Certain foods that don't agree with you?
Foods that go straight through you? Snacks that make your belly feel as hard as a brick and the size of a basketball? Lunches that make you produce enough wind to power an electricity generator for a small village?
It's really common for me to hear 'I think I've got an intolerance to...' (insert various food stuffs here, usually something you really like).
And sometimes, it is indeed true that particular foods are producing undesirable symptoms for you.
But is it an intolerance? Not necessarily....
Your digestive system is like a finely tuned domino run.
Sometimes your 'intolerance' is actually more down to a domino that's gone a little skew whiff.
Here are just a few true causes of those 'intolerances' I see frequently with my clients:
1. Not chewing enough
Remember your stomach does not have teeth. Chewing is one of the crucial starting points of your digestion. If you don't chew well you are not allowing your stomach acid to work properly or to signal to your bile and other enzymes that you are about to send food downwards. This can result in partially digested food reaching your gut where it is fermented and produces more gas (hello bloating and pain).
2. Eating in a rush
Your digestive system starts to prepare for food before you've even put it in your mouth. Around 20% of your stomach acid is made when you are thinking about what you are going to eat and preparing it. The muscular and nerve actions that drive food through your system need you to be in a relaxed state to work at their best. Dashing into M&S for a meal deal and then wolfing it down as you walk back to your desk serves neither of these mechanisms well.
3. Hormonal changes
For both women and men, hormonal changes as we age can impact on the amount of stomach acid and bile we make. This changes our ability to breakdown particular foods we used to have no problem with. But we don't need to accept this, there is a lot we can do to help our digestion adjust to our new normal.
4. Stress
This impacts on our digestion domino in many ways. For instance, chronic stress impacts on the diversity of friendly bacteria in our gut. This can change the health of our gut lining and function, making us less comfortable digesting particular foods.
5. Fructose overload
Too much of this type of sugar all at once can overload the gut's absorption capacity - have you ever had a large fruit smoothie and had to find a loo fast? This could be why.
6. Histamine overload
Certain foods are rich in histamine, others block enzymes that break it down for us to excrete. Sometimes our histamine bucket overflows and our digestive domino run turns into an inflammed and nauseous mess.
I don't think any of these apply to me - can I test for food intolerances?
The short answer is yes, you can. But it isn't that straightforward. There are A LOT of tests available with very questionable science behind what they are measuring and how.
Even the best blood-spot tests I occasionally use in clinic often indicate that you are intolerant to the food you eat the most because they are measuring an immune reaction in the blood to food that has escaped your gut lining (and should still be in there).
I urge you to talk to a practitioner like me before buying any tests directly off the internet. You are more likely to resolve your issues taking a holistic view of your digestive system and working on making sure your domino run is in perfect working order.
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