What Does Your Gut Say About Your Health?

Do you have a gut feeling that your health may be out of whack?

According to one survey, nearly 40% of adults worldwide have disturbing gut issues, including heartburn, acid reflux, dyspepsia, constipation, bloating, and irritable bowel syndrome, amongst other disorders¹.

Many people who have gut problems may also have an associated autoimmune or chronic inflammatory illness².

The History of Confusion Regarding Gut Health

The etiology of gastrointestinal disorders has confounded healers for centuries.

In the early 1900s, when most diseases were still being treated by bleeding and purging, the great gut debate was about whether digestion occurred from mastication or chemical disintegration³.

Today, the argument is altogether dissimilar from the past, where treatment of indigestion with Pepcid or Prilosec discounts the need for disintegrating foodstuff at all.

How can we still be so confused and misguided about treating a system as fundamental as digestion in the 21st century?

The answer is simple. We forgot about an essential organ!

The Important Role of Your Gut Health

It was only more recently in history when we rediscovered an important organ in our body (although it is actually not a part of our body) without which we cannot survive – and that is the microbiome.

Once considered “the forgotten organ,” we now know that the microbiome plays a key role in food digestion, nutrient absorption, neurotransmitter metabolism, immune regulation, and overall protection of the gastrointestinal tract.

One way of thinking about placing more importance on our gut is to change the perspective of how most people think about the gut.

As mentioned, the gut plays an important role in so many vital functions in our body, but most of us do not place that much emphasis on what we give our gut by way of the food we choose at meal or snack time, and we should look at that more carefully.

The food that we put in our mouths is supposed to be broken down into essential vitamins and minerals, building blocks that support our cells to work efficiently.

Optimizing the microbiome’s health is foundational for any treatment strategy to be successful, whether you have a chronic condition or want to avoid one.