Hippocrates almost 2500 years ago said, "all disease begins in the gut". Hippocrates was an Ancient Greek physician. I feel most do not believe this due to the lack of knowledge of how the gut impacts the entire body. It is a big deal due to how our modern-day diets destroy the gut. Common things most of us hear are about these days are about the brain-gut connection and how important your gut bacteria, mostly probiotics, are. However, do you know what is considered the gut? Do you understand what impacts the health of the gut? Can you rebuild the gut? Most seem to only know about probiotics and their role, and I would say most do not understand the real impact that your gut has on your everyday function. How you may be inhibiting you from actually absorbing your nutrients, causing emotional imbalance, and creating a toxic load. Yes, this all comes from how well the gut is doing. Let's first discuss what roles organs have in the digestion process, each organ does a specific part for different foods and their break down. Digestion starts in your mouth, when you chew your food you also are releasing enzymes in your saliva. Plus your teeth are breaking it down by mashing the food, then it moves to the stomach. The stomach becomes highly acidic, which helps to kill parasites, unravel proteins, and break open minerals. There is also pepsin in the stomach which is a proteolytic enzyme (breaks down protein). The alkaline/acidity debate, in reality, is all about which organ you are referring to. Your body goes to great lengths to protect your blood pH. When your drinking alkaline, taking tums, and antacids to stop the acidity. You are creating a great imbalance in the stomach, which you eventually pay a high price for, not being able to digest protein and break open your minerals. This is just the beginning of causing metabolic issues. Alkalinity in the stomach supports factors of having parasites, food poisoning, lack of acidity even impacts digestion in the small intestines. Let us talk about the small intestines, when the acidic food drops into the first chunk of your intestines it triggers the pancreas and the gallbladder to release enzymes and bile, without this food putrefies (gas, bloating) and the rest of the digestion process is slowed down, again GAS, BLOATING and INDIGESTION. In the small intestines, this is where you do the majority of your absorption of nutrients, this is what is considered the "gut". In the gut, you have a layer of a mucosa lining that protects from whole proteins, toxins, and parasites getting into the bloodstream. Your probiotics also live in that lining and depending on it being healthy so they can thrive. It is your soil and can make the difference in having a balance of "good bacteria" thriving or not. "Good" bacteria help keep "bad" bacteria in balance and doing good things. When they are balanced the "bad" bacteria can create your K2 needed for bones and clotting your blood. Your bacteria also control what we crave and how we feel emotionally, they speak to the brain. When bacteria become imbalanced the bad bacteria put out toxins. They can grow and overpopulate causing issues of SIBO (small intestine bacteria overgrowth) Candida albicans, and damage the gut wall causing issues like ulcers. Some bacteria can even turn innocent foods into chemicals that give us a high like drugs would. The "bad" bacteria can also create issues with pH balancing in the stomach and large intestine plus create actual damage to the lining. When we eat sugar, non-organic foods, caffeine, alcohol, and other toxic chemicals from food, it breaks down this lining and weakens the gut. The small intestines also impact how we create our B vitamins that play a role in heart health, nerve health, brain health, and good circulation. Moving on to the Large intestines/colon, this part of the intestines is all about absorbing the last bit of water, absorbing minerals, and getting rid of toxins. If the liver/gallbladder was not triggered due to low acidity in the stomach we can not effectively break down fat. Fat helps keep good lubrication in the colon. It is like a water slide with no water to help things keep moving out. We should be having 2-3 bowel movements a day. If we are not we are likely having compaction on the walls. It gets glued to the walls and then inhibits water absorption and mineral absorption. Minerals and water are how we stay hydrated, minerals are also how we create melatonin, we need them also for all our metabolic activities, it is how we fight infection and how we calm the body. This is just a small glimpse of why "gut" health and digestion are so important. We have environmental toxins that negatively impact gut health, as well as packaged/processed foods, even how our foods are grown. They can be filled with toxins that can damage the gut. Foods that are nutrient-dense and help to restore the gut are Organic bone broth, raw milk, organic foods filled with calcium, organic foods with zinc, organ meats, specifically the liver, foods dense in glutamine (red meats, seafood, red cabbage), and fermented foods. Take the time and effort to support your gut/digestive health. Want to learn where your specific needs lay? Go to the main page and click the Health Assessment link, fill it out, and submit the survey. Don't forget to set up an appointment.
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