You sit down to eat an amazing salad that you just made from scratch. It has all of the elements you are after for a healthy meal. There are chickpeas for their gut friendly prebiotic action, red rice for the fibre and zinc, broccoli for its liver detoxifying effect, leafy greens for a bio-available folate hit and some sliced free-range grilled rare beef for protein, iron and vitamin B12. Is it possible that as you eat this delicious meal you unknowingly are not absorbing very much of it’s goodness at all?
I routinely see people that have lost the ability to absorb very much of what they eat. The clue often lies in them having gastric symptoms and when tested their iron vitamin B12 and zinc levels are low. In order to absorb what you eat a couple of things need to happen. The enteric nervous system needs to swing into action. This is a nervous system that is completely dedicated to helping your gut function, it is our body’s second brain. And hormones, namely gastrin and secretin need to be released.
Our enteric nervous system innervates our gut and its our vagal nerve that acts like a sensor for what we need to release to help us breakdown and absorb our food. The vagal nerve stimulates hydrochloric/stomach acid and pepsinogen release in the stomach and activates digestive enzyme production. When stomach acid is not released at high enough amounts we see a slow down in motility and often the stomach is no longer emptying completely and this leads to gut problems.
When your vagal nerve is not working optimally we see:
Belching
Nausea
Feeling excessively full after meals
Reflux
Abdominal pain
Low appetite
Weight loss
Bloat
Flatulence
Constipation
Causes of vagal nerve damage include surgery, bulimia and/or anorexia nervosa, trauma, diabetes, infection, pain medication use hypothyroidism, scleroderma, multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. Having and not treating Helicobacter pylori infection can also cause a reduction in the production of stomach acid as this bacteria releases a substance called urease that changes the pH of the stomach to an alkaline pH. This leads to nutrient malabsorption over time. Proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, Losec or Somac act in the same way. They are often prescribed for high stomach acid and when taken long term create an alkaline pH that results in nutrient malabsorption.
Vagal tone issues left untreated can snowball into more digestive problems like intestinal permeability, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, damage to the microbiome and inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. If you are eating a beautiful, healthy diet, have a known history of iron deficiency and your zinc and vitamin B12 numbers don’t look that flash you may want to get that looked into in more detail.