MIDLIFE FOOD SENSITIVITIES: HOW TO HEAL YOUR GUT & EAT WHAT YOU WANT
Maybe you never had any food sensitivities, bloating or constipation, but since you’ve hit your 40s, your gut has been a mess.
What gives?
Digestive issues are much more common in midlife, but it doesn’'t mean you have to suffer!
Don’t rush out to get a food sensitivity test, there could be something else going on, and those tests simply aren’t worth the money. Keep reading to find out why!
Let’s take a look at why digestive issues are so common in midlife, and what we can do about it.
YOU SIMPLY CAN’T DIGEST IT
You may feel like you’ve developed a bunch of new food sensitivities or intolerances, but, it’s actually just that you can’t properly digest that food.
This is very common as, with age, we naturally produce less stomach acid and digestive enzymes, so our digestive power is reduced. We need both stomach acid and digestive enzymes (from your small intestine and pancreas), to break down your food, otherwise, if it hits the intestines undigested, you get excessive fermentation, gas, bloating and discomfort.
Many midlife women also have gallbladder (bile) issues, which prevents them from digesting fats, so higher fat foods may cause pain, pressure, bloating or diarrhea.
These digestive deficiencies are even more common in people under chronic stress, or those dealing with anxiety, because remember, the nervous system runs digestion, so anything that causes dysregulation of the nervous system messes with digestion.
These digestive deficiencies can cause a wide range of symptoms from bloating, indigestion, poor appetite, nausea, heartburn, diarrhea, bloating, gas, pain and more.
YOUR HORMONES ARE ALL OVER THE MAP
You may be surprised to learn that estrogen and progesterone play important roles in the gut.
Estrogen is needed in the gut for:
immune function: supporting overall immunity and helping the healthy gut bacteria to keep “Bad” bacteria and other microbes in check and keep inflammation low
gut lining integrity: preventing leaky gut
gut motility: because estrogen and serotonin work together, and because serotonin’s role in the gut is to improve motility, lower estrogen means lower serotonin and more constipation
In perimenopause, hormones become erratic; rather than being steadily higher in the first half your cycle (your follicular phase) and then gradually declining and becoming lowest right before your period, instead they are high one day, and low the next, which is one of the reasons gut, and other bodily symptoms, may seem unpredictable.
In perimenopause we can use functional medicine to help balance hormones by working on the gut bacteria, liver and gallbladder, managing stress and specific targeted supplementation.
In menopause, estrogen and progesterone become chornically low, which can cause further problems including:
chronic constipation
dry skin
brain fog and poor memory
inflammation: aches and pains, arthritis
The effect of these very low hormones becomes hard to mitigate with just supplements; you may want to speak to your doctor or naturopath about bioidentical hormone replacement therapy.
YOUR LIVER & GALLBLADDER AREN’T FUNCTIONING OPTIMALLY
Whether you have your gallbladder or not, as we age we tend to have more issues digesting fats, and more issues with constipation and heartburn.
There are a wide range of gallbladder issues but most people are only familiar with gallstones.
First off, what does the gallbladder do?
It stores bile that is produced in the liver and is released in response to a meal, when the food enters the small intestine. It helps you digest fats, and also acts as a motility agent to keep your bowels regular, and is the third phase of detoxification after toxins and hormones are processed by your liver.
What kind of symptoms would make you suspect that it could be your gallbladder?
Trouble digesting fatty foods including indigestion, heartburn and diarrhea, pain and pressure up under the right side of your ribcage, greasy stools that stick to the toilet bowl, chronic constipation, despite trying everything to fix it.
As women age, we tend to have poorly functioning gallbladders - this can look like a gallbladder that isn’t contracting strongly enough to push out the bile (dyskinesia), insufficient production of bile due to liver issues such as fatty liver, or thickened, sludgy bile that can’t be easily excreted from the gallbladder.
Common risk factors for gallbladder issues include: chronic constipation, use of antibiotics, history of rapid weight loss, hormone imbalances, autoimmune conditions, SIBO and fatty liver.
