gut health Archives - Center for Holistic Medicine

These days, everywhere you look, there seem to be gluten-free versions of every product on the market. You can buy gluten-free pizza, gluten-free pasta, and most stores have an entire aisle dedicated to gluten-free foods.

The rise of these gluten-free products is designed to cater to the 1% of the population that officially has Celiac disease, an autoimmune disease that occurs when some people eat gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye.

However, even if you haven’t been officially diagnosed with Celiac disease, the ubiquitous nature of these products may have you wondering if it’s healthier for everyone to avoid gluten or if they’re just a marketing ploy.

Dr. Kelsie Lazzell, DC, ND, a chiropractor and naturopathic practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says embracing a gluten-free lifestyle can be beneficial for everyone – whether or not you have officially been diagnosed with Celiac disease.

“Gluten intake has been shown to release a protein from our gut lining called Zonulin, which directly stimulates something called Leaky Gut Syndrome. This is when the lining of our intestine becomes so loose that its contents can then be leaked into the blood stream and cause a wide-spread inflammatory reaction,” Lazzell says.

Lazzell says the reason this has become so common in the United States is because of the way our wheat is commercially produced. “A large reason for this happening more in the United States compared to other countries is the overuse of genetic modification and pesticides on our wheat, which has essentially turned it into an unrecognizable DNA structure to our bodies. For this reason, many people can react more harshly to gluten, which contributes to autoimmune reactions like Hashimoto’s or Celiac disease,” she explains.

According to BeyondCeliac.org, 1 in 133 Americans has Celiac disease, but it is estimated that up to 83% of Americans who have Celiac disease are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed with other conditions.

The most common symptoms of Celiac disease are diarrhea, fatigue, headaches, brain fog, depression, constipation, infertility, irritability and more — all things which can easily be chalked up to stress or missed altogether. Plus, some people may not have full-blown Celiac disease, but may have a sensitivity to gluten that also causes some of the same issues.

Lazzell says gluten can often be the culprit when it comes to mental health issues, especially in children.

“As someone who works with a lot of children and young adults with behavioral disorders, one of the first lines of treatment is removing all formed of gluten from the diet,” Lazzell says. “Gluten can have a very simulating effect on your nervous system and this stimulation can be felt as anxiety, sensory processing issues, trouble focusing, excitability, and many more. By removing this offending food and removing a main source of inflammation to their gut lining, we begin to see symptoms improve. Gut health and mental/emotional health go hand-in-hand.”

If you are looking to remove gluten from your diet, try substituting corn, rice and potatoes and quinoa for sources of starch other than wheat. For example, you can eat corn tortilla chips instead of pretzels or substitute brown rice flour or almond flour for regular flour when baking at home. When eating out, avoid eating anything deep fried, such as fried chicken or fried shrimp, which are often battered in flour before being fried, and order grilled versions instead.

And if you’re curious about whether any of your symptoms may be caused by a gluten intolerance or Celiac disease, come into our office to get tested. Make an appointment with Dr. Kelsie Lazzell today to find out more about gluten sensitivity or to get tested.

Have you ever wondered if your digestion system is working properly? Do you ever suffer from bloating, constipation, diarrhea or abdominal pain? Even if you are having bowel movements consistently, if they are too hard, too loose or too smelly, that could also be a sign that your digestion system isn’t working properly.

When your body isn’t digesting normally, it prevents your liver from being able to get rid of all of the toxins in your body, causing the overall level of toxins in your body to increase. This can cause a host of issues, including fatigue, brain fog, depression, sleep impairment, and an increased risk of inflammatory diseases.

What Is Normal Digestion?

So what does normal digestion look like? According to Dr. Kelsie Lazzell, DC, ND, a chiropractor and naturopathic practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine, most people should be having between one to three bowel movements a day, ideally one hour after eating, and they should be well-formed (like a sausage or hot dog), easy to pass with limited straining, should not contain any undigested foods except corn or quinoa, and should lack a foul smell.

Dr. Lazzell also says it should take about 10 to 20 minutes to fully pass a bowel movement — something many of us don’t give ourselves proper time for. “Unfortunately, if our diets and busy work schedules don’t allow for this, our digestion begins to suffer,” she says.

How to Improve Your Digestion: Diet, Stress Reduction and Exercise
Not surprisingly, an unhealthy diet, high levels of stress and lack of exercise can all affect how well our body is able to digest our food.

Here are a few tips on ways you can improve your diet and stress levels to support proper digestion.

