How Maldigestion is a Root Cause for IBS and How to Heal It
Understanding Maldigestion: Causes, Symptoms, and Healing Tips
If you're struggling with gas, bloating, or heartburn after meals, you might be dealing with maldigestion—a condition where your digestive system can't fully break down the food you eat and leads to a breakdown in proper gut cleaning. Maldigestion occurs when your body isn’t producing enough of the three key digestive substances: stomach acid, bile,and digestive enzymes. Without these critical substances, undigested food particles and even pathogens can enter the lower gut, leading to inflammation, nutrient malabsorption, and a host of digestive symptoms.
What is Maldigestion?
Maldigestion is the inability to properly digest food due to low production of essential digestive substances. These substances are crucial for breaking down foods for proper digestion and nutrient absorption; but these substances also play a significant role in the self-cleaning mechanisms in the gut that protect against infection, dysbiosis and inflammation.
The three key digestive substances involved in maldigestion are:
1. Stomach Acid
Produced in the stomach, stomach acid is vital for protein digestion and mineral absorption, particularly B vitamins, magnesium, and zinc. It also maintains the proper acidity in the gut to kill invasive pathogens and prevent bacteria overgrowth that can cause bloating, gas, burping and other digestive symptoms.
2. Bile
Bile is produced in the liver and stored in the gallbladder and helps with the digestion of dietary fats. Bile also plays a critical role in detoxification and self-cleaning of the gut to prevent overgrowths such as small intestinal bacteria or SIBO. Without adequate bile production, you may experience loose, floating, or pale stools after consuming fatty meals and struggle with hormonal issues as bile is a waste pathway for excess hormones.
3. Digestive Enzymes
Produced by the pancreas and the lining of the gut, digestive enzymes break down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. Proper enzyme production is linked to balanced stomach acid and bile levels, which help signal the pancreas to release enzymes.
How Does Maldigestion Happen?
Several factors can cause maldigestion, including:
1. Mineral and Hydration Deficiency
Your body needs minerals like sodium, potassium, and zinc to produce stomach acid, bile, and enzymes. Without proper hydration and nutrient intake, your digestive system can't function optimally.
2. Chronic Stress
Stress can interfere with the signals your brain sends to the gut, reducing the production of digestive chemicals like stomach acid. Stress can also cause imbalances in blood sugar, poor sleep, and inflammation—all of which contribute to poor digestion.
3. Congested Bile Pathways
Bile is crucial for fat digestion and detoxification. If bile becomes congested or too thick, it can't flow properly, leading to maldigestion. This is especially common in individuals over the age of 35 due to hormonal changes that affect bile production.
4. Aging
As we age, the production of stomach acid and digestive enzymes naturally decreases, which can make digestion more difficult. This is where supporting digestion is critical with age especially for women through perimenopause and menopause shifts.
5. Medications
Certain medications, like proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) for acid reflux, can reduce stomach acid production and worsen maldigestion. Antibiotics, birth control, and other medications can also disrupt digestion.
Symptoms of Maldigestion
If you're dealing with maldigestion, you may experience some of the following symptoms:
Gas and bloating
Burping after meals
Early fullness or satiety
Heartburn or acid reflux
Nausea or dizziness
Floating, frothy, or pale stools
Visible undigested food in stools
Dry skin or mucus overproduction
Is Maldigestion Causing Your Digestive Problems?
If you’re experiencing gas, bloating, heartburn, or other digestive discomforts, it could be due to maldigestion. Maldigestion can be difficult to identify and manage on your own, especially when it stems from multiple sources like stress, bile congestion and hormonal imbalances. If you’re ready to dig deeper and understand not only if maldigestion is a root cause for your symptoms but identify exactly what is driving it - we’ve got a free quiz for you.
Maldigestion is one of the major drivers of IBS and digestive symptoms but there are a total of three major drivers of IBS and symptoms can overlap. That is why we have developed a Root Cause Quiz to help you identify your root cause driver and receive a personalized Gut Health Healing Roadmap based on your unique results to help get you started in healing your root cause.
Take control of your gut health today by identifying the root cause of your digestive issues. Take the quiz and discover the root cause behind your poop problems. Plus, receive a personalized Gut Health Healing Roadmap to start your gut healing journey today.
