“What exactly is the gut?”
This very question put me in my place just the other day.
Because I mean, really, it’s kinda hard to understand or fix your symptoms related to gut issues if you don’t know what the gut is!
So, when a patient of mine asked me that question, I realized I had dropped the ball and had some explaining to do. It’s time we do a little Gut 101 training …
But first, imagine what it would be like to purchase a brand spankin’ new sports car.
It runs like a dream, eh? However, over time it begins to make some funny sounds. It starts with a clicking which eventually leads to a clacking sound.
You take it in to the shop only to find out that you were flat out of oil. Whoops.
If you had simply kept the oil topped up and done regular oil changes, you wouldn’t be having such major (and expensive!) car issues.
You see, your engine needs regular oil top ups and oil changes to keep itself in tip-top shape so everything else works properly. The engine is the hub of the car – if it doesn’t work, nothing does.
Same goes for your gut – it needs to be regularly fueled, flushed out, and cared for to stay in tip-top shape in order to keep everything else working smoothly. The gut is the hub of your body – if it doesn’t work well, nothing else does either.
So now that we’ve painted a bit of a picture, let’s dig a little deeper …
What is the Gut?
The gut, essentially, is your entire intestinal tract – from your mouth to your anus. It contains all organs that are necessary for everything from digestion to elimination.
It even contains more nerve cells than your peripheral nervous system (outside of the brain and the spinal cord).
It’s also directly connected to the brain via the vagus nerve, which is the longest cranial nerve with the widest distribution in the body.
This major connection is why we call the gut your second brain.
Your Gut: The Second Brain
The vagus nerve is the 10th (of 12) cranial nerves and is part of our enteric nervous system. In other words, it controls unconscious things like your heart rate and digestion.
This nerve passes information between the gut and the brain, with about 80-90% of the nerve fibers communicating directly to the brain¹, but of course – this information goes both ways.
Think of it kind of like a bus route that delivers people to the right places at just the right time. It’s pretty amazing what the vagus nerve does, when you think about it.
So that “gut” instinct of yours? It’s for real.
What Affects the Gut?
Understanding the vagus nerve connection is really important in order to understand what can affect the gut because, really, anything that affects the brain or gut will affect the other.
For example – stress, trauma, food, age, exercise, illness, medications, etc., can all affect the gut. This can lead to any number of symptoms from bloating, to brain fog, to constipation, to anxiety, to food allergies, and so on.
But What’s the Long Term Impact?
Here’s where the real problems can come into play.
Ignoring our gut health means we’re aggravating it regularly. Think back to the car analogy – when you ignore the engine, bigger problems will eventually result. The same goes for the gut!
The gut’s first line of defense for any aggravation is inflammation – which should be a good thing! However, chronic inflammation leads us down the road to disease.
There’s also the matter of an imbalance of gut microbiome (which can lead to SIBO – small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), or aggravation causing little holes in the walls of your small intestine, allowing particles that aren’t supposed to get out right into your blood stream (leaky gut).
Really, the list of disorders and diseases that can come from long-term aggravation of the gut is long. Like really, really long.
So, Now What?
It’s important to be watching for signs and symptoms that your gut might be aggravated and in need of a little TLC.
Taking steps now to care for your gut will have a great impact on your life later on.
The other thing you can do for your gut? Feed it good food that nourishes it and doesn’t aggravate it – like these No-Bake Cranberry Cacao Bites.
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https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201302/the-neurobiology-grace-under-pressure