Eat Plenty of Fiber
If you aren’t getting enough fiber in your diet, your stools are going to be harder and less frequent. Standard recommendations say that women should be getting 25 grams of fiber a day and men should get 30 grams of fiber a day, but Dr. Lazzell says most people get barely 15 grams daily. To eat a diet high in fiber, aim to get plenty of fruits and vegetables, brown rice, whole grains, legumes and nuts.

Dr. Lazzell says it’s also important to understand the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fibers are one that absorb water. “Soluble fibers are broken down in the digestive process and help bulk up stools and prevent diarrhea,” Dr. Lazzell explains. Foods that contain soluble fibers include oats, peas, beans, apples and carrots.

Insoluble fibers do not break down in our system, but instead help draw water into the digestive tract, which helps support movement and reduces constipation. So, if you are suffering from constipation, you need to eat more insoluble fibers, such as whole wheat flour, green beans, potatoes and cauliflower.

“People can be eating the wrong types of fiber to support their digestive and potentially causing their symptoms to worsen,” she says.
Drink Enough Water
“Drinking water is important to promote healthy digestion,” says Patricia DeAngelis, a functional medicine nurse practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine. “Both the small and large intestines absorb water. Water is used to absorb nutrients and assists with motility.”

DeAngelis says people should aim to drink half of their body weight in ounces per day. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you need to drink 75 ounces of water a day, or the equivalent of nine cups of water a day. If you are sweating a lot or live in a warm climate, you need to drink even more.
Reduce Your Stress
Have you ever had a big date or an important meeting and had to run to the bathroom with diarrhea because you were so nervous? That’s because our gut is highly sensitive to stress. “When we are stressed, the body is signaled to be in a state of alarm. Motility can slow down or speed up rapidly,” DeAngelis says. “Healthy digestion requires a state of rest or parasympathetic tone of the nervous system.”

To reduce your stress, DeAngelis suggests trying meditation or a type of gentle movement, such as stretching, yoga, pranayama, or tai chi, to support the nervous system and promote healthy digestion.
Avoid Too Much Sugar or High-Salt Foods
Strangely enough, eating sugary and salty foods cause also a stress response in our gut. “Sugary and salty foods can trigger the sympathetic nervous system (also known as our fight/flight response), and can act as ‘stressors’ to our gut,” says Allison Musso, ND, a naturopathic coach at the Center for Holistic Medicine, adding that they can cause issues with mood, sleep, metabolism and more.

Musso says the more sugary and salty foods we eat and the faster we eat them, the more it will affect our digestion. “They are most stressful when consumed without the addition of protein or fiber to allow our body to process them slowly,” she says.

If you are going to eat sugar, Musso recommends avoiding processed foods and instead eating home cooked foods that are sweetened with fruit, honey, molasses or agave, which allows you to monitor how much you are adding to your food.
Get More Exercise
One of the reasons that so many people suffer from digestive issues these days is that many of us are used to a sedentary lifestyle. To digest your food properly, it’s better to get up and walk around. “Light physical activity is a good habit for digestion health,” DeAngelis says, adding that light to moderate physical movement increases blood flow to the digestive tract and promotes forward movement in your digestive tract. “Most people’s digestion can benefit with as little as 15 to 20 minutes daily of brisk walk following a meal,” she says. However, DeAngelis doing an intense workout right after you eat can cause the body to redirect blood to your muscles and away from your digestive organs, resulting in digestive issues.

And remember, before you start a new exercise plan, get the okay from your healthcare provider.
Take Supplements
If you’re looking for supplements to support your digestive health, try taking fish oil, magnesium or ground flax seed.

“One of my favorite supplements for digestive issues is fish oil due to its anti-inflammatory effects as well as the mucus promoting effects it can have in the digestive tract,” says Dr. Lazzell. “This helps improve immune system and intestinal barrier function, as well as provide lining support with essential fatty acids found in the omega 3.”

Dr. Lazzell also recommends taking magnesium, which helps relax the smooth muscles that line your intestines. “There are many different forms of magnesium, and some act more directly on the digestive system, like magnesium citrate, which can help loose compacted stools and promote bowel movements,” she says. Dr. Lazzell suggests taking magnesium at night before bed to support a healthy morning bowel movement.