Additionally, if you have had your gallbladder out, you’re still producing bile in your liver, gut instead of it being pumped out all at once in response to a meal, it is a slow steady trickle, so you don’t have as much digestive power for fats, which can cause issues with higher fat foods.
YOUR GUT BACTERIA IS IMBALANCED
Your gut bacteria, or your microbiome (a community of bacteria, yeasts, parasites and viruses) plays a critical role in digestion and immune function. Imbalances in the microbiome can cause food sensitivities and indigestion due to leaky gut, inflammation, and the inability to digest certain parts of foods.
As we age and hormones start shifting, women tend to become more prone to developing one of the following imbalances in the gut - 2 types of “dysbiosis”:
Hydrogen sulfide producing bacteria (desulfivibrio): diarrhea or alternating diarrhea and constipation with sulfur “rotten egg” gas.
Methane producing bacteria (“methanogens”): chronic constipation
If these bacteria are not balanced out, you can not only have chronic digestive symptoms, but a whole host of inflammation throughout the body including fatigue, brain fog, sleep issues, high cholesterol, fatty liver and more.
YOU’RE REACTING TO FODMAPS
What many women think are food sensitivities are actually a FODMAP intolerance.
FODMAPS are fermentable carbs found in a wide variety of foods including, but not limited to:
wheat, barley and rye
sugars, dairy and fruits: fructose, apples, peaches, mangoes, lactose (milk and dairy), galactose, sweeteners (xyitol, sorbitol)
vegetables: onion, garlic, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, asparagus
legumes: beans, lentils, chickpeas
If these foods cause issues for you, you may have FODMAP intolerance, but it’s mainly due to your gut bacteria.
The good news is that once you restore balance to your gut microbiome, you’re able to start reintroducing higher FODMAP foods without any issues. See below for the steps I use with clients to restore balance to their gut bacteria (their microbiome).
YOU’VE BEEN CHRONICALLY CONSTIPATED FOR YEARS
If you’re having a bowel movement once per day you may think you’re not constipated, but you could be.
If you have any of the following you are constipated:
you're going every day, but it's small pellets
stools are very had and difficult to pass, or painful
you've developed hemorrhoids from pushing too hard
If you are, it's likely one of the main causes of your "bloating" - it's not true bloat, you're just full of poop!
How constipation causes gut issues:
As the longer food sits and ferments in your gut:
promotes growth of bad bacteria (dysbiosis), which causes inflammation, motility issues and leaky gut
less gut healing postbiotics produced (SCFAs including butyrate)
reabsorption of toxins meant to be excreted by the body
causes strain on the liver and gallbladder
Two reasons we are prone to constipation as we age:
Estrogen is connected to serotonin production. In the brain, serotonin is important for mood, but in the gut it affects motility. So as estrogen declines, so too does serotonin, leading to a sluggish bowel.
Changes in gut bacteria levels, especially higher levels of methanogens - bacteria that produce methane that slows the guts contractions (peristalsis).
YOU’RE BURNT OUT, STRESSED OUT AND ANXIOUS AND YOU CAN’T SLEEP
Stress has very real consequences on the body and causes signfiicant dysregulation of the nervous system. Your nervous system runs most of your bodily processes automatically, including your digestion. Your brain sends signals down yoru spine, through nerves to reach your organs. If your brain is sending the signal that you’re not safe, or not ok, your digestion will suffer; less stomach acid is produced, less peristalsis (contractions) leading to heartburn and indigestion, constipation and/or diarrhea.
You can’t avoid stress, but you can add simple practices to your day, and structure your day in a way that can allow your body to spend more time in a calmer “rest and digest” parasympathetic nervous system state, versus a sympathetic “fight or flight” state.
“I STILL SUSPECT I HAVE A FOOD SENSITIVITY - SHOULD I GET TESTED?”
