Do you remember those pesky baby gates? Perhaps, you’re still living with them! Those gates are a necessity but also an obstacle and frustration…especially when they don’t work properly. They will often be too big, too small, not latch right, or look horrible with the years of misuse. I remember one Christmas where our baby gate was not quite big enough to fit across my parents’ stairs. So like any good parent, we just propped it up and blocked the rest of the stairs with a piece of furniture. After a while, we got tired of doing this propping routine, and the baby gate was positioned next to the wall. I’m sure you can guess what happened next…one of the infants made their way towards the stairs. I have never seen my father move so fast! With a sliding into home base on your stomach move, he caught his grandchild before the stairs could. When this gate wasn’t working properly (or assembled well) it literally could have meant life or death. That my friends, is also digestive health…a painted, well oiled gate. A gate that closes when there is danger and opens at the optimal time. If for some reason the hinge is broken, you can’t just ignore it and adapt.
Let’s break down this gate:
The Paint: Your microbiome…the 100 trillion bacteria that live in your gut. But they can’t just be any bacteria…friendly (aka Beneficial) bacteria aid in our digestion, prevent other infections, and help maintain the lining of our gut. Bad bacteria do the opposite…they cause inflammation thus breaking down our gate. Some people suffer from digestive issues if there are more bad bacteria compared to good (aka dysbiosis). However, many people just have generalized symptoms (fatigue, weight gain, joint pain, etc) or no symptoms at all. This means that testing is key. To determine your balance of good/bad bacteria, you can do a stool test for gut pathogens. This test determines your good and bad bacteria and also any parasites, yeast, or viruses. If you have dysbiosis, lifestyle changes and supplements may be needed. Even if you don’t have digestive symptoms, you can’t merely let the bad bacteria over grow, or eventually, your gate will get rusty and not work properly.
The Hinge: This is the lining of your gut (AKA gut barrier). It determines if the substances we ingest will be exposed to your body. We want nutrients to pass through but toxins or foreign substances to stay out. Your lining can become leaky due to inflammation from stress, certain foods, poor microbiome, infection, etc. As it leaks, your body fights off these foreign substances (aka mounts an immune response) causing inflammation not only in your gut but also possibly other areas of your body…thus fatigue, brain fog, joint pain can still be related to your gut. The integrity of your gut barrier can be tested with stool testing. Breath testing, routine labs and food sensitivity testing may also be needed to determine the cause.
With a functional medicine approach, we always address any symptoms by investigating your digestion first. I would argue if you want to be truly preventative, exploring these digestive tests every few years (just like routine labs) is beneficial. It is much easier to address impaired digestion early before it starts affecting the rest of the body.
I’ve seen several patients try to ignore their rusty gate…they try to adapt to their poor lifestyle and digestion. In the end, though, falling down the stairs is always harder than just fixing the gate.
Do you suffer from digestive or generalized symptoms? Are you wondering if your digestion is as healthy as possible? If so, please contact me for an appointment…I would love to help you pursue health. Become resilient, ever growing…MINT.
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