Eating for Digestive Health - Part Two. Supporting your stomach!

In Part One of this series, I talked about the importance of digestive function to your overall health, and introduced all the magic (beyond taste) that happens in your mouth. I will now jump right into the next stage of digestion. The second stop on the digestion train is your stomach, which is an acidic environment. Your stomach is the primary site for protein absorption, but that is not all it does. I will outline each of the 9 chemicals secreted in the stomach below:

Hydrochloric Acid (HCI)

Hydrochloric Acid is produced by the parietal cells and helps with breaking down your proteins. It helps to release B12, iron, calcium, magnesium and zinc from food. It also signals to the pancreas and the gallbladder that food is moving through. HCI transmutes pepsinogen into pepsin, and also kills pathogens that enter with food so they don’t get further into the digestive tract. Low stomach acid may contribute to: bloating, early fullness, reflux, poor protein digestion, mineral deficiencies, and increased susceptibility to GI infections.

Pepsin

Produced by chief cells as pepsinogen and then activated by stomach acid. Pepsin continues the breakdown of your proteins for readiness into the small intestine.

Intrinsic Factor (IF)

Intrinsic Factor is produced by the parietal cells. It has the interesting job of binding B12 to allow its absorption later in the small intestine. Insufficient intrinsic factor can lead to fatigue, B12 deficiency, and megaloblastic anemia.

Gastric Lipase

Gastric lipase is produced by chief cells, and begins the digestion of your fats. Most of your fast digestion occurs further in the digestive tract with the addition of bile and pancreatic lipase.

Mucus

Produced by mucus cells lining the stomach, mucus protects the tissues from acid and pepsin. It forms a protective barrier over the stomach lining and prevents the stomach from digesting itself.

Bicarbonate

This neutralizes acid at the stomach lining as necessary. It works together with the mucus.

Gastrin

Gastrin is produced by G cells. It increases stomach motility and stimulates acid production when protein enters the stomach.

Histamine

Yes, histamine! Produced by the enterochromaffin-like (ECL) cells. In the stomach, histamine stimulates the parietal cells to produce hydrochloric acid. With many individuals dealing with histamine intolerance or overload, it is easy to see histamine as bad. However, histamine has important and necessary functions in the body. In balance, it serves the body. It is only problematic when the body is out of balance. The overproduction, intolerance or difficulty clearing it are not the root of symptoms most of the time, but more of a mile marker and an opportunity for tailored symptom reduction. This illustrates the need for your body to be in balance system-wide function well. An overproduction or underproduction of histamine will negatively impact the body’s functioning.

Ghrelin

Ghrelin is produced primarily in the stomach. It signals hunger and helps regulate appetite and meal initiation. Ghrelin typically rises before meals and falls afterward. It influences energy and metabolism.

The stomach functions better when you allow space between eating. Each time you have something to eat, your stomach needs time to complete processing it before you introduce more food. Timing of eating makes a big difference in how you feel. Ideally, you want to have 3-5 hours between each thing you eat or drink that requires digestion. That allows time not only for the stomach to complete its process, but also for the migrating motor complex (MMC) to do its work. The MMC is a wave-like motion that moves through your entire digestive tract from top to bottom. It sweeps residual food particles through the stomach and into the small intestine, clears mucus, bacteria and cellular debris, and helps prevent excessive bacterial buildup in the small intestine. It also re-tightens all the sphincters. You have a sphincter between your esophagus and stomach, stomach and small intestine, and small intestine and large intestine (colon), and the MMC retightens them all.

Timing of eating is also a consideration for sleep quality, sleep therapeutic benefit and metabolism the next day. For example, if a large meal is eaten shortly before bed the stomach may still be relatively full. In this scenario, acid is more likely to move upward toward the esophagus and reflux symptoms may worsen. During the nighttime hours, your body is programmed to complete recovery and repair tasks. If you are digesting a late consumed meal, your body is unable to complete those tasks. This interferes with overall health and vitality, and certainly your energy the next day. Chronic sleep disruption can affect gut motility, gastric emptying, blood sugar regulation, and hunger and satiety hormone—namely ghrelin (hunger hormone) and leptin (satiety hormone). Ghrelin increases with sleep deprivation and leptin decreases with sleep deprivation. This will impact appetite and satiety the next day. You see how it’s all connected?

Stay tuned for the next part of the series where the small intestine is introduced. This is where the majority of your absorption happens and a great deal of inflammation can occur. If you have heard the term “leaky gut”, this is where it is.

Please share your stories and experiences, I would love to hear from you!

This article and all my articles are edited with care by my talented daughter Aiyanna Becker.