Digestion used to be my superpower.
I’d wake up in the morning ready full of energy and ready to “go”, then get on with starting the
rest of day with a solid sense of accomplishment and freedom already checked off of my list.
In my teens and twenties I worked in health food stores and helped customers with their
digestive complaints to the best of my un-trained ability. I recommended fibre, probiotics,
hydration: the basics of stool formation, and they were often enough to make the necessary
difference…but not always. I obtained a degree in Human Nutrition and wrote a thesis called
“Fecal Matters” as I dug deeper into my education on poop.
In my thirties I graduated as a naturopathic physician and had more tools in my toolkit to help
patients to achieve the comfort and glory of a happy digestive tract. That’s when I really
noticed the links between digestion and everything else too: skin, mental health, pain, and
energy to name a few, and grew even more determined to help the world with their bowel
movements. I wanted everyone to start the day feeling as good as I did!
I had my first baby in my late thirties and my second in my early forties. Both were Caesarean
births (one emergency, and one by necessity after the previous emergency) but despite the
microbiome deficits that often accompany babies who are not born vaginally I felt equipped to
give my babies a great start in gut health. No problem!
When Covid hit my digestion got a little wonky but figured it was stress, would be short-lived,
and I didn’t worry.
As the pandemic dragged on we all adjusted in various ways but my digestion failed to improve
and I developed insane empathy for the patients and customers I had worked with over the
previous decades. Bloating, gurgling, and tummy aches suuuuuck.
I hadn’t considered that the scarring from two Caesarean’s would have lasting negative impact
on my inner flow. I had just focused on my kids (as mothers tend to do). Turns out, I had developed SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth). The condition that I have been treating in others for more than a decade and understood from a purely academic and clinical standpoint.
Now I’m walking the walk and determined to find my way back to digestive peace.
I believe that knowledge is power (thank you Francis Bacon!) and that the best way to determine where something went wrong is to truly understand how it works when functioning properly. To that end, let’s look at how the digestive system SHOULD work when humming along beautifully…
[If you’re a video person then you can tune into my Youtube video for this overview on the digestive system, as well as common IBS symptoms, and a mention of SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth) which is commonly present in IBS sufferers.]
If you’re a reader then here we go:
Digestion Overview
The digestive process starts in the brain. As we smell, feel, anticipate food our brain makes sure we are prepared by sending signals down the tract to the mouth, stomach, pancreas, liver, small and large intestines. Digestive juices start to flow and we are ready to receive nutrition into our bodies.
Turning plants and animals into absorbable particles that we can take in and utilize for our own growth, metabolism, and repair requires breaking our foods down into units that can be taken into our blood stream. And this requires chewing. Well. REALLY well!
My grandmother told me more than once that she had been taught to chew each mouthful 100 times before swallowing it. That may be a tad excessive but ensuring that each mouthful becomes a puree is a good goal. Not just chewing enough to prevent choking but really mixing it with saliva and increasing the surface area of each bite. Saliva contains an enzyme that helps to break down carbohydrates, and of course, moistens the food as well.
After swallowing the food is carried to the stomach where it should be “cooked” by strong stomach acid that prepares proteins for their inevitable breakdown by enzymes, and kills any microbes that may have hitched a ride into our bodies on our food. A very low pH – the lowest pH of anywhere in our body – signals the sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach to close, preventing back splash of acid.
Enzymes in the stomach fluid work on chopping the long amino acid chains that make up proteins into smaller lengths.
Exiting the stomach the partially digested food is then mixed with digestive fluids from the pancreas and the liver. The pancreatic secretions contain bicarbonate (essential baking soda) to neutralize the stomach acid and raise the overall pH, as well as enzymes to continue breaking down he food into small particles.
The liver releases bile, an emulsifier that makes the fats from our food soluble in the aqueous environment of the small intestine.
The small intestine itself releases enzyme-rich fluids for added digestive oomph! All told about 6-8 litres of liquid are released along the digestive tract each day!
The small intestine is long and thinly membraned. It is the site of nutrient absorption. Fatty acids separated from the backbone to which they were bound in foods, amino acids that used to join together like a huge chain of paper dolls to make up a protein, and individual sugars from starches are taken up by individual cells lining the small intestine, and released on the other side into the blood stream. They will be taken directly to the liver for approval and acceptance into regular circulation, or for detoxification and removal through the liver and kidneys.
Finally, the unabsorbed remnants of that meal we took in a few hours ago makes its way into the large intestine. The large intestine is the predominant home of our microbiome. Trillions of bacteria that call our body home feast on the undigestible fibres of our foods creating nutrients for the intestine and themselves.
The bulk of the liquid that was invested into the process of digestion and absorption from the mouth to the small intestine is reabsorbed in the large intestine until we have a soft but firm stool ready to be eliminated.
What could possibly go wrong?
If your digestion is problematic then try
- finding a state of calm before eating; set the table, light a candle, take some deep breaths, turn off screens
- chew more thoroughly…until it’s essentially a liquid
- take digestive enzymes to support the efforts of your stomach, pancreas, and small intestine
- look to herbs and foods that enhance liver function
- try to eat 2-3 meals daily with no snacks (if you can’t do that then let’s talk about blood sugar balance!) so that the small intestine has time to clean itself between meals
- consider support for the microbiome in the form of probiotics and/or fibres and/or antimicrobials (some people have too many microbes, or at least too many of the wrong kind)
Effortless digestion is crucial to so many other aspects of health (mental health, skin health, sleep, pain management, stress response) that it is worth prioritizing and improving if you have *any* symptoms present.
References:
- Silbernagl S, F Lang. (2000). Color Atlas of Pathophysiology. Thieme New York.
- Ogobuiro I, Gonzales J, Tuma F. Physiology, Gastrointestinal. [Updated 2022 Apr 21]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK537103/
- http://surgstudent.org/lectures/flud/node8.html – accessed June 20, 2022
