Many of the people who walk through our door, whether they are coming for a treatment for chronic pain or looking to lose weight with a personal trainer, have some form of digestive issue and yet they may not even realise it.
Most people think that their symptoms are normal and just a part of “getting older”.
Symptoms such as diarrhoea, constipation and bloating are the three most common issues people have but don’t realise it’s not supposed to be that way.
The Gut Is The Foundation Of Health
If you were to build a house you would start with building strong foundations. A strong foundation means that the house has a stable platform to sit on which allows the walls to remain sturdy.
The same is with your body. In order to build a strong body it needs sturdy foundations and a good supply of quality building blocks to enable constant repair.
Your digestive system (which we refer to as “the gut” here), and your lungs, are what separates your insides from the outside world. You breathe air in which diffuses through your lungs and you eat food which enters your digestive system, gets broken down and transported into your blood.
If your digestive system is working well it is able to break down your food into the basic components (biomolecules) such as sugar, amino acids (which make up protein) and fats. These biomolecules are then transported around your body to sites where they are needed for essential physiological processes.
If you are supplying your body with quality nutrients from natural food, your digestive system will be able to extract everything it needs to allow your body to repair, grow and function at its best.
Poor Gut Health Leads To Poor Health
Unfortunately for us in today’s world we are exposed to so many environmental toxins and irritants that our bodies are in a constant battle to deal with these as well as keep us healthy.
Some such irritants come in the form of “food” which cause irritation to the lining of your digestive tract. This irritation causes local inflammation which then causes small but significant changes to the structure of the gut lining.
These changes mean that food is no longer broken down as effectively and they remain as larger particles of digested food.
Another of the changes that occur means that the gaps that let the biomolecules pass through into the bloodstream become enlarged. This increase in gap size means that larger particles can pass through.
So these larger particles that have passed through into the blood are not recognised by the immune system which causes an immune response. This immune response is your body’s way of attacking these particles and breaking them down.
But this immune response often eventually leads to the onset of symptoms such as eczema, psoriasis, joint pains and fatigue.
Fix Your Gut To Fix Your Health
Regardless of what symptoms you might have you should always start by improving your gut health, even if it seems that your symptoms are unrelated.
Here are a few simple steps for you to start doing to improve your health today;
Step 1- Remove
In order to begin fixing the gut you first of all need to remove anything that could potentially be irritating it.
Common irritants include; sugar, caffeine, wheat (and other grains) and sweeteners.
An elimination diet is usually a good protocol to follow for 4 to 6 weeks.
Step 2- Replace
Replace digestive secretions that your body may be low in such as digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid and bile acids.
These are all essential components to digesting your food properly.
Step 3- Reinoculate
Start adding back in beneficial bacteria and foods that help these bacteria to grow such as high fibre foods containing “Fructooligosaccharide” compounds like Onions for example.
Step 4- Repair
Now that your digestive system has had some time to settle down you can add in nutrients such as Glutamine to help rebuild the damaged gut lining.
Each step in this process can take weeks to months so don’t rush it.
What Should You Do Now?
The digestive system is almost certainly the foundation of health, but it is influenced by so many other factors such as your sleep and stress for example. We discuss all of this in our FREE ebook series which you can get by filling in the form right below.
This is only a brief introduction to gut health to get you thinking about what condition you might be in at the moment. If you would like to discuss your digestive issues or any other health issues with us then give us a call on 0203 356 7060 or arrange a free 30 minute health consultation using the form below.