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What is bad digestion?

Bad digestion is associated to discomforts appearing after meals and resulting from an ineffective and incomplete digestive process.

Also called “dyspepsia”, bad digestion impairs nutrients absorption because food particles are not divided into their simple expression. Their bulky size prevents them from crossing the intestinal mucosa, and then to be conveyed to the cells.

In long term, this situation may likely generate nutritional deficiencies in vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids, proteins, etc. These nutritional deficiencies will lead to numerous health disorders, including anaemia, tiredness, headaches and the migraines.

Moreover, these incomplete digested foods irritate the digestive mucosa. These irritations result initially in stomachic and abdominal discomforts. Present in a chronic and constant way, they can contribute to the development of digestive tract pathologies, including gastritis, ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel syndrome.

The regular contact with “irritating” substances injures the intestinal mucosa, which risk to become leaky (imagine a fine sieve strewn with holes), letting entering uncompleted digested food substances. These may be at the origin of several health problems, including allergic disorders (urticaria, eczema, asthma, etc.), autoimmune diseases (rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn disease, etc.) and of toxinic overloads (acne, headaches and migraines).

An inadequate digestive process is associated to dysbiosis (intestinal flora imbalance). In addition to causing diarrheas, constipation and gas, the intestinal flora disturbance is associated to a weak infection resistance.

Description of the digestive process

Digestion is a complex process which aims the absorption of the nutrients through the intestinal mucosa. This physiological activity requires the participation of several organs and is attending step by step during the food transit in the digestive tract, from the mouth to the small intestine. Mechanical digestion includes all of the “mixing” movements of the bolus, including chewing, food kneading in the stomach and segmentation, which means the back and forth movements required to make possible the mixture of food with the gastric juices. Mechanical digestion physically prepares food for chemical digestion.

Chemical digestion allows large food particles degradation in nutrients. It is carried out by the enzymes secreted by small glands present within the digestive wall, and also by additional glands, including the salivary glands, the liver and the pancreas. In addition, the bile, secreted by the liver, has an important function in the chemical digestion.

What does occur exactly when bad digestion happens?

Bad digestion results from an inadequate digestive transit, which is too slow or too rapid, and mainly caused by insufficient secretions of digestive substances, including saliva, gastric juices, pancreatic enzymes, intestinal juices and bile. These anomalies generate intestinal fermentations and putrefactions and predispose to an intestinal dysbiosis (abnormal intestinal flora). They constitute a major impairment to effectiveness nutrients absorption.

Clinical symptoms of a bad digestion:

- Slow digestion feeling
- Heartburn
- Frequent eructation
- Stomach swelling
- Stomach heaviness
- Abdominal pain
- Hiccup
- Nausea and vomiting
- Bloating
- Gas
- Abdominal cramps
- Fatty substances in the stool
- Food fragments in the stool
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Headaches after eating
- Tiredness after eating
- Weight loss
- Loss of appetite or early feeling of satiety

Bad digestion problems affect 25% of the population.

Causal factors of a bad digestion

Stress appears among the major elements related to a bad digestion.

Under the effect of a stress, the digestive function is automatically less efficient. The priority for the organism is not then to digest food but rather to fight or to run away “the bear running behind you”… Bad food habits (eating rapidly, drinking a lot of liquid in the course of meal, eating desert at the end of the meal, etc.) also disturb the digestive process. The presence of infectious agents (a pathogen bacteria, a yeast or a parasite in the intestines) can also be at the origin of digestion disturbances. Lastly, several drugs (aspirin, anti-acids, non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, anxiolytics, antibiotics, etc.) have side effects harming the digestive process.