Ep. 5: Beat the Bloat – Chinese Medicine digestion secrets!

Given that this episode is coming out the day after Christmas (and considering all of the feasting that often comes with this time of year!), I thought it was a timely opportunity to talk about digestion from a Chinese Medicine perspective, and to share some pearls of wisdom that have stood the test of time over millennia. Chinese Medicine has long understood, and almost revered, the role that the gut and digestion play as a foundation for all-round health of mind and body. As a result of this, in Chinese Medicine we have a whole pillar of practice that focuses on nutrition or dietary therapy, and which offers guidelines not only on what to eat, but how to eat it. Listen in to hear some simple, natural tips to boost digestion! Stomach 43 image: A Manual of Acupuncture, Deadman & Al-Khafaji Stomach 36 image: A Manual of Acupuncture, Deadman & Al-Khafaji Spleen 3 image: A Manual of Acupuncture, Deadman & Al-Khafaji Show Notes Transcript Hi everyone and Merry Christmas, happy holidays. Given that this episode is coming out on Boxing Day (and considering all of the feasting that often comes with this time of year!), I thought it was a timely opportunity to talk about digestion from a Chinese Medicine perspective - and to share some pearls of wisdom that have stood the test of time over millennia. Chinese Medicine has long understood - and almost revered - the role that the gut and digestion play, as a foundation for all-round health of the mind and body and emotions. In many of the traditional diagrams that outline the interconnectedness of the various organs and systems in the body, the digestion (which we also refer to as the Spleen and Stomach, or the Earth, because it forms the foundation for everything) is often placed at the center of these schematics, which highlights its central and fundamental role. And because of this in Chinese Medicine, we have a whole pillar of practice that is Chinese Medicine Nutrition or dietary therapy, which offers guidelines not only on what to eat, but also how to eat it. Also, many of our acupuncture points, and therapies like moxa (which is heat application) or infrared lamp and the herbs that we use - all of these modalities have been shown to have an impact on gut health as well, whether by raising certain bacterial populations in the gut, or by improving the efficacy of digestion. This perspective regarding the importance of gut health is something that biomedicine has recently come around to as well, with an ever-growing body of research into the role of the microbiome and gut bacteria. The microbiome is the sum total of all of the bacteria and microbes that live in and on our bodies, so when we consider the number of cells that make up our body or what we think of as our human body, the number of bacterial cells of vastly outnumbers the human cells by a factor of roughly 10 to 1 - which might prompt some musing on what it means to be human, and what our perception of ourselves is based on, if 90% of the cells that make up our whole being are actually bacterial cells! It's quite mind boggling, isn't it?! A healthy and balanced microbiome is fundamental to thriving, good health because the bacteria that live in and on us aren't just freeloading - they actually have many important roles in the function of our body. This includes important processes, like the metabolism and assimilation of nutrients... they're involved in immune regulation, And mood and brain regulation. Many of you might have heard the fact that 90% of serotonin, which is our happy feel good neurotransmitter, is made in the gut, so having a healthy, happy, balanced gut bacteria is truly essential to good health. Meanwhile, an imbalanced microbiome has been linked to a whole range of symptoms and conditions from diabetes to depression, anxiety, autism, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and a whole host of inflammatory bowel conditions. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! In an attempt to rebalance the microbiome, we're seeing all manner of interventions, from the relatively benign or simple probiotics (and probiotic foods), also prebiotic foods (which give us the substrate or the materials for the probiotics to thrive); we're seeing antibiotic therapy in some cases where we're just obliterating all of the gut bacteria (or all the susceptible bacteria), and we're also seeing on the extreme end, things like fecal transplants, which is the transplant of healthy fecal matter - so healthy poos basically transplanted into the bowels of those who are affected by certain conditions. What we often find is that with the transplant of that bacteria, we'll see an improvement and that can be maintained if the underlying foundation of gut health is looked after at the same time. In Chinese Medicine, we are always looking to get to the root of the imbalance - to get to the foundation and correct it from there. So when looking at gut health and gut bacteria, we can take the analogy of a garden, for example. When we think about a garden, say, if it's got poor soil or it's marshy or it's receiving insufficient light or drainage, we're going to have trouble growing the healthy balance of plants - or bacteria - that we want in order to have the maximum benefit; what we might see instead is an overgrowth of weeds - which would be reflective of the non-beneficial bacteria which crowd out the space for everything else, and all the plants that we actually want to grow. One way to resolve the weeds, is to bomb everything - like a blanket-clearing of everything, as with antibiotics - just raze everything to the ground. It will be a short term fix, but it won't necessarily fix the underlying imbalance, as once you're done with the antibiotics, the non-desirables can often come back - and often in greater force as you've already damaged the soil in the garden. An example of this might be some of the experimental therapies looking at antibiotic infusions for people suffering with arthritis and other autoimmune conditions. They have ound that using antibiotics could confer short term benefits, but the long-term benefits were sketchy because, again, it was obliterating all of the gut bacteria. Similarly using probiotics or fecal transplants without addressing the underlying health of the soil or the underlying imbalance is like just planting desirable plants or bacteria into an unprepared or untended garden. They might hang on for a bit, but they won't be able to gain a strong foothold unless the foundation is addressed. In Chinese medicine, this is a big part of what we do -we look at how we can support this essential function of digestion, which is so fundamental to life and health. To bring up another analogy, in Chinese medicine - as in Ayurveda and other traditional age-old medicines - we view the digestion as a cooking pot, or cooking fire, and the healthier and more powerful our digestive fire, the better our assimilation of nutrients, and therefore the better our health and vitality. If the digestive fire is strong, we can break down all the food that we eat efficiently and completely, which allows us to absorb maximal nutrition. In Chinese medicine, this is why we say you are not only what you eat, but you are also what you can digest. You might be eating all the amazing superfoods, but if they're not being absorbed completely, you're not getting the maximum benefit from them. Another benefit of strong, efficient digestion is that food gets broken down in the appropriate point of the digestive tract. If digestion is weak, foods that should be more thoroughly broken down at the upper end of the digestive tract (around the stomach) reach the lower end (the intestines) insufficiently digested, and there they can cause improper fermentation, which might manifest as bloating, gas, and irritation of the gut lining. And this irritation of the gut lining is another concern, because over time when that delicate gut lining is being continually aggravated, it can contribute to a situation of leaky gut, which is where the cell junctions (of the cells lining the wall of the intestines) become looser, and allow the materials from inside the digestive tract to permeate into the body. Now the digestive tract is meant to be a sealed closed system, so when matter leaves here and leaks out of the gut into the systemic circulation, it is rightfully picked up by the body as foreign - it's "not-self". This can trigger a whole host of immune and autoimmune reactions such as joint pains, mucus production, lethargy, mood swings - a whole host of symptoms. And we'll get more into this in future episodes as well, and particularly the role that gluten that is sprayed with certain substances can play in this. So that explains why complete digestion - and a healthy digestive fire is so essential to our health. One of the ways that we maintain the strength of our digestive fire, and keep stoking it, in Chinese Medicine is with warm and cooked food, and warm drinks as well. And I do get a lot of eye rolls from patients when I first bring this up, especially in summer, when people say, "Oh my God, but it's hot. What am I going to eat?" This is where we can look to a lot of the Southeast Asian cuisines, and Indian cuisines, for inspiration - or even Middle Eastern: these are all hot climates and yet we don't see a proliferation of raw food. In fact, we see a strong focus on warm food and alsodigestive herbs and spices, like ginger or pepper for example, that help to support digestion. Also in a lot of these climates, we see people reaching for warm drinks: for example, in Hong Kong, I love how they have the hot water dispensers available in the airport and public spaces, and I love that we're seeing these pop up at the Gold Coast picnic areas! This is awesome, and such a great way to look after our guts when we're on the move. So yes, in a lot of those warmer climates, we actually see that people are consciously reaching for warmer food an