What happens when your gut doesn’t function properly?
Problems with your gut can lead to more than just stomach aches, gas, and bloating. Your gastrointestinal system is a highly complex system involving trillions of living organisms alongside your own human cells.
A problem with your gut can cause symptoms to arise that may seem totally unrelated to the digestive system, like skin conditions, autoimmune disease, diabetes, and heart disease.
What can we do to help our gut?
In functional medicine, we reference a protocol called the five “R”s:
- Remove
- Replace
- Reinoculate
- Repair
- Rebalance
By following the 5R gut protocol, you may be surprised by how much your mind and body change for the better.
1: Remove
Get rid of stressors. A stressor is anything that hurts the gastrointestinal tract, like allergens, inflammation, and invaders, like bacteria, parasites, and yeast.
There are many ways to go about this. The elimination diet can help you identify foods that are harming your gut. There are many ways to reduce inflammation, which you can learn about through research. A functional medicine practitioner can help you target harmful bugs using supplements and/or medications.
2: Replace
Your digestive system uses a slough of different chemicals to do it’s many complicated jobs. Ensure that things like digestive enzymes, hydrochloric acid, and bile acids are properly replenished, since these things can be replated by medications, diseases, again, and other factors.
3: Reinoculate
Support your gut biome by eating probiotic rich foods, but more importantly, eat foods that nourish the bacteria already present, like fiber.
4: Repair
Key nutrients allow the gut lining to repair itself after sustaining damage. When nutrients like zinc, vitamins A, C and E, amino acid glutamine, and omega 3 fatty acids are lacking, the gut suffers. Replenishing these compounds will allow repairs to take place.
5: Rebalance
All of these interventions will help your gut, but they won’t be enough to compensate for poor lifestyle. Just as your gut affects nearly every other bodily function, the converse is true: almost everything you do affects your gut.
Sleep, exercise, and stress remain as important as ever, not only for gut health, but for the health of every system in your body.
If you are experiencing any of the symptoms listed above, it may be time to meet with a functional medicine practitioner. The five R’s offer an excellent place to start when exploring ways to support a healthier gut. To learn more about related symptoms and treatment considerations, read our guide on how to heal leaky gut. MaxWell Clinic offers comprehensive health evaluations and personalized treatment plans based on each patient’s individual needs. Contact us at 615-370-0091 to learn whether MaxWell Clinic is right for you and how a personalized 5R gut protocol may support your next steps.
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