Mysteries of the gut are revealed, explained

The gastrointestinal tract is one of the most sophisticated systems of the human body. It’s also referred to as the digestive system, GI tract, GIT, gut, and even alimentary canal. Whatever you want to call it, this organ system is amazing.

From input to output, our digestive tract is used to take in food, extract and absorb energy and nutrients through digestion, and get rid of the remaining waste and other toxins. As a system, it is comprised of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small and large intestines, and an appropriate exit.

But that’s not all. You could add a few more organs in there as well including the tongue, salivary glands, pancreas, liver and gallbladder. The whole GI tract is about 20 feet long.

You don’t need gravity to swallow food, though that seems to help. Your esophagus constricts and relaxes in a wavelike manner to push food down into the stomach. This means if you were upside down, you could still swallow food.

The process of moving food through your gut is called peristalsis, and your intestines do a lot of this. The time it takes for food to transit through your body varies between 12 and 36 hours. Everyone is different. If it takes too long, studies are showing that harmful products get produced by our gut bacteria.

Enzymes are used in the digestive system to help break down food. Proteases break down proteins, amylases break down carbohydrates and lipases break down the fats. You will find these enzymes in your saliva and stomach. You can actually take enzymes to assist with this process.

When food and drink get broken down, our body uses the resulting nutrients for energy, growth, and cell repair. It’s important that what we eat gets changed into smaller molecules before the blood absorbs and carries them to our cells as carbohydrates, proteins, fats and vitamins.

A common misconception is that our stomach is the center of digestion. But this is not true. Mostly the stomach is where food is mixed with gastric juices and broken up into food bits through mechanical action. The resulting thick paste is called chyme. Our intestines do the rest.

If you don’t have enough stomach acid, your food can not get broken down enough for the chemical reactions that take place in the intestines to be fully effective. This can lead to acid reflux, or GERD. Cells in our stomach need to produce roughly a half gallon of hydrochloric acid every day.

We have a layer of mucus lining the stomach to protect us from this corrosive acid, which is replaced every two weeks.

Peptic ulcers are caused by an overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori bacteria in this mucosal lining. Low stomach acid levels can also be supplemented.

Most of our digestion and absorption of nutrients actually happens in the small intestine. After the food is broken down by the enzymes and gut bacteria, nutrients are absorbed and passed into the blood stream. Water is mostly absorbed in the large intestine, called the colon, which comes later on in our GI tract.

Gut bacteria, along with stomach acid, in our body play a very important role in keeping pathogens out of our body. There is probably three to five pounds of bacteria in your gut. About 30 to 50% of excreted fecal matter is bacteria.

We don’t want these to get absorbed along with the molecules of disintegrated food. Nor would you want undigested food to get absorbed. That’s when problems arise like auto immune disorders and arthritis.

The surface area of our small intestine is huge, really huge. It is about the size of a tennis court, or 2,700 square feet. This is possible because of the folds in the wall of our intestines, and also fingerlike projections along the surface call villi and microvilli. It’s important to treat this surface well, or we will get symptoms of leaky gut.

Scott Porter, a functional medicine pharmacist, is the director of the Center for Functional Nutrition at Sandpoint Super Drug.