Why are YOU Bloated?

by Glen Depke

Time after time I have clients walk into Depke Wellness complaining of constant bloating. These clients are often so frustrated because they have been doing everything they know of to address this, yet every morning they are welcomed by the larger than expected and discomfort of the bloated stomach.

Let’s get to the underlying challenges of bloating and more importantly, what you can do about this.

Understand that the main challenges for bloating are stress, nutrition and infections. Notice I did not say digestion here. That is left out because I do not look at poor digestion as the cause, but the middle factor between one of the main challenges and the bloating itself.

We’ll look at stress first.

What does stress have to do with bloating? Well, how about everything. When you in a stress response, whether this be acute, chronic or suppressed, the flow of blood that would normally be provided to your digestive tract is redirected away from your gut. When this response is engaged, which is far too often chronic for most, this occurs:

• Moves blood away from internal organs and the gut to redirect to your muscular system
• Your heart rate significantly rises
• All your senses become more acute
• Your adrenal hormone production is off the charts
• Your pancreas is releasing glucogon which is then loading your blood with sugar

This response is awesome if you had to truly fight or flee from a dangerous situation but this response is completely horrific for digestion. Think about it, if you were in a serious life or death situation, how important is digestion at that point. If you said, not so, you are right on.

This stress response will then lead to challenges with digestion and the eventual challenges with the chronic bloat.

To check the reactions of stress on your body and your gut, follow this link for your complimentary adrenal assessment.

The nutritional perspective is also a huge challenge.

Nutritionally speaking many individuals are consuming foods that they are intolerant to. Foods such as gluten, sugar, alcohol and many foods that are cross reactive to gluten. Foods such as coffee, rice, potato, dairy, soy and other non-gluten grains.

The challenge that arises when you consume foods that you are intolerant to is the creation of inflammation. When this inflammation becomes chronic this leads to challenges with immunity, brain function, liver dysfunction, adrenal function and you guessed it, chronic bloating.

It used to be that gluten, dairy and soy were the bigger challenges with this, but now that gluten is so much more damaging due to big business, this is leading to cross reactions. A cross reaction is when your body and immune system starts to react to other proteins in your body that are similar to gluten. So often my clients will be eating the very foods that are leading to their challenges and the chronic bloat without any true recognition.

Assess your likelihood of gluten intolerance at no cost right here.

If gluten is an issue, I would suggest getting off this right now, not soon, not go gluten lite, get off this right now! As discussed with one of my colleagues today, Dr Brad Miller, I mentioned the gluten is literally killing people. I would also suggest that you use a cross reactive food test to see if this has progressed into further intolerance for you.

Now infection.

This is all too often an overlooked challenge for so many. I would share that approximately 70% of my client base is living with some sort of gut pathogen or infection. This could be any one of the following and more:

• Parasites
• Protozoa
• H-Pylori
• Amoeba
• E-Histolytica
• Pathogenetic bacteria

If you are living with any of these “critters” as I call them, this is not only leading to the chronic bloat but also many other disorders within your body.

If suspected, I would always recommend a 4 day stool collection kit to understand what you are dealing with and address accordingly by providing your body with the necessary tools to eradicate the invaders.

Please understand that any or all of these underlying challenges will create issues with chronic inflammation, digestive disturbances and leave you with a chronic bloat that will likely frustrate you to no end.

If you do not feel that stress, infection or nutrition is the issue for you, you may find some relief in the utilization of a high quality pre/probiotic formula and a digestive enzyme, such as the Prime Digestive Support. This along with chewing your food well can potentially go a long way in improving the bloat.

If you have any comments or questions in regard to this article, please post this below for me to address personally.