The phrase “all disease starts in the gut” is often tossed around and for good reason. Your digestive system affects all the other systems in the body. The healthiest region of the body needs to be your gut. The gut controls how we think, feel, and act on a daily basis. I want to explore the link between how we feel and the health of the gut.
Connecting the gut and your mental health
Mental health has been a hot topic for years, even more so the past couple of years with the stress that has been placed onto kids and adults alike. Antidepressants are being prescribed to more and more people without showing much improvement on some patients. The main reason they don’t work is the medical field thinks it is a brain chemistry issue and it is not. It is a gut issue.
Whether you have anxiety or depression, the cause is still the same, an endotoxin called LPS is at the wrong level. The amount of LPS in the gut is about 1 gram. If this amount was injected into 1000 people, it could kill all of them, it is that deadly. LPS is given off by bacteria in the gut when your body attacks and kills it, releasing the LPS endotoxin. This is what causes the gut to become leaky. When this happens, the issue of mental health disorders, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain can affect us.
Antidepressants, one of the most frequently prescribed medications, acts like an antibiotic which can lead to antibiotic resistance. When placed against a placebo, they show no benefit. It makes you wonder why we continue to hammer the false way of thinking that continues today. If you lump antidepressants and antibiotics during a person’s lifetime, they have a much greater chance of anxiety, panic attacks, and major depression. Why? Both meds affect the gut.
What changes need to be made?
We need to change this way of thinking and start looking at how the gut and brain communicate. If you have poor digestion, you can’t make the hormones and neurotransmitters needed to feel happy and healthy. Many people then choose to feed themselves crappy food which reflects on our way of thinking and feeling. Studies have shown that certain gut bacteria cause depression or anxiety. How we choose to feed the gut determines which bacteria grow the best. Eating real food is a great place to start and not eat the crappy stuff.
I like to ask patients if they have any digestive issues at a visit. This can play a huge role in how healthy they truly are. Inflammation in the gut tells me there is inflammation in the body, too. Clearing the gut of this inflammation helps people feel better. Often removing certain foods which can eliminate infections is the first step. Many people lack proper stomach acid production due to the infections, stress of life, and poor sleeping habits. We replace digestive juices like HCL, enzymes, and bile to help people heal up the gut. Next we use an anti-inflammatory shake to help reduce the impact of LPS on the body and the gut along with glutamine, zinc, and DGL to restore the gut lining. This stops the flow of inflammation from the gut into the body. Lastly, we plant the seeds of good bacteria and feed them food to help them grow.
One last thing I check for in patients is a hiatal hernia. This is when the diaphragm pushes up into the chest cavity due to improper breathing and pressure placed on the stomach with sitting at a desk or driving. The hiatal hernia pushes into the stomach and causes reflux and a decrease in stomach acid production. Showing patients how to pull this down on their own helps the digestion at the top so things at the bottom go much smoother.
If you are dealing with digestive issues and have anxiety or depression, now is the time to reach out and ask questions and get some help.
-Dr. Brian Opp, D.C.