E028: Understanding why you might have gas or bloating, cramps or discomfort or perhaps even uncooperative bowels.....after eating.

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Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be? Like?

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What would that be worth

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to you?

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What is your health worth to you?

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Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system, or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call. Welcome back to The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I'm Melissa Dooley, your host, I'm thrilled that you're here with me for part three of my series on digestion. two episodes ago, I talked about how to optimize our digestive system. And today I'm talking about things that bog down our digestive system and why you may have pain or discomfort when eating. But first I just want to give you a little bit of information about how our digestive system works. It is working for you, in order to help you have the energy that you want to live your life fully based on the food that you're eating. And our digestive system starts in the mouth cavity and then ends at the anus and is roughly 30 feet long with 26 feet of that being the small intestine. It's funny that it's called the small intestine when it's actually really long, and it weaves back and forth inside your body. But the large intestine or the colon is actually wider. And so that's why it's called the large intestine even though it is shorter. The human body contains 40,000 species of bacteria, 5 million species of fungi and 300,000 species of parasites in our microbiome or in our gut. And they are all designed to live within us and work synergistically with us in order to help break down our food, boosts our immune system, and then get the waste out of the body. And this is really new science like in the last 10 years or so. And we've only just touched the surface of what we know about the microbiome. But what we do know is that there's a lot of good bacteria inside our body as well as potential for bacterial overgrowth or pathogenic bacteria and parasites and yeast, etc. So we're going to dig into all of that today. So, just a little bit on how it works is that when we eat, we have salivary enzymes produced in our mouth. And that's the first place where we start to break down our food, we can use our jaw and our teeth as the mechanical function of breaking down our food. And then the chemical function of breaking down our food is the production of something called amylase, which is an enzyme a salivary enzyme, which starts with breaking down our carbs in the mouth. And then as the food moves down the esophagus and into our stomach cavity, we have hydrochloric acid in our stomach, or hopefully we do because we really need that. And we also have the enzyme pepsin being produced to break down our proteins and they start getting broken down in the stomach and getting turned into peptides and then they get turned into amino acids. Fat, on the other hand is broken down in the small intestines as the liver drops bile. And with the help of the pancreatic enzyme lipase. Most absorption of our food is happening in the small intestine. But the colon or large intestine needs to reabsorb water and electrolytes from the remaining product into our bloodstream, and then remove waste and toxins by forming stool. So every section of our digestive tract has really important roles to play. And yet, many people are struggling with an unhappy digestive system. indicative you're indicated by things such as constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating, discomfort, pain, cramps. And so we need to get to the root cause of that. What is happening And what is triggering that,

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as I've talked about previously, stress or eating in the stress state means that our digestive system is actually shut down. And then it's not going to be able to absorb the food anyway. But also a high stress state and creates a situation where we don't have hydrochloric acid in our stomach, it's not being produced because digestion is turned off. And what happens then is were at risk of having greater pathogens get into our body through our food and our water or hydration. And the hydrochloric acid that's meant to kill them off, isn't killing them off, because there's not enough of it. So hydrochloric acid, we want it to be killing off pathogens, like bacteria, and parasites. And yet, that isn't happening. And so today, we're seeing more and more of them getting through and choosing us as their host, and starting to live inside our body. And this can cause real problems for people for their overall health, but particularly digestive health. And so we need to be getting to the root cause of this and understanding what's going on in order to help heal the digestive system. So I'm just going to go through the most common ones today. Parasites 1/3 of the world population has them, including 13.9% of the US population. And I know at the very beginning, I said that we have 300,000 species of parasites in our microbiome, but the ones that I'm talking about here now are the ones that we don't want inside our body and we need to get them out because they can cause malnutrition. They basically start stealing our nutrients. They can cause dehydration for the same reason, immune system dysregulation, skin rashes and acne, anemia, lithology and certain parasites can even impact the brain, heart and lungs. Helicobacter pylori also known as H. pylori. This is an opportunistic bacteria that takes up hold inside our stomach, it can lead to stomach ulcers, and even stomach cancer if left unchecked. 60% of Hispanics 54% of African Americans and 20 to 30% of white Americans suffer from this. And 90% of people with stomach ulcers have h pylori, H. pylori can cause poor digestion due to low stomach acid because it's it's made its home inside our stomach and

