Optimal health starts in the stomach – make it your gut instinct!

Having been in the Nutrition business for over 25 years, I hear quite often my customers say things like “I’m overwhelmed, where do I start” or “I feel awful, but I’m not sure what to focus on first”. I truly believe the gut is the foundation for all good health and with a little supplementation you can change the way it functions and improve your well-being.

Although a healthy diet is essential to good health, eating healthy foods is only the first step. In order to stay healthy, our bodies must be able to assimilate the nutrients from our food. No matter how healthy your diet may be; if the vitamins, nutrients and minerals in your meals are not being properly absorbed, your health will become progressively worse. This is why holistic doctors believe the digestive tract is the “foundation of optimal health”.

Poor digestion is more than just gas, bloating or acid reflux. Poor digestion can contribute to serious illnesses like osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cancer. When your digestive tract is not functioning properly, critical body systems do not receive an adequate nutrient supply. This sets the stage for the beginning of sub-clinical nutritional deficiencies, and it is only a matter of time before these nutritional deficiencies start ruining your health.

The Culprits of Poor Digestion
Improper Levels of Hydrochloric Acid (HCL) in the stomach

When there is an inadequate amount of HCL in your stomach, your body cannot fully breakdown food. This causes the food to travel through the digestive tract in an undigested condition, causing the food to rot, which produces symptoms such as gas, bloating and heartburn.

Also, low stomach acid levels send the wrong message to the lower esophageal sphincter (LES). The LES is a muscle at the bottom of your esophagus that closes during the digestive process to stop stomach acid and partially-digested food from traveling back into the throat. Low stomach acid levels signal the LES to stay relaxed, which allows both acidic juices and food to be regurgitated into the esophagus and/or the throat.

When these symptoms occur, most people will reach for an Antacid. But the problem with this is that antacids, while they do provide temporary relief, they actually reduce the amount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach (HCL). One of the most appalling aspects of antacid use is the more you take, the more you need. If you are using or abusing them on a regular basis, your ability to absorb nutrients will significantly decrease over time. This will eventually destroy your health.

Imbalance of Gut Flora
Keeping the digestive tract well seeded with friendly bacteria is not only essential for proper

digestion, but also absorption of nutrients and overall health. When levels of friendly bacteria drop, the entire digestive system suffers and eventually your overall health will suffer as well.

As we age, we can lose up to 90% of the friendly bacteria in our gut. Drinking chlorinated water, alcoholic beverages or taking prescription antibiotics also decreases probiotic population. When the ratio of good bacteria to bad is lowered, the result can be excessive gas, bloating, constipation, intestinal toxicity and poor absorption of nutrients.

The Road to a Better Belly
Sure it would be ideal if our bodies could function like we needed them to just by eating our fruits and vegetables. But in this day and age, with the odds stacked against us, we sometimes need a little help from nutritional supplements.

I have found 3 helpful supplements, which my family and I use daily, to get your digestion working up to speed.

The first one being Aloe Vera Juice Concentrate. Aloe Vera Juice is an adaptogen. In short, an adaptogen is something that super charges the body’s natural ability to adapt to external changes and fight off illness. Aloe Vera not only helps to soothe and cleanse the digestive tract, it also helps to regulate either constipation or diarrhea.

The second supplement is called Digestin. Digestin contains enzymes that help aide the entire digestive process. It can help reduce symptoms such as gas, bloating and heartburn. My wife Toni carries a bottle of these in her purse and swears they changed her life!

And last but certainly not least, a great way to balance out the bacteria in our bellies is to take a Probiotic Supplement called I-Flora. Each capsule of I-Flora contains 15 billion CFU (Colony Forming Units) of friendly bacteria. Some probiotic formulas contain as little as 1 billion CFU, so choosing the right probiotic supplement can make all the difference in the world.

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The Power of Digestive Enzymes

Last month, we discussed how critical it is to maintain a healthy gut. Not only does it promote proper digestion, but it also boosts your metabolism, strengthens your immune system and influences your mood. So how can you fuel a healthful gut? Consuming a wholesome, fiber-rich diet and taking probiotic supplements can benefit you, but have you ever considered digestive enzymes? As the National Enzyme Company describes it, digestive enzymes are truly the real rock stars when it comes to digestive health.

What are digestive enzymes?
Digestive enzymes are the leaders in the digestive process – they have first dibs on the foods we consume. They break down the carbohydrates, proteins and fats we eat so that the body has easy access to the nutrient content. Essentially, without digestive enzymes, you'll have a harder time gaining the nutritional value from the wholesome, raw fruits and vegetables you're eating. You'll also have an increased chance of experiencing issues related to digestion, such as bloating, constipation, diarrhea, stomach cramping and more.

Where do digestive enzymes come from?
The salivary glands produce amylase to begin digesting starch right in the mouth as you chew your food. Lingual lipase from the tongue is activated in the stomach for digesting fats. Pepsin is released in the stomach to begin digestion of proteins. Food can be held in the upper portion of the stomach, the fundus, for an hour before mixing with stomach acid. This gives the salivary amylase time to work, as well as time for enzymes in the food to begin the digestion. All raw foods contain active enzymes, which may help predigest our food for us, thus conserving our own digestive enzymes.

After the stomach's contents are liquefied, they are passed on to the small intestine. This is where digestive enzymes from the pancreas do the heavy lifting of breaking down the food into sugars, short peptides, fat globules, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals that our body can absorb.

If we overtax our digestive enzyme capacity with overeating and consuming rich, animal-protein-heavy foods, as well as eating under stress and choosing very small amounts of raw food, we place a burden on our system that can lead to gastric upset, bloating, indigestion, flatulence, and further on chronic disease. Much of the body's energy that could be used to rebuild and repair the body is instead used on just making digestive enzymes to cope with the digestive strain.

The consumption of raw plant foods is critical to allowing some rest for the digestive tract. Fresh vegetable juices are excellent for giving the digestive tract a break, as the body can get fed with only a minimal amount of digestive energy expended.

Aging and its impact on digestive enzymes
According to the National Enzyme Company, the body's ability to produce digestive enzymes reduces with age, with some research suggesting people lose nearly half of their digestive activity. If your body doesn't produce enough digestive enzymes, regardless of the amount of raw, plant-based foods you're eating, it's critical you take a supplement to make up for it. Even with the healthiest diet, someone who has trouble breaking down foods won't absorb nutrients like they need to. That's why we recommend Hallelujah Diet Digestive Enzymes. Our formula contains live enzymes to maximize the absorption of nutrients, which ensures you'll reap all of the benefits from the enzymatically-rich fruits and vegetables you're consuming. This supplement improves poor digestion, promoting a healthy gut and reducing your chance of experiencing digestive-related issues.

Remember, it's still important to consume a primarily-raw plant-based diet – this supplement isn't a replacement. We suggested taking Digestive Enzymes with raw and cooked plant-based foods.

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