Just as what we eat and drink has a huge impact on our overall health, it’s also essential to maintaining the health of one of the most complex parts of our bodies: the digestive system. Dr. Edward Levine with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center took the time to share his expertise with Healthy New Albany and demystify the gut.
Healthy New Albany: What exactly is the gut and what does it do?
Edward Levine: The gut functions to absorb food and it eliminates waste. It’s all about absorbing nutrients from the food that you eat, and then eliminating the rest in terms of excrement.
HNA: What food groups are best for maintaining or improving gut health?
EL: We usually tell people to try high-fiber foods and low-fat foods – lean meats, that type of thing. Fewer processed foods, in general. This is what we tell people, but everyone’s different. Figuring out your diet is a journey. Even when you find out what foods you can and can’t eat, your body changes. What you might have been able to eat in your 20s, you can’t eat when you’re older. For gut health, stick to high-fiber and low-fat and fruits and vegetables.
HNA: What are some tell-tale signs you have an unhealthy gut? What should you do if you’re experiencing symptoms?
EL: The biggest sign is if there’s any sort of change. If you’re doing fine and all of a sudden you’re having problems, you want to start by checking in with your primary care doctor. Those changes could be diarrhea, constipation, bleeding, weight loss, heartburn, etc.
HNA: On the flip side, how do you know if your gut is healthy?
EL: If you’re feeling fine and nothing’s going on, and you don’t have any of those symptoms, you’re probably doing OK. You do maybe want to consider some risk factors, such as family history. If there’s a family history of colon cancer or inflammatory bowel disease and you start developing symptoms of rectal bleeding or diarrhea, you’ll be at a higher risk to develop that. So you’ll want to go to the doctor. At age 50, you should have a colon cancer screening, and sooner if there’s family history.
HNA: What is gut flora? What does it do?
EL: Gut flora is the bacteria that are present in our gut. It helps the cells that line the intestinal track stay healthy, whether it’s through the absorption of nutrients or secretion of water and fluids. There’s a lot of stuff written about gut flora these days. What I like to do is get the good bacteria through food. You can go to the store and get all sorts of probiotic material naturally, through food. Yogurts, for example, are also high in protein, but you should avoid the ones with lots of sugar. A lot of yogurts are filled up with sugar.
HNA: What causes bloating and what can be done to prevent or reduce it?
EL: If you figure that one out, let me know! This is where it’s nearly impossible to give a complete answer. A lot of times, bloating can be caused by the foods we tend to eat, such as carbohydrates or sugars that are then metabolized into bacteria that bloats in the gut. A lot of bloating is aggravated by food, so it decreases with a diet adjustment. We send people to dieticians all the time to help with that.
There’s something called small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. That can cause a lot of gas and bloating. Sometimes, what we’ll do to treat a patient for overgrowth is put them on antibiotics. That kills some bacteria. Sometimes, we’ll put them on probiotics, sometimes prebiotics. It gets to be somewhat complicated. Sometimes patients will have underlying diseases that will predispose them to bacterial overgrowth. You have to individualize each and every patient. You have to treat them accordingly, and you should start off by screening with your primary care doctor.
HNA: Is bloating ever unhealthy?
EL: It can be unhealthy, especially if you’re losing weight. A lot of times, though, bloating is just functional and related to your diet.
HNA: How does digestion affect the rest of our body?
EL: If you’ve got a digestive illness, it could be that you just end up not feeling well. The rest of your body suffers from it, since the body as a whole is all intertwined. If a person is just not feeling well, it could be anything from Crohn’s disease to an ulcer.
Hannah Bealer is an editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenecolumbus.com.
Dr. Edward Levine has spent the majority of his career affiliated with The Ohio State University. He specializes in gastroenterology at the OSU Wexner Medical Center, where he also completed his residency. Levine served as chief of staff at OSU’s University Hospital from 2009-2011.
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