Just Because You’re Eating Healthy Foods Doesn’t Mean You’re Absorbing Them

Choosing the Right Foods is just the Beginning

Seating a well balanced diet is great, but getting healthy food in your mouth is only the first step. Actually breaking down those foods and absorbing the nutrients is a complex process – it requires intentional chewing in addition to adequate salivary enzymes, stomach acid, pancreatic enzymes and bile.

Even further, we need healthy intestines, for a few reasons.

First, several digestive enzymes are made by cells of the small intestines. We need these enzymes to break down our food into small enough molecules that we can utilize them.

Secondly, the intestinal walls contain transporters that allow us to shuttle nutrients from our intestines into our bloodstream – this is how we turn our food into energy and building blocks for building and repairing our tissues.

There are so many factors that can influence your ability to absorb and assimilate your nutrients. Inflammation in your digestive tract is a big one and it is SO important to find and treat the cause (food sensitivities and dysbiosis are common targets).

What Influences My Ability To Absorb Nutrients?

• Medications
• Chronic stress
• Eating while distracted
• Insufficiencies of any of the “digestive juices” listed above can also prevent you from getting the most from your foods.

A nutritional evaluation in my office might include a review of how you feel when you eat, a nutrition-oriented physical exam, lab work, and some specialty diagnostics testing like the @genovadiagnostics Comprehensive Stool Testing or NutrEval Nutritional Assessment.  PMID: 20522896, 20410248

Schedule An In-Person Consultation or Vida TeleMedicine Video Consultation.