Digestive health problems range from uncomfortable heartburn to embarrassing gassiness. Digestive health problems are common all around the globe affecting most people more frequently than they’d like to admit.
Gastrointestinal diseases are among the common causes of digestive health problems. These include GERD, diarrhoea, and collateral cancer. Some digestive disorders show no signs even when examined, but you’ll suffer from the symptoms.
Other conditions like food allergies and intolerances show irregularities in the gastrointestinal tract, starting from the mouth to the anus. However, most of these conditions can be prevented or treated.
Digestive health problems, also known as gastrointestinal diseases, can be categorised into two; functional and structural.
Functional gastrointestinal diseases
These diseases show the gastrointestinal is healthy but doesn’t move properly when examined. Most of these issues affect the GI tract, including the rectum and colon. These diseases include constipation, IBS, nausea, gas, bloating, food poisoning, GERD and diarrhoea.
Factors that affect the gastrointestinal tract and its ability to keep moving include:
- Not getting in enough movement or exercise
- Stress
- A diet low in fibre
- Eating too many dairy products
- Overusing antidiarrhoeal medications, which results in a weak bowel muscle
- Resisting the urge to move your bowels due to diseases like haemorrhoids
- Travelling causes issues for some people
- Consuming antacid medicines with aluminium or calcium
- Pregnancy
- Taking certain medications like narcotics, antidepressants, iron pills, etc.
Structural gastrointestinal disease
These conditions cause your abdominal tract to look abnormal when examined and not work well. These conditions include strictures, diverticular disease, colon polyps, colon cancer stenosis, haemorrhoids, and inflammatory bowel disease. Some of these structural abnormalities can be extracted through surgery.
Common digestive health problems
Many problems affect the digestive tract. These include:
Gas and bloating
Gas is normal; you typically pass around 13 to 21 times daily. You can pass gas through burping and the anus. Gas is created when you swallow air, mainly when you’re eating or drinking. Sometimes gas is a byproduct of food breakdown. Some foods cause the production of lots of gas.
Food intolerance also causes gas buildup in the gut. {1} When you can’t digest a specific type of food either because you lack the enzymes to do so or your body can’t handle it, it is pushed down in the colon where it ferments, thus producing lots of gas which is uncomfortable and painful.
Bloating is the feeling of fullness in your stomach. It can result in a distended stomach or remain to be internal. Bloating is caused by IBS, food intolerance like celiac disease, a stomach infection, hormonal changes or constipation.
How to reduce gas and bloating
Our Intolerance Test
Every case of gas and bloating should be treated depending on the cause. If you experience bloating and gas after eating certain foods, getting an Intolerance Test will help you know which foods don’t serve you and must be eliminated from your diet.
However, other things you can do if you don’t have food intolerance include:
- Avoid fizzy drinks
- Eat and drink slowly
- Do more physical workouts
- Avoid chewing gum
- Cut back on fatty foods
- Avoid sweeteners like sorbitol and fructose
- Quit smoking
Constipation
This condition makes it hard to pass stool or causes infrequent bowel movements. Most times, constipation results from less fibre in your diet or a disruption in your regular diet. Constipation can cause you to strain during a bowel movement and result in a small hard stool that can sometimes lead to anal problems like haemorrhoids and anal fissures.
How to treat constipation
You can manage constipation by:
- Increasing your fibre and water intake
- Moving your bowels when the urge presents itself
- Increasing your exercise intensity
Heartburn or GERD
Heartburn, also known as acid indigestion, causes pain and a burning feeling in the upper part of your stomach and the middle of your chest. This pain can also spread to your jaw, neck, or arms, staying for a few minutes or lasting for hours.
Heartburn results from your lower oesophagal sphincter. When it opens too often or isn’t too tight, stomach acid can rise up and into the oesophagus resulting in a burning feeling. You can get heartburn due to overeating, eating spicy, acidic, greasy foods, smoking, lying down soon after eating, and consuming caffeine or alcohol.
Those with a higher risk of suffering from heartburn include those who are overweight, pregnant, smokers, and those with hiatal hernia.
How to treat heartburn
- If you’re overweight, losing extra weight is advisable as the extra kilograms put pressure on your stomach, forcing more acid up your oesophagus.
- If big meals trigger heartburn, eat smaller meals throughout the day rather than three large ones.
- Wear loose clothing because tighter ones press on your stomach, triggering heartburn.
- If you smoke, it relaxes that muscle that opens up, allowing acid up your oesophagus. Smoking also triggers your stomach to produce more acid.
- Antacids with calcium carbonate and magnesium help neutralise stomach acid.
Frequent heartburn is a sign of GERD, which is far more problematic as it can cause breathing problems like asthma, inflammation in the oesophagus, changes in the cells lining the oesophagus, which can result in cancer, and narrowing of the oesophagus.
IBS (irritable bowel syndrome)
IBS is a condition that causes your colon muscles to contract more or less. Some factors trigger IBS, like stress, specific foods, and medicines. Common symptoms of IBS include abdominal pain, bloating, excess gas, change in bowel movements from soft to hard, and switching between diarrhoea and constipation.
Treatment for IBS
- Increase fibre intake in your diet.
- Finding different ways to cope with stress
- Avoiding excess caffeine
- Taking an Intolerance Test to know foods that trigger your GI tract
- Hydrating throughout the day
- High-quality rest
What is the fastest way to cure digestive problems?
Most digestive problems require you to get to their root cause before considering how to treat them. The most common cause of digestive issues includes food intolerances. That’s why it’s common for people with celiac disease or lactose intolerance to suffer from significant digestive symptoms. {2}
Since your diet is the cause of digestive problems, you could start by taking an Intolerance Test. This test will help you figure out foods your gut doesn’t appreciate, and you can now take care of your health by eliminating those foods from your diet.
Eating healthy and adopting healthier lifestyles, like quitting drinking, smoking, and caffeine, also hugely help maintain your gut health. You can also take prebiotics and probiotics according to your health practitioner’s recommendations.
1 Food Intolerance https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21688-food-intolerance#:~:text=Food%20intolerances%20affect%20your%20digestive,inconvenient%20but%20not%20life%2Dthreatening
2 Celiac disease https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/celiac-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20352220
