THAT GUT FEELING
We know that the health of our business critically depends on our own health, our most important business asset, and increasingly we understand that our wellness depends on our ability to detoxify effectively.
The toxic century. We are increasingly exposed to a chemical revolution where thousands of synthetic chemicals infiltrate virtually everything we associate with modern living. There are more than 75000 chemicals currently registered with the Environmental Protection Agency with only a small amount having been tested for toxicity in humans. However we know more and more about the toxic effects of some of these chemicals (referred to as Xenobiotics) that end up in our bodies and how to minimise their degenerative effects.
The inside story. While xenobiotics (or xenotoxins) from our external environment produce toxic stress in our bodies we also generate our own internal toxic waste (called endotoxin) from normal metabolic processes, from gastrointestinal bacteria and microbial toxins to undigested food and their breakdown products. Even our cellular energy production generates toxic waste materials called free radicals that are implicated in many disease processes and ageing, caused by the cumulative effects of long term low levels of exposure to these xeno and endotoxins.
Most of these toxic by-products are absorbed in the gut and enter our bloodstream supplying our organs. And if liver function and detoxification processes are compromised then overgrowth of unfriendly microbes and serious health problems can occur. Since all our internal systems - hormonal, nervous, respiratory, adrenal, skin and even brain function are linked to our ability to detoxify, it is imperative that we ‘come clean’.
Setting the Scene. A patient presents with gastrointestinal bloating, wind, headaches, PMS and lethargy, not uncommon symptoms, perhaps you can relate? After assessing their general health status a program incorporating a “weed, seed and feed “ of the gastrointestinal tract and liver was implemented. It’s a ‘gardening thing’!
Weed- Like any good gardening practice weeds need to be eliminated as they choke the healthy growing plants. So too do we weed the unfriendly microbes from our system that choke the friendly flora.
Seed- Effective gastrointestinal health is facilitated by the seeding of beneficial bacteria with the use of “probiotics” and prebiotics (like soluble and insoluble fibre) such as those we get from fermented foods like yoghurt, miso and sauerkraut. In many instances though we ned specific probiotics to balance our good bacteria.
Feed- The liver provides bile that together with digestive enzymes from the pancreas and the good bacteria enable proper digestion. Assuming we have an optimal nutritional status then our essential nutrients are well absorbed from our food if our gastrointestinal health is also optimal.
In this patients case neither the gastrointestinal health nor the nutritional status were optimal. Her working life was busy and stressful and she found herself occasionally skipping meals and sometimes making poor choices about what she ate. Her bloating indicated that she was not digesting properly and her PMS, headaches and lethargy were indicative of a combination of malabsorbtion, toxic overload and compromised nutrition. In addition, her general stress contributed to adrenal overload, subsequently inducing its own toxic story.
Her action plan. First I suggested a microbiome test to determine exactly what was going on in her gut. This is a comprehensive assessment of the contents of the gut including parasites, worms, beneficial and non beneficial bacteria, probiotic strains and the functional workings of the gut itself. It’s a birds eye view that takes out any guesswork as to what’s causing problems, so a very targeted treatment can be formulated.
Her weeding involved elimination of unfriendly microbes with the use of herbal and nutritional medicines specific for this purpose and the inclusion of certain foods in her diet to stimulate the release of toxins from the cells. Eg the cabbage family of vegetables including broccoli can be helpful in this process as well as other trace elements such as lipoic acid, chlorophyll and amino acids that are key to liver detoxificaI included nutrients to protect her system while we are detoxifying and included antioxidants such as vitamins A,C,E and the mineral zinc in addition to plant antioxidants found in herbal extracts such as green tea, St Mary’s Thistle and grape seed that protect the cells and tissues whilst stimulating the detoxifying activities. Other nutrients such as selenium, vitamins B1 and B6, folic acid, magnesium and calcium all play a key role in this detoxification process.
Then the seeding with the use of probiotics - found in yoghurts, stimulate the growth of friendly gastrointestinal flora. Probiotics also have another role in her gardening plan. They assist in reducing “leaky gut syndrome”, that was flagged in her microbiome test. Leaky gut syndrome allows waste from the gut to leak through the normal gut-wall barrier into the system inducing an inflammatory immune system response further compromising our body’s health.
Her integrated detoxification program combined weeding, seeding and feeding her internal garden. In fact, a whole new landscape was designed and over a three month period her gardening expertise started to produce an exiting, new landscape of abundant energy blossoming like she’d never even dreamed of before!