Introduction to Gut Health
Gut health is a very broad topic, so today we are going to do a brief overview of how our digestive tract functions and what steps happen along the way. Digestion starts in our mouths, before we have even eaten a bite of food and ends in the toilet when we empty our bowels. Each step of that journey is important and things can go wrong anywhere along the chain. Let’s start with what happens in our mouths.
Digestion in your mouth:
Saliva, enzymes and teeth are all very important factors of the beginning phase of digestion. Our teeth work to physically break down our food when we chew and our saliva contains proteins and enzymes that also chemically start to break down our food.
Once you have chewed your food properly, it goes down your esophagus and into your stomach. This is where the next stage happens.
Digestion in your stomach:
To enter the stomach, your food passes through your oesophageal sphincter, which is like a gate or doorway into the stomach. If this doorway isn’t shutting properly, reflux and indigestion can occur. The bottom of your stomach has a sphincter doorway as well, which needs to function efficiently for digestion to run smoothly.
Once inside the stomach, your digestive juices get to work to break your food down even further. These digestive juices include stomach acid, digestive enzymes and also certain hormones that help muscle contractions and feelings of fullness.
Your food will be churned into chyme within your stomach, which is basically liquefied food that can then enter your small intestine. If large unchewed pieces of food get through, this can also cause digestive distress, bloating and other issues.
Digestion in the small intestine:
Your small intestine contains thousands of little finger like projections called villi, which are responsible for absorbing nutrients from your food.
Lots of amazing processes happen in the small intestine. The pancreas helps to break down food further by adding in enzymes, as well as balancing the amount of sugar in your blood. The liver release bile to help break down and absorb fats and the lining of the small intestine itself releases additional enzymes too.
When the food is broken down into small enough particles, the villi absorb as much nutrition as possible from it. If the villi are damaged in any way, such as the case in untreated celiac disease, nutrient deficiencies, exhaustion and other health problems can occur.
Once the small intestine has absorbed as much nutrition as possible, the remaining food particles move through into the large intestine in a liquefied form.
Digestion in your large intestine:
Our large intestine is actually far shorter than our small intestine and it has some important bodily functions.
Hydration is a big function, as the large intestine works to reabsorb fluid and electrolytes from your body. As it does this, the contents of your food turn from the liquid consistency into solid faeces within the intestinal tract.
Our large intestine is also home to the majority of our healthy bacterial colony, which is collectively called our microbiome. There are bacteria all throughout the digestive tract and indeed all over our bodies, but the majority of them live in the large intestine. One of the very important things our microbiome does for us is digest food particles that our small intestine can’t. Fibre for instance is a delicious meal to them and they produce some very important nutrients for us when they digest fibre.
It also stores our waste products, until we can release them as a bowel movement.
As you can see, the digestive process has many moving parts. No one part is any more important than the next. If we have issues within one part of the process, it has a flow on effect and our digestion will be ineffective overall.
There are specific symptoms that show up along each part of the digestive tract, which will guide a Naturopath in pinpointing where your digestive distress is stemming from. This in turn guides the treatment processes that will be best for your unique situation.
If you are dealing with any kind of digestive distress, such as chronic bloating, reflux, indigestion, diarrhea or constipation, please contact me today to discuss ways in which I can help you regain your health.
Nicky x
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