If you’re suffering from constipation, DeAngelis recommends taking two tablespoons of ground flax seed, which she says can also assist with detoxification of hormones.
Be Aware of How Foods Make You Feel
Musso says one of the best ways to improve digestion is to be more aware of how we feel after we eat certain foods so we can try to eliminate foods that are causing us problems. “Do you always feel tired or sluggish after you eat a certain food? Do you feel jittery or restless after another? These are sympathetic responses which can let you know how this food affects you,” Musso says. “These states can also become addictive to our nervous system, and we may feel more cravings to eat a food that actually fuels our body’s stress and dysfunction.”

If you identify a food that often causes you problems, Musso says try abstaining from it for a week or two to see how your body responds without it. “Giving ourselves space from a food and reintroducing can allow us to experience the ‘acute’ response as opposed to getting lost in a ‘chronic’ response, especially when we are not certain of which food it is. Give your dietary habits a challenge!”

Want to find out more about how to improve your digestion? Schedule an appointment with Dr. Kelsie Lazzell, Patricia DeAngelis or Allison Musso today!

Do you suffer from chronic diarrhea, constipation, bloating, fatigue, headaches, brain fog, skin problems, or joint pain? If so, your issues may be due to something called Leaky Gut Syndrome, a condition that affect many, many people.

As Dr. Robynne Chutkan, an assistant professor of medicine at Georgetown University Hospital put it in an article in HealthyWomen, “[Leaky Gut] is likely to emerge as one of the most significant medical concepts of our time.”

Many conventional doctors agree that Leaky Gut Syndrome, also known as intestinal permeability, exists, but because we’re are still trying to understand the complexities of the gut, scientists aren’t completely sure what causes it, and there isn’t a single treatment for it, so many conventional doctors don’t treat it.

However, functional medicine doctors, who take more time with each patient to undercover the root cause of someone’s symptoms, are often successful at treating Leaky Gut Syndrome through dietary and lifestyle changes.

They basic concept is this: Typically, the main function of the intestines is to allow the nutrients from your food to enter your blood stream while keeping the toxins and undigested material in your gut so it can be excreted from your body. However, when you have Leaky Gut Syndrome, you may develop tiny holes in your intestinal walls (also known as hyper permeability), which allows toxins to escape through the intestinal wall. When those toxins enter the bloodstream, it triggers an autoimmune response, as your body tries to fight off the foreign substances.

“When molecules leak through into your circulatory system, your body thinks it’s something to fight,” explains Dr. Jerry Gore, MD, clinical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine, adding that this process can increase inflammation throughout your body and cause a host of other issues.

That means that issues such as rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, eczema, chronic fatigue system and more — which are caused by an increase in inflammation — may all be affected by the state of your gut.

So what causes Leaky Gut Syndrome? Most often, it is a direct result of eating foods that you are sensitive to.

Tanya Tanzillo, a functional medicine practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine, says that unlike food allergies, which cause an immediate response such as a swollen face or trouble breathing, food sensitivities can be subtler and harder to detect. “For example, you may be able to eat gluten or dairy and not feel any immediate repercussions, but if you have a food sensitivity to those things, they may go through your intestinal wall and then you’ll feel the effects a few hours or even a few days later,” Tanzillo says.

That’s why, in order to get to the bottom of what exactly is causing your Leaky Gut Syndrome, Tanzillo will often have patients do food intolerance testing and gut microbiome testing. Then she’ll work with patients to adjust their diet to eliminate foods that may be causing the problems.

The most common types of food intolerances are dairy, gluten, caffeine, alcohol and processed foods, although there are many others that may also cause problems for certain individuals. That’s why testing is so invaluable.

Because food sensitivities are so unique to each individual, there is no universal diet that can eliminate all food sensitivities. “Food sensitivities can be as individual as a person’s fingerprint, and it also has to do with not only what you eat, but how much of each type of food,” Tanzillo says. “Also, people may be surprised that many ‘healthy’ foods may cause sensitivities in people. For example, some people can be highly sensitive to legumes, eggs, avocadoes, smoked fish and more. So just eating a ‘healthy’ diet may not be enough to solve your problems.”

In addition to causing physical problems, Leaky Gut Syndrome can also lead to an increase in anxiety and depression as well. That’s because many of the neurotransmitters that control our mood are created in the gut, and when our gut flora is out of balance, it can affect how we feel.

Stress can also lead to increased intestine permeability, so finding ways to reduce your stress is another key part of getting Leaky Gut Syndrome under control.

After your food sensitivities are identified and your stress levels are under control, Dr. Gore then usually suggests that patients try working with an anti-inflammatory diet, as well as using supplements to help the gut wall heal, and adding probiotics to help enhance the immune system.

