am a voracious reader and learn every day. Learning how to better help my patients and clients gets me excited. The more I learn about health the more it builds upon the foundation of past learning over the past 30 years. Nevertheless, I continue to be amazed at where my “real” enlightenment comes from. My most important learning emanates from my face to face interactions and directly working with these clients.
That is why I felt this blog would be a great teaching vehicle. The intent of this blog will be to impart what I frequently see when working with my clients, what is highly successful as a health coach and what has had the greatest benefits to their health. Your gastrointestinal system travels from the mouth to the anus and is where the outside meets the inside of your body. You begin the digestive process in the mouth , extract nutrients in the passage from the stomach to the intestines and then eliminate what is not needed.
Although the digestive process appears to be a simple, straight forward process there are many other critical health processes and functions directly connected to the Gastrointestinal (GI) system. The immune and nervous systems are intimately involved with the Gastrointestinal system as well as the microbiome (the whole population of gut bacteria and microbes) and endocrine / hormone systems. The gut and associated nervous system encircling the GI system is called the second brain. Consequently, the health of the GI system profoundly affects and influences the rest of the body’s health.
Getting back to my clients, what I see with nearly all of my clients as either a primary or secondary problem is dysfunction or disease of the GI system. These dysfunctions can take many forms and include acid reflux, leaky gut, constipation, a damaged microbiome, an inflammatory gut, allergic responses to certain foods, poor digestion, Crohn’s, Irritable Bowel to name just a few. Each of these issues poses health complications to the entire body.
Because these GI problems are so frequent is the underlying reason so many people come to me with chronic health issues. As a result I must generally begin treatment by normalizing gut function to achieve the best results. A critical relationship to the gut is to the brain. The connection between the gut and brain is via the Vagus Nerve directly. The Vagus travels from the brain to the gut. Inflammation in the gut results in brain inflammation. Consequently effective treatment of the gut must concurrently resolve brain dysfunction.
Treatment of the gut involves the following:
- • Improve digestion- this usually requires digestive enzymes and hydrochloric acid. Most people over the age of 35 need additional enzymes to assist in digestion
- • Heal the gut lining- a great product for this is glutamine
- • Eliminate foods which irritate the gut lining or result in allergic reactions. The usual foods causing allergic reactions are gluten, corn, dairy, soy and wheat
- • Normalize elimination- this involves cleaning the colon and detoxifying the colon. For a person with a normal eating schedule two bowel movements a day is normal and healthy
- • Decrease gut inflammation
- • Determine the cause(s) of GI problems and eliminate or minimize them
These constitute the fundamental therapies to normalize GI function and positively affect every system of the body. To either prevent or resolve most illnesses or GI disease it is important to normalize your digestive and eliminative processes. This will go a long way toward healing the entire body when it becomes diseased.
If you have chronic health issues anywhere in the body or want to improve overall health it is critical to bring GI health into the overall treatment scenario. Ignoring treatment of the gut will limit overall health success. Learn from the many clients’ experiences that have helped me evolve my ability to heal them.
Remember to Enjoy the Journey,
Vital100 Wellness Team