Gut Health - Robert Seik, PharmD

Maintaining gut health is very important and there are many different factors that you need to know such as food sensitivities, enzymes, probiotics, and amino acids in order to do so.

The gut is a 30 foot tube from end to end and it is actually how humans interact with the world. If you spread out the surface of the gut including all of the villi and microvilli, it will cover the size of a tennis court. All of the foods we eat, all of the micronutrients, are absorbed through the gut.

There are good bacteria that are in the gut and they belong there. These healthy flora, also called probiotics when you find them in supplements, help us to digest the food that we intake. There are about 100 trillion organisms that reside in our gut. If this balance is upset, we compromise our gut health. These organisms are often the last step necessary for food digestion, so that we get the micronutrients from the food. Without these organisms, we can become nutrient depleted.

Maintaining gut health is very important. You can take probiotics in order to maintain and prevent loss of your healthy flora, especially when you are taking antibiotics that may compromise your healthy flora. Partell pharmacy offers many different probiotics that you can find on their online store. One of them is Ortho Molecular Ortho Biotic.

But, maintaining gut health is more than just taking in probiotics. You can also take digestive enzymes that are made by the pancreas such as Ortho Molecular Products' Digestzyme V. These enzymes actually decrease as we age so it is important to supplement in order to properly break down food. Fiber is also a very important factor to maintain proper gut health.

Something else that is important to know, is that certain foods that we are sensitive to, also called a food intolerance, can actually damage the gut over time. These food sensitivities can have such mild symptoms that you may not even know you have this intolerance. You may not break out in hives or have a severe reaction like difficulty breathing, but instead it might be mild bloating or post nasal drip or mild muscle aches. You may not even know that you are having an issue with these certain foods. So, even these mild food sensitivities can harm your gut.

Some of the common offenders are Casein, which is a protein found in milk products and Gluten which is found in wheat, rye and barley. This is why Dr. Seik is an advocate for the Paleolithic diet that removes dairy, grains and sugar from the diet. There is a test available to check for multiple food sensitivities such as gluten, wheat and dairy located through www.cyrexlabs.com. A medical physician must register at this site to order the test. The recommended test is array #4.

It is important to learn about Leaky Gut Syndrome, where holes are formed in the gut from food sensitivities and from many other causes. These holes allow undigested food particles through, which triggers the body to mount an immune response. Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus, both autoimmune disorders, have been associated with Leaky Gut Syndrome. Please see the blog regarding causes and common symptoms and conditions linked to Leaky Gut Syndrome.

You can heal the gut with Glutamine and other amino acids. Dr. Seik recommends a cold-derived colostrum product after the offending agents like casein or gluten has been removed. Please review the video on Gluten sensitivity to learn more.

So, you see the importance of having a healthy gut and how important it is to know your food sensitivities. Many individuals who are sick and tired, but are unable to find the cause can start out by improving their gut health.

by Robert Seik, PharmD