For October, I’ve chosen to help out your understanding of your stomach. It’s where everything you put in your mouth lands, it is here that the process of healthy or unhealthy digestion starts. Stomachs are not standard either and how they behave or not is totally individual and has a huge bearing on your food choices if you want to feel comfortable. Age, acidity or alkalinity, taste, sufficiency of enzymes, environment, foods, ethnicity and how well your nervous system is functioning, all have a bearing on your ability to digest and absorb food.

It is in the stomach that the crucial role of maintaining good digestive health and therefore good general health begins. The digestive system plays a central role in the development of a majority of modern diseases. The old saying of “you are what you eat” still rings true, but this could also be better understood by adding that “you are what you absorb and utilize”. Tissues in our bodies endeavour to maintain specific pH or acid/alkaline levels in balance. It is when these deviate from a balanced state that disease can commence and one of the prime sites where that all begins is in the stomach. A combination of ageing and factors like stress and poor diet can upset stomach acid levels and digestive enzymes.

During digestion food moves from a slightly acidic/neutral environment in the mouth to one that can be highly acidic to digest protein in the stomach and back to somewhat alkaline in the small intestine. By not taking care with what you throw at your stomach this balance can easily be upset – if not today – because you think you have a “cast iron stomach” – then somewhere down the track when digestive enzymes diminish through ageing or sheer long term abuse. If stomach Hydrochloric acid diminishes, protein digestion becomes poor, foods putrify beginning in the stomach and leading to gas, bloating, indigestion, bad breath and discomfort all along the digestive tract. Stomach acid health is dependent on Zinc status and, is not only important to digestion but is important to immune health as well. Who do you know who always easily picks up gastro viruses or, comes home with travel diarrhea? It’s likely they have low stomach acid and poor digestive enzymes. Poor digestion profoundly lowers immunity.

Have you ever eaten when upset and ended up with a huge stomach ache even if the meal was something that normally never upsets you? This is because stresses tend to divert energy away from the settled nervous system you need to digest well into a “fight or flight stress response,” which shuts down digestive processes until you’re calm again, so don’t stress and don’t eat when you’re stressed.

A healthy stomach will kill viruses, bacteria, moulds, parasites and other organisms harmful to health. If you’re over 45 also there’s a good chance you could do with some stomach and nutritional help. Then again some of the little ones who just won’t eat properly and have no appetite also have stomachs that aren’t working optimally.

How can you tell? If you’re experiencing and discomfort or appetite change, a visit to see me will certainly give you a good picture of what you can do to help re-establish good digestive and immune health. Herbs and nutritional supplements like digestive enzyme promoters and even stress relief will have your stomach more settled. In the meantime here’s some dietary and lifestyle advice for a healthy gut:-

*Natural digestive enzymes – provided by eating plenty of salads and vegetables

*Good food combining – reduce stomach challenges. Try not to combine grains, pastas, spuds and breads with meats – eg. either have meats, veggies or salads; or rice and veggies at one meal- this is because your stomach acid changes from more alkaline for starches and grains to more acid for meats.

*Be relaxed when you eat. Stress switches off digestion.

*Only eat until you are 80% full –a golden rule to health and longevity. Eat more in the morning than at the end of the day – this gives your body the chance to rest and mend overnight instead of spending energy on digesting.

*Eat at regular times, and especially eat a good breakfast, a healthy lunch and a light healthy dinner. Most overweight people I know skip breakfast, lunch badly and eat huge dinners which is a golden path to obesity because your convincing your body its starving.

*Keep drinks away from eating, ideally 15 minutes before and 45 minutes after meals, this way you don’t dilute precious digestive enzymes and stomach acid.