Maldigestion: The Number One Root Cause of Gut Symptoms
Why Am I Bloated All the Time? The Overlooked Cause Behind Chronic Bloating
Bloated after every meal - even the “clean” ones? If your gut feels like it’s always working against you, there’s likely a deeper issue at play. Let’s talk about the number one driver keeping your digestion stuck on slow-maldigestion. And what you can do to help your digestion feel better faster.
Maldigestion occurs when your gut's built-in self-cleaning mechanisms break down. These key self-cleaning mechanisms are the most overlooked, but essential factors in how your gut functions properly. These key processes work around the clock to keep things moving through the digestive tract, clear out waste, keep inflammation at bay, and prevent the buildup of harmful bacteria. When these systems are working well, digestion feels smooth, meals don’t leave you feeling bloated or uncomfortable, you have regular bowel movements, and you have energy and vitality throughout the day!
But when these systems aren’t running smoothly, food can sit too long in the gut, bacteria can begin to ferment, and maldigestion occurs. Maldigestion means your body isn’t fully breaking down the food you eat. That impacts nutrient absorption, bowel regularity, detoxification, and can even impact the immune system and drive inflammation. Maldigestion is also one of the main contributors to IBS!
A breakdown in the gut's innate self-cleaning mechanisms is the number one root cause we see behind many chronic digestive issues. If you’re experiencing symptoms like persistent bloating, constipation, loose stools, gas, or frequent belching, maldigestion could be playing a major role in your discomfort. Let’s dive into the two key mechanisms that prevent maldigestion: optimal digestive secretions and the migrating motor complex.
Curious if this might be part of your picture? Take our Root Cause Quiz Here to get more clarity on what’s driving your gut symptoms.
What is Maldigestion?
Your digestive secretions are your gut's built-in self-cleaners.
Let’s break down how your digestive secretions are the gut's self-cleaning mechanisms and how they can lead to maldigestion and IBS if not working properly.
When it comes to digestion, your body depends on more than just the food you eat; it relies on powerful digestive secretions to do the heavy lifting for healthy, symptom-free digestion. The key players in digestion are stomach acid, digestive enzymes, and bile, all of which work together to break down food, absorb nutrients, and keep your gut optimally functioning.
If any part of this system is off, it can lead to maldigestion and the frustrating symptoms that come with it, such as feeling bloated after meals, dealing with gas, burping, or experiencing constipation or loose stools regularly.
So what do these digestive secretions do?
Stomach acid starts the process by breaking down protein and triggering the release of other digestive factors. It’s also your first line of defense against pathogens we come in contact with through food and our environment. Stomach acid helps to maintain the proper acidic pH in the gut, which is critical for the other digestive secretions to release properly and to prevent bacterial and fungal overgrowths in the lower gut.
Bile, made by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, is essential for digesting and absorbing fat-soluble nutrients that are key for healthy immune function, and bile is a critical part of our detoxification system, helping to bind toxins and waste so they can be excreted through the stool.
Digestive enzymes, released by the pancreas, help further break down proteins, fats, and carbohydrates into absorbable nutrients, and their proper release is dependent upon the proper function of both stomach acid and bile.
Together, these digestive secretions are one of the major mechanisms by which the gut self-cleans. Each digestive secretion has a specific role that helps to ensure the gut environment is working as a whole.
When one or more of these systems isn’t working properly, whether due to stress, poor diet, low mineral intake, inflammation, or underlying imbalances, your body can’t fully break down and absorb food. Instead, that food can sit too long in the digestive tract and start to ferment, leading to excess gas and discomfort.
That’s often when symptoms start to show up, like:
Bloating, no matter what you eat
Food feels like it’s sitting in your stomach
Gas or burping
Constipation or loose stools
Fatigue
Food sensitivities
Floating or greasy stools
These are all signs your digestion could use more support. Supporting optimal digestion is a first and most critical step in rebuilding a healthy gut and eliminating digestive symptoms for good!
That is why our 6-week live Gut Health Reset program is focused on the step-by-step process to restore the gut’s self-cleaning mechanisms to heal your bloating, constipation, loose stools, and even low energy from the real root cause.
The 6-week Gut Health Reset program starts September 29th, learn more and get on the waitlist to be the first to reserve your spot! Join the waitlist here!
What do digestive secretions do?
The Missing Link in Your Gut’s Self-Cleaning: Your Nervous System
Your digestive system is closely regulated by your nervous system, which acts like a control center that influences how quickly food moves through your body, how optimally your digestive secretions are expressed, and how effectively your gut self-cleans between meals. When the nervous system is stressed, symptoms like bloating, constipation, loose stools, and microbial imbalances can develop, leading to conditions like IBS.
When the nervous system is stressed, it has a direct impact on how your gut self-cleans. One of the key self-cleaning mechanisms is the migrating motor complex, or MMC. It is your gut’s internal housekeeping system and is controlled by the vagus nerve! The MMC is a wave-like motion that helps to push bacteria, waste, and undigested food through the small intestine and down into the large intestine. This is key as the small intestines are not meant to house high levels of bacteria or waste. But when the nervous system is stuck in a stressed fight or flight state, the MMC slows down, causing stagnation, bloating, and making it easier for bacteria to build up, leading to conditions like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO.
The MMC runs in a fasted state in between meals and overnight as we sleep. In a healthy gut, this wave-like motion runs every 90–120 minutes during fasting, adding up to 7–11 times a day. But in many people with IBS, this process slows down or stalls completely, meaning waste and bacteria linger too long in the small intestine. This sluggish movement is a big reason why bloating, bacterial overgrowth like SIBO, and food intolerance can become chronic problems.
This is why, in healing the gut and addressing conditions like SIBO, the solution is more than just killing bacteria or treating a test - the real solution is to help restore the innate self-cleaning mechanisms so that these conditions don’t continue to happen, starting with the nervous system and digestive secretions.
That is why our 6-week live Gut Health Reset program is focused on the step-by-step process to restore the gut’s self-cleaning mechanisms to heal your bloating, constipation, loose stools, and even low energy from the real root cause.
The 6-week Gut Health Reset program starts September 29th, learn more and get on the waitlist to be the first to reserve your spot! Join the waitlist here!
Restore Your Gut Health For Good
Client Success: Restored her gut's self-cleaning after years of stress and dysregulation
Our client came to us struggling with chronic loose stools after every meal, daily bloating, and frequent migraines. She knew she could feel better, but she felt like she was doing “everything” and didn’t know why she was continuing to struggle with chronic symptoms.
What she didn’t realize was that everything she was trying was creating even more stress, overwhelm, and dysregulation in her gut's cleaning mechanisms, and was leading to her chronic symptoms. This client had been practicing a strict keto diet and intermittent fasting for over a year and a half in attempts to help heal her gut