilation of nutrition. It’s non-negotiable. For optimal health, digestion has to be on-point.
Dr Jillian Sarno Teta is a medically trained naturopathic doctor (ND) and the author of “Natural Solutions for Digestive Health”, released May 2014 by Sterling Publishing. She is the creator of the Fix Your Digestion gut restoration program- an online, do-it-yourself comprehensive system that can be used by anyone with digestive distress or digestive disorders to feel better.
Ever-loving of social media, she can be found on Facebook www.facebook.com/fixyourdigestion, Twitter, Instagram & Pinterest @jillianteta