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Digestive Health, the Microbiome, and its connection to all things

autoimmune gut health inflammation Dec 17, 2014

For decades naturopathic doctors have known about the link between gut flora and health. Harvard and other institutions are now in the process of mapping the microbiome so as to determine links between health and gut flora balance. Fantastic news that Harvard is finally catching up to the naturopaths with their research! We are also finding that GI tract health is also related to inflammatory responses in the body, neurotransmitter balance, detoxification, and immune system balance.

So for this reason, naturopathic doctors take a very nuanced approach to treating digestive disorders. Identifying and eliminating food allergies and intolerances is an important step towards healing the gut and eliminating inflammation and intestinal permeability, or “leaky gut”.   Our protocols have helped conditions such as IBS, IBD, Crohn’s disease, Celiac disease, Ulcerative Colitis, SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), Chronic constipation or diarrhea, GERD, candidiasis, and other bowel disorders.

And I often find in my practice, that by correcting problems in the GI tract I also improve other autoimmune conditions such as Lupus and MS, inflammatory conditions such as arthritis, many immune issues as well.   This is really what naturopaths mean when we say we “treat the whole person”.

Functional Medicine Testing often gives our first clues as to how to approach a complex case. And many if not most of the cases I see are quite complex, with patients coming to me having already worked with multiple practitioners.