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his stomach helping stop the production of stomach acid. Therefore it can cause malnutrition, bloating. burping is a big clue of this one. anemia, stomach ulcers, as I've mentioned cancer, and can also allow parasites and other bacteria to move into your gut. Again, because of the low stomach acid production, which isn't killing off those pathogens. Then we have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO. This is something that you've probably heard of and it is, it is quite common in today's world. And this can be triggered by many causes such as the use of antibiotics, birth control, food poisoning, undercooked food, salad bars, chlorine fluoride intake, Mercury and heavy metal toxicities, the use of Splenda or sucralose, alcohol overuse, chronic stress excess estrogen in the body, too many fermented foods, low stomach acid, H. pylori can trigger this low thyroid, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and not having been breastfed. So there's many possible reasons why this has been triggered. And basically small intestinal bacterial overgrowth will happen because at the bottom end of our small intestine, there is a sphincter a one way sphincter that allows what's left of the food that we've eaten to move from the small intestine into our colon. And our colon is home to the greatest amount of bacteria in our digestive system. And we want that bacteria there because it is really helping the body to reabsorb water and get the benefit of the electrolytes but also to form stool and get all the waste product out. And what can happen is again, that sphincter can become loose or floppy, and it's not just a one way sphincter anymore, and some of the bacteria from the colon can get up into our small intestine, where it isn't supposed to be and then take over and it becomes CBOE. And when this happens, it can cause bloating or gas cramping, constipation or loose stool IBS. malnutrition, mood issues, poor serotonin production because serotonin and dopamine which impact our mood there are feel good neurotransmitters are made in the gut. So if our gut is unhappy, it can't produce them to the degree that it should. They can also trigger autoimmune disease, inflammatory disorders, skin issues, neurological issues, and learning dysfunction. Again, because of that gut brain connection. When the gut isn't happy, the brain isn't happy. And vice versa. That vague ol nerve connection that has this powerful connection between gut and brain. And I've mentioned this before, as well that for every message from our brain to our gut, there's nine messages from our gut, to our brain. And we don't only have neurons in our brain, they're also lining our entire digestive tract. So I like to say now that my gut is the command center and my brain is the operation center. And when our gut is unhappy, because of these different issues, our brain suffers as well. And then another problem that I see a lot of today is yeast overgrowth. And this too, is triggered by many of the same things as small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and it just plays out in a different way within the body. So again, triggered by antibiotic use high stress birth control under cooked food, chlorine fluoride intake, the use of Splenda, Mercury or heavy metal toxins, not having been breastfed alcohol overuse

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and then processed high sugar diet or overdoing fermented foods or not having been, I said not having been breastfed, but also yeast overgrowth can actually be passed from mother to baby at during birth. And then the sit the issues that this causes are also very similar as in the case of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, so bloating, gas cramping, constipation, loose stool, IBS, malnutrition, mood issues, poor serotonin production, autoimmune disease, inflammatory disorders, skin issues, neurological issues and learning dysfunctions very, very similar these two. And so how do we tell the difference? Well, we simply run a lab. And we can run a couple of different labs here that will determine this we use a stool lab to determine if there's parasites or H pylori going on. It will also give us indication of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or yeast overgrowth, but we can also use a urine sample to determine if there's SIBO or yeast overgrowth happening. And then lastly, what we can have happen, which is very common these days is something called leaky gut. And you might have heard of that term before as well. And leaky gut is you think of the lining of your entire tube of your digestive tract that starts at the mouth and goes all the way through to the anus, it's this tube, okay. And the wall of that keeps all the food that you've ingested, and all the liquids you've ingested out of the rest of your body until it's properly broken down and then absorbed through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. And that intestinal wall is very thin, it's like only one cell thick, and it's made up of a whole bunch of fingers, almost like a fence. And the gaps between the fence pylons are tightly sealed so that only the tiniest microscopic nutrients can get through and into the bloodstream. But when we start to have some of these other digestive issues happening, the pylons start to separate, and we have bigger gaps happening so that more things can get through into our bloodstream. bigger chunks of food, toxins, antibiotics, other pathogens, that should never be getting into our bloodstream. And when this happens, the our immune system also kicks in and starts to attack. And in fact, leaky gut is the cause of about 90% of autoimmune diseases. And so it's really important that if you have digestive issues going on, don't just accept them, don't just think I have to live with it. Don't just do nothing and hope that it goes away because it isn't going to go away. We need to actually understand the root cause and address it and help heal your digestive system and ensure that there is no leaky gut, because you don't want to have all of these pathogens in your bloodstream floating all around your body and getting up into your brain which can then cause leaky brain if they pass the blood brain barrier. So if this is you and if you have digestive issues. Or if you know someone who does, please share this podcast with them. And let them know that on the holistic side of health, we can absolutely test for these things and guide you on your healing journey. And that's what I do as an integrative health practitioner, there are many others like me, and the lab testing is very precise, targeted for you and what's going on inside your body. And then I provide a personalized wellness protocol to guide you on your healing journey based on exactly what I see is going on inside that lab test and inside your body. So I hope this is helpful. So that you have some understanding as to what might be going on for you, as well as an understanding that you can actually do something about it and help your body heal. And all you have to do is reach out. And in the show notes, you can click on the link to book a complimentary 30 minute session with me if this is something that you would like to address. So thank you for joining me here today at the don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I'll see you next time. I hope that the content I bring to you in my podcast is inspiring you to take action in your health and to come to the realization that you and only you are responsible for your health, and your health is your greatest asset. health isn't everything. But without it. Everything else is nothing.