Bloating is one of the most common digestive complaints seen at the doctor’s office. Most doctors can’t help with this issue because there’s no medication for it. But there are many ways to stop bloating naturally and help you feel more comfortable in your body and jeans.
The key to fixing bloating is finding the underlying cause.
Let’s look at six reasons why you might be bloated and what to do about it.
Intestinal yeast overgrowth or bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine
Overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine, parasites or yeast overgrowth all cause bloating as a primary symptom.
All three conditions can be diagnosed with lab tests. If you test positive for any of the above conditions, lowering your carb/sugar intake and taking antimicrobial herbs can fix the problem. Working with a good functional medicine doctor to guide you is important.
These opportunistic overgrowths can occur when the immune system is weak or compromised. A great way to strengthen to immune system is by lightening the body’s toxic load through cleansing. This will help the liver filter blood better and support the immune system in keep microbes or pathogens in check.
Food intolerance
Another reason for bloating is food intolerance. Many people have intolerances to dairy, gluten, corn, soy, peanuts, fructose and shellfish. Lactose and gluten intolerances are the most common. You can have an intolerance without realizing.
Allergy testing at the doctors office is one way to find out and doing an elimination diet is the cheaper alternative. Simply eliminate common allergens for several weeks and reintroduce them one by one to gauge your body’s reaction.
Gluten sensitivity or celiac disease
Gluten is the most common food intolerance or allergy. Celiac disease is a more serious reaction to gluten, causing the immune system to attack itself and damage villi in the small intestine. About 5 percent of celiac suffers have absolutely no symptoms when eating gluten. You can test for celiac disease at the doctor’s office.
While cleansing or detoxing can’t reverse intolerances or allergies, it can support the body’s healing from inflammatory damage caused by eating gluten. It’s best to take gluten out of the diet completely because even small, occassional portions of gluten can cause reactions like bloating and inflammation.
Insulin intolerance
The pancreas secretes the hormone insulin and uses it to digest carbohydrates. High levels of insulin from eating too many carbohydrates can make you feel tired, bloated, and crave sugar. People with insulin intolerance tend to collect weight around their belly.
Insulin intolerance develops as the body becomes exhausted from producing extra insulin to handle large amounts of carbs and sugar in the daily diet.
You can improve insulin intolerance by lowering sugar and carbohydrate intake and balancing blood sugar with natural supplements such as chromium and cinnamon.
Poor food combining
How you eat can influence digestion and bloating and much as what you eat.
The rules of food combining are built around eating foods that are easiest to digest together. Different types of foods digest at different speeds, so it’s best to eat foods that have the same digestive speed and compatibility.
The most important rule is to eat fruit alone because of its high-speed digestibility. Combining fruit with carbs and protein can cause the fruit to digest too slowly and ferment in the gut, becoming food for bacteria and a source of bloat.
Another pair that shouldn’t be eaten together are protein and starches. The classic American combination of meat and potatoes makes both foods harder to digest. It’s better to eat meat with salad greens or low carb veggies and eat potatoes with fats and other veggies.
Other Causes of Bloating
Increasing the digestibility of food can greatly improve bloating caused from poorly digested food.
Also, eating at irregular meal times can cause bloating. Skipping meals can make you eat much bigger portions when you do eat. The more you eat the harder it is for the body to digest everything properly. Eating late at night or meals that are oversized is a bad habit that’s worth breaking to help with digestion and bloat.
Deficiency of digestive enzymes
There are several factors that cause people’s natural digestive enzyme production to decline. They are aging, low stomach acid, food intolerance, inflammation, chronic stress and yeast or bacteria overgrowth.
Digestive enzymes help the body digest food. They’re like scissors that slice into the fibers of carbs, protein and fat, breaking them into digestible pieces. Not having enough enzymes to digest your food can cause bloating.
Taking a full spectrum digestive enzyme can improve the symptoms of enzyme deficiency. At the same time, take an HCL supplement to raise stomach acid. But one of the best ways to increase your body’s natural production of enzymes is through a cleanse that helps heal the body from the damages of stress and poor diet.
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