WHY I DON’T USE FOOD SENSITIVITY TESTING IN MY PRACTICE
Don’t waste your money on food sensitivity testing - it’s likely not a sensitivity anyway, and here’s why.
Why I don’t believe in using food sensitivity testing - it has to do with leaky gut, and how quickly your gut shifts.
Leaky gut is when your gut lining, which is usually nice and healthy with no gaps between the cells (tight junctions), becomes porous - microscopic holes develop due to chronic inflammation - typically due to a combination of stress, poor diet, medications and dysbiosis - imbalance gut bacteria. This often looks like not enough healthy bacteria to keep the bad” or inflammatory bacteria in check.
With leaky gut, particles of the foods you eat end up leaking through the holes” - and into your bloodstream, mounting an immune response. This is why most people with chronic gut issues react to many different foods.
So when you have leaky gut, which most people with chronic gut issues do ,the test is just telling you what you’ve been eating - of course you’re going to be reacting to most things you eat, if they’re constantly leaking into your bloodstream.
If you were to cut out every food you have a very mild immune response to at this stage, you would have nothing left to eat. You would be limited to maybe 5 to 10 “safe foods” and be miserable. On top of that, many people that do this don’t even notice a difference, in fact, many often feel worse.
Over time this can cause not only a fear of food and feeling miserable and missing out on life, but also nutrient deficiencies, and ironically, worsened gut issues, as you are starving your healthy bacteria of the diversity of fibres they need to thrive.
Instead, I get clients to only avoid the foods they know they have strong reactions to, such as nausea, severe pain, diarrhea or heartburn. And with these foods, we only limit them temporarily, because when you are working on healing the root causes of your gut issues, then you are able to reintroduce these foods 2 to 3 months down the road, no problem.
The root causes we need to treat to heal leaky gut and reverse food sensitivities include:
Healing leaky gut
Calming the immune system
Balancing gut bacteria
Regulating the nervous system to bring down inflammation and bring digestion back online
reducing/avoiding processed inflammatory foods and focusing on whole foods that are rich in nutrients
Restoring digestive power by adding a high quality digestive enzyme
Replenishing nutrient deficiencies
OPTIMIZING DIGESTION IN MIDLIFE
Based on the above goals of gut healing, here are my top 6 tips to get your gut health optimized so you can enjoy your favourite foods, without paying for it!
Boost Your Digestive Power
Try a high quality digestive enzyme that contains both betaine HCl (hydrochloric acid aka stomach acid), broad spectrum enzymes (at least one protease - digests proteins - at least one amylase - digests carbs - and at least one lipase - digests fats, as well as ox bile (especially if fatty foods are an issue for you).
If you suspect your gallbladder isn’t functioning optimally, you could try a liver supplement that contains nutrients such as curcumin, milk thistle, NAC, vitamin C and/or a digestive bitters that helps to thin the bile.
note: most liver supplements contain herbs that are likely to interact with medications, so always check with your primary health care provider before starting any new supplements.
BALANCE YOUR GUT BACTERIA
To balance the microbiome, we use a 4R Protocol - common in functional medicine, this stands for:
Remove: all gut irritants including gut irritating foods/processed foods, over the counter medications and inflammatory gut microbes using antimicrobial herbs (such as oregano, garlic, berberine herbs).
Replace: replace what’s missing including stomach acid, enzymes, bile and nutrient deficiencies (common ones are B12 and iron, vitamin D, calcium and magnesium).
Repair: repair leaky gut using specific supplements and dietary changes
Restore: restore balance to the gut microbiome ecosystem using probiotics, prebiotics, herbs and other nutrients, as well as increasing diversity of high fibre foods and general variety in the diet.
I typically do these steps combined into a 2 phase, personalized process including dietary changes, supplements and lifestyle changes that takes about 3 months to restore digestive function.
To know exactly which imbalances you have in your gut, I often use the GI MAP stool test, which will tell me not only which types of bacteria you have, but also whether they’re high or low, as well as markers of inflammation, digestion, absorption, immune function in the gut and reactivity to gluten.
