Your digestive tract has a lot of responsibility. We all know that it breaks down your delicious food choices into the components required for energy, growth and repair, as well as the day-to-day functioning of the body. In recent years, there’s also been a deeper dive into the other roles of the gut, with links drawn to immunity and the nervous system in particular. It’s been hailed as a ‘second brain’ by some.
As far as the traditional understanding of digestion goes, here’s the super-short, simplified version. The food goes in, it gets broken down, goodness is obtained and you know what happens to the rest. Along the way, it passes by trillions of cells in the gut known as the microbiota. To put a scale on this, it’s estimated that there’s a ratio of 1.3 microbial cells to every human cell present in the body. The microbiota consists of a mixture of bacteria, yeasts, viruses, protozoa and a few other little critters. Research is ongoing, but the resident bacteria are the most well categorised and understood.
We hear a lot of hype about digestive enzyme supplements, prebiotics, probiotics and more recently, postbiotics and psychobiotics. How much of this is really worth your time? Let’s decipher some of it for you.
What are the signs of an unhealthy gut?
The past 3.7 billion years of evolution have got the gut to a pretty good point. It’s now well equipped to handle most of what life throws at it. Your gut microbiome (the collective name for your microbial cells) is completely unique. Just like your DNA. And sometimes, it could do with a helping hand.
A typical Western diet, which is rich in sugar, salt, and fat, has been widely regarded as a major contributing factor in the onset of metabolic disorders and associated pathological conditions. Shame on us. To an extent, you are what you eat. If you follow a diet high in sugar, salt and fat, your microbiome will optimise incredibly quickly towards this, or pretty much anything else you’re throwing at it. Unsurprisingly, the general health of your microbiome typically matches the health of your diet. Parallels have been drawn between the microbiome of someone following a Western diet and those of obese individuals.
Beyond digestion, the gut has many other functions. One that’s gathered particular interest in recent years is its interaction with the brain. This is known as the gut-brain axis. The brain communicates with the gut and the gut with the brain, both of which are active in the stress response. Prolonged, chronic stress is regarded as particularly detrimental to gut and overall health.
The most obvious clue that something isn’t right is often a change in bowel movements (namely diarrhoea or constipation). Other signs that something isn’t quite right include, but are not limited to, low mood, unhealthy-looking skin, low energy levels and concentration. If you notice an ironic regular change in your regularity, or any of the factors above, it could be a sign to look at your diet and/or lifestyle.
Which foods keep your digestive system healthy?
I won’t spend much time on probiotic supplements and live cultures, as they tend to be better understood. In short, single strain or multi-strain combinations of bacteria are taken as supplements and are ingested in significant amounts (normally billions of cultures). There are a multitude of studies on a huge number of strains, and this remains a key area of interest for ongoing research. Psychobiotics, mentioned in the introduction, are specific strains that are thought to influence the microbiota-brain relationship.
If you’ve ever listened to a health-related podcast, you’ve probably heard how fruit, vegetables, high-fibre and fermented foods are good for your gut. Inulin and fructooligosaccharides (longest word ever?) are well-known forms of prebiotics known as substrates. These are selectively used as fuel by gut microorganisms. Common dietary sources of inulin include chicory and Jerusalem artichokes. Fructooligosaccharides are typically found in fruit.
So, why exactly are they good for you? One of the key reasons are short chain fatty acids (or SCFAs), which are a marker of gastrointestinal health. The main SCFAs of note are acetate, propionate and butyrate. SCFAs are a form of ‘postbiotic’, something that’s produced by your intestinal bacteria from metabolising prebiotics, resistant starches and fermented foods. In turn, SCFAs are absorbed and used as an energy source by cells lower down the intestinal tract, as well as liver cells. As with many health-related factors, dramatically higher or lower levels of SCFAs for a prolonged period of time tend to indicate less than ideal news. Recently, supplemental butyrate has become available on the American market. Studies are ongoing to investigate whether this has any meaningful benefit to the gut or overall health, or if too much of a good thing means that it ceases to be a good thing.
Related Products
What else can you do for digestive health support?
Here’s where our new Digestive Health Capsules step in. We’ve designed these to tackle every major aspect of digestive health. For starters, we’ve covered off the breakdown of food with chloride, a component of hydrochloric acid, which contributes to normal digestion, along with calcium, which contributes to normal digestive enzyme function. We’ve also got alpha-amylase, protease, lipase, cellulase and lactase from DigeZyme Plus® to help break down macronutrients and aid lactose digestion.
The capsules are loaded with three natural sources of fibre in the form of chicory inulin, baobab and green banana flour, along with live cultures from SynBalance® SmilinGut (Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus rhamnosus and Bifidobacterium animalis lactis) and LactoSpore® (Bacillus coagulans). Selenium has been included to contribute to the protection of cells from oxidative stress, chromium contributes to normal macronutrient metabolism and vitamin D contributes to the normal function of the immune system. The formula is topped off with a combination of popular after-dinner tea ingredients, which include fennel seed extract, peppermint oil, dill leaf, ginger root extract, artichoke extract and aloe vera extract. Impressive, hey?
Summary
We’ve covered a lot in this article and we’ve barely scratched the highly-populated surface of the digestive system. The gut is a particular area of interest for research, with plenty of studies looking further into prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics, as well as a lot of wider research into the wider gut health field.
It’s quite possible from the paragraph above, that you may have thought of a few reasons to add our Digestive Health Capsules to your daily routine. Because we believe in a holistic approach to health, we’ve also launched Brain Health Capsules and Kidney Health Capsules to sit alongside our existing range of health-focussed capsules. We also have plenty of digestive health supplements to help with specific needs you may have. Take care of your gut, and it will take care of you. Are you what you eat?
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