Thrive in 30: Digestion, Immunity and Whole Body Health
This will be my sixth post for the Thrive in 30 series with Vega. My absolutely favorite class, hands-down, for the MS in Nutrition was Advanced Nutrient Metabolism. I LOVED learning the pathways of digestion, absorption, enzymes, and functions of the foods that we eat. The Thrive in 30 Lesson 5 is about Digestion: The Link to Immunity and Whole Body Health.
Main Ideas of Lesson 5:
- Once food has left your stomach, your body is not actually done with it yet. The small and large intestines have a big role in digestion, they actually pull out nutrients as well if there is enough healthy bacteria in the digestive system to do so
- Probiotics help restore that naturally healthy bacteria environment, which allows a “better” digestion process. ( Think of those Dannon Activia commercials… helping you stay “regular”)
- Your body manufactures the enzymes it needs to aid the digestive reactions in your body. You also obtain enzymes through the food you eat. Brendan’s train of thought is that if your body is always having to use energy to build enzymes, you will be constantly exhausting the production ability over time by eating refined and processed foods.
- Not only do these foods contain less nutrients overall as we have learned here and here, but the food itself is not digested as well without enzymes leaving you hungrier.
- Brendan mentioned how older adults all of a sudden look really old… and that this is because they have exhausted their manufacturing ability to build enzymes.
- Fiber is known for “keeping us full” and helping with digestion. There are two types, Soluble and Insoluble. Soluble helps stabilize blood sugar. If you have something with lots of sugar like a piece of fruit with soluble fiber, your blood sugar levels will not spike as high.
- Brendan gives the example of when children eat a sugary cereal for breakfast. By the time it is ready to learn at school, the kiddos are either crashing or on a “sugar high” which could perhaps often be mistaken for ADHD, or behavioral issues, etc.
Brendan, What do we do?
- Eat whole food smoothies, of course! Your kiddo will be full all morning- he or she will be an ANGEL for their teacher, for you and for all those that ever come into contact with them.
- Okay, to be honest, I think Brendan and I are actually on the same page about this for real. I think the whole food smoothies that Vega offers are nutritionally sound and ideal. However, we can obtain most of what we need if we eat plenty of fruits and vegetables (dark leafy greens), lean proteins, unprocessed WHOLE foods, etc. without having to eat smoothies everyday.
What do I think:
- The small and large intestines play a huge part in a process called ABSORPTION. That process is the absorbing of the nutrients that have been broken down (carbohydrates —>—> glucose) and used for something else (i.e transported via the blood to the brain to fuel something like writing a blog post).
- The intestines need a healthy environment to thrive. Honestly, Don’t we all need a healthy environment to thrive? A Whole Foods within walking distance, safely lit sidewalks, a playground, walk to work, a gym, friends, supportive family… I digress only slightly. This healthy environment is established for the intestines with strains of bacteria that help clean out your system and help absorb nutrients.
- Probiotics are everywhere, they are naturally in foods like yogurt, enhanced in yogurts like Dannon, and found in breastmilk too (babies need healthy digestive systems to grow so fast!). They are also in supplements, fancy Kombucha teas, and in Vega products as well. I can say my favorite paper in grad school was the role of Probiotics in Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Say that 4 times fast.
- Prebiotics actually help the probiotics flourish in the healthy digestive environment, this concept is mentioned on the video page but not in the video. I researched this quite a bit in regards to Necrotizing Enterocolitis (essentially a premature baby lacks the properly developed digestive system since it is born so early. Research has gone into treating it, preventing it and mostly around pre & probiotics currently.)
- Enzymes, well, I agree and disagree. I think there is oxidation that occurs naturally over time that cause aging and yes, that would mean enzyme involvement. Do I think that is why older people look old ? No, not really but I’m sure eating processed foods their whole life has not done anything to help them age “well” so to speak.
- Not only do these foods contain less nutrients overall as we have learned here and here, but the food itself is not digested as well without enzymes leaving you hungrier. This I completely agree with because our body is not getting sufficient absorption. You can eat all you want but if there is an issue with the absorption process, that is going to leave you with malnutrition (improper nutrition leaves you without whole body health).
What do YOU think?
