Have you noticed your tummy works not as smooth with age? After a burger or that single bottle of beer your belly is distended, rumbling and bloating. Family dinners might cause troubles much worse than that, like diarrhoea. What is happening?
Let’s turn to history: our ancestors back in the days were much closer to nature than we are now. Despite the fact you buy only 100% organic foods and go jogging to the park – you are still closer to concrete jungle than to the real one.
How does it play to our health? It is simple – ancient people, living in their caves, had more simple food than we do today. They picked a herb and put it into the mouth, they killed a poultry, placed it on a stick to fry and ate it. No spicery, sauces, picklers or oils. Things changed drastically just a few centuries ago.
Look at us now: alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes, junk food are our best friends and worst enemies. They save our time by ruining our health and that takes faster than we can imagine. Why? Have you ever thought about what happens to your GI tract after food gets inside?
How does digestive apparatus work?
The mouth, esophagus, stomach and intestines are the organs of digestion. Surprised that the mouth is more than just the entrance? That’s where digestion starts. When chewing the food we give the whole system a signal that something is going to break in and all organs should be ready for it. Stomach starts immediately and the amount of gastric juice increases.
Saliva helps soften everything we consume and teeth chop it to make swallowing easier. Thanks to the esophagus, food is pushed to the stomach where it mixes with stomach acids and breaks into smaller particles which get to the intestines. The last ones have thin walls that open the floodgates to tiny specks of useful substances getting into the bloodstream to reach all vital body organs.
Why does the GI tract need help?
Most people believe this process is super fast and today there’s no food that was consumed yesterday inside our GI tract. In fact it usually takes 2 to 5 days (starting from the first bite and ending up with waste products getting out of the body).
This timing depends on what we eat, drink and even breathe. That cup of coffee you had in the morning instead of breakfast, just because you slept through the alarm clock or a secret cigarette you had been overly stressed – influence the way you feel.
Digestion goes on with obstacles, we suffer from floating, sometimes nausea, pain and insomnia. With these symptoms our body signalyzes us about serious problems and begs for help. That’s where we should step in and think over what we can do to save it from serious breakdown as nobody wants ulcers or gastritis.
Why enzymes and probiotics?
Nutritionists believe 99% of these troubles are due to the lack of enzymes and probiotics. What do we know about them? First of all, they are not the same thing. Enzymes are those tiny molecules that help decompose food into smaller specks, while probiotics (also known as good bacteria) are living microorganisms that are spread in our bodies and affect the process of digestion. Enzymes and probiotics are not interchangeable and we need them both.
Everytime we have stress, take medications, have a night out with alcohol, keep a strict diet or break our regular meal plan – we develop digestive dysfunction that reflects in time food stays inside us and the quality of digestion too. Prescribed drugs, junk, alcohol and stress reduce the level of probiotics that cover our intestines, thus breaking their function. Together with it they influence the amount of enzymes. As a result, we lose most of the useful substances we could soak with food. This leads to consuming more and more food, surcharging out GI tract and developing chronic diseases.
Luckily, both probiotics and enzymes can be purchased. They are offered in capsules, pills drops or even gummies and , if taken right, help fulfilling the norm of both components in our bodies. Yes, it is that easy and can normalize digestion in some weeks even if you had problems with it for ages.