There is a community of bacteria in the gut called the “estrobolome”. Most women in midlife find that as we balance their gut microbiome, their hormone related symptoms start to improve as well.
You’ll get access to my 2 phase gut healing plan that I use with clients inside the Fix Your Gut App!
Probiotics
Probiotics have been proven to help not only increase tolerance to foods by aiding digestion (they actually produce digestive enzymes), they also support and calm the immune system and inflammation in the gut, as well as heal leaky gut.
They also have been proven to help with other hormone related issues such as insomnia, hot flashes and night sweats and brain fog, mood changes.
It’s important to choose the right type of probiotic strain(s), based on your unique gut health situation to avoid side effects, or not feeling any benefit.
There is no one sized fits all generic probiotic that is good for everyone, especially people with chronic gut issues, as each type of probiotic does something unqiue.
For example, if you have chronic heartburn and indigestion due to SIBO, lactobacillus and bifidobacteria strains may make you feel worse, but you may do well with spore based probiotics or a probiotic yeast called S. boulardii.
Someone with chronic constipation may not find spore probiotics or S. boulardii helpful, but L. reuteri DSM 17938 may give them significant relief.
Exercise
Exercises is critical for digestion for several reasons. It helps keep your digestion online and stomach acid optimized by keeping your nervous system in “Rest and digest” mode and out of surival mode “fight or flight”.
It helps you get a good night’s sleep, which supports mood, reduces cravings and also helps keep your nervous system in “rest and digest”, calm state.
Nervous system support
You can’t avoid stress, but you can add simple practices to your day that help you better manage stress - like a hug for your nervous system! Even 2 to 5 minutes of the following practices can help optimize digestion and reduce inflammation to help you better tolerate more foods:
yoga
QiGong
meditation
deep breathing
walking in nature
singing or gargling
Not sure where to start? Join me and your coaches Abbey and Linda for guided meditations, affirmations, hypnotherapy and yoga for digestion inside the Fix Your Gut app!
Sleep support & supplemENTS
Sleep is incredibly important for gut health for several reasons:
keeps your nervous system calm “rest and digest” state and reduces stress hormones
reduces cravings for indulgent, less healthy foods
supports mental wellness, which promotes healthy choices
Unfortunately, as women, as we age, especially after age 40, we tend to have more issues with sleep, due to major shifts in our sex hormones.
My top tips for sleep:
sleep hygiene: keep your room cool, dark and quiet and avoid upsetting news, shows or blue light from screens for at least 1 hour before bed
exercise: movement earlier in the day helps tire out your body so you get a deeper sleep. Avoid exercising 4 hours before bed
nutrition: avoid eating, especially sweets, at least 2 to 3 hours before bed. Ensure the last thing you eat has protein so you aren’t having a blood sugar crash in the middle of the night.
bedtime routine: having a regular bedtime routine every night helps your body know it’s time to unwind. Aim for the same bedtime and do something relaxing for you. Maybe that’s a calming tea and some stretching to your favourite soothing music, or reading a good book.
deep breathing or a guided meditation: this is an easy way to ease into this practice as it doesn’t require you to completely clear your mind, but rather, listen to someone’s voice asking you to image a calming scene and calming sensations in your body.
Some of my favourite sleep supplements:
Sedative herbs: all of these can be taken as a tea, capsule, or liquid tincture
Lemon balm
Passionflower: also great for womens health
Valerian
Hops: phytoestrogen great for balancing hormones, especially in menopause
Skullcap
GABA: a brain chemical naturally produced our body to help with relaxation
Ashwaganda: breaks down cortisol
L-theanine
Melatonin: use occasionally, but not for use every night (max 6 weeks consecutively).
If you’ve tried some of these tips and you’re still struggling with mid life bloating, reacting to everything you eat and want a personalized gut healing plan, let’s talk!
I offer complimentary Meet and Greet virtual consultations through Jane app - let’s chat and determine your next best steps! Book your consultation here.