And Tanzillo says following a diet that promotes a healthy gut — which means getting enough fiber and avoiding foods that are high in sugar and unhealthy fats — is important, as well. “If we can keep the gut happy, we can really keep a lot of the negative symptoms at bay,” Tanzillo says.

When you’re feeling depressed and anxious, seeking support from a therapist is always a good idea. But sometimes, there may be physical reasons that you’re feeling depressed and anxious, too. Turns out that our modern lifestyle – stress, an overload of medications, and unhealthy diets – affects the health of our gut, which can have a big impact on our moods.

“The gut is sometimes considered the second brain,” says Katie Bogaard, a naturopathic practitioner at the Center for Holistic Medicine. “In fact, more serotonin is produced in your gut than in your brain.”

According on a 2015 article in the New York Times, micro-organisms in your gut secrete chemicals – such as dopamine, serotonin, and gamma aminobutyric acid (GAMA) – which are used in our brains to regulate our mood.

However, in order for your gut to produce the right neurotransmitters to keep anxiety and depression at bay, your gut has to have the right level of gut flora. When this gut flora is out of balance – by taking too many antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, or other medications – our guts can’t make the needed neurotransmitters, leaving us feeling depressed.

Stress can also contribute to leaky gut syndrome, also known as intestinal permeability, which is when toxins from your gut escape through tiny holes in your intestinal walls and get into your blood stream. Studies have shown that your body’s immune system response to those toxins can also cause depression.

“Our modern lifestyle — stress, the standard American diet, and antimicrobial and antibiotic use — can make us all at risk for intestinal permeability,” Bogaard says. “And once someone has intestinal permeability, it sets them up to be susceptible to a slew of different issues, including depression and anxiety.”

Of course, your diet plays a big part in affecting your mood as well.

“When you’re depressed and not feeling well, people will reach for comfort foods like carbohydrates and simple sugars that generate serotonin when serotonin is low in your brain,” Bogaard explains.

Unfortunately, while eating those comfort foods do make us feel momentarily better, they actually cause more harm than good. As soon as the sugar high is gone, we feel depressed again.

Why? Because in addition to causing our blood sugar to spike and then crash, sugars and refined carbohydrates use up B vitamins to create energy – the same B vitamins we need to sustain good moods.

In fact, studies have shown that diets high in sugar, fat and processed foods are linked to higher instances of depression, while diets consisting of lean meats, fish, whole grains, nuts and veggies can improve our moods.

So what are some ways that you can change your diet to avoid feelings of depression? Here are a few suggestions (and make sure to consult your doctor before getting off of any anti-depressants):

Avoid Sugar
As mentioned above, sugar can wreak havoc on our moods by taking us on and endless cycle of ups and downs throughout the day. Avoid refined sugar and opt instead for whole fruits, which provide fiber that can help delay blood sugar spikes.
Avoid Caffeine
Did you know that caffeine has a direct impact on our neurotransmitters? It increases dopamine and acetylcholine, making us feel more alert and motivated. But it also decreases GABA, which is designed to calm our thoughts when they’re racing out of control. So with less GABA, we’re likely to feel more anxious. Plus, if you’re someone who likes to put sugar in your coffee, you’re facing even more crash-and-burn feelings.
Eat Protein at Every Meal
Bogaard says combining protein with whole grains at each meal is a great way of keeping your blood sugar more stable throughout the day and avoid the mood roller coaster.
Eat a Healthy Breakfast
“People who don’t start their day well balanced will be craving sugar all day,” Bogaard says. Ditch the Danish or cereal for an omelet with veggies to feel full and balanced throughout the morning.
Get Lots of Vitamin B and D
Both vitamin B and vitamin D deficiencies have been linked to depression, so it’s important to get enough of both of them in your diet. Make sure to fill up on lean proteins like chicken and fish, as well as lentils, almonds and spinach to get enough vitamin B, and spend time in the sun to soak up more vitamin D.
Take a Supplement
Bogaard recommends taking either tryptophan or 5HTP, both of which can boost your serotonin levels, or taking a combination supplement such as Cerenity for anxiety or Cerevive for depression, both of which contain several different nutrients that support the production of neurotransmitters in your brain. However, if you’re already on an antidepressant, be sure to consult your doctor before taking any additional supplements.

Tag: gut health

Is Gluten Really Bad for You?

A Deep Dive Into Digestion: Is Your Digestion Normal?

What Is Leaky Gut Syndrome?

How Your Gut Can Affect Your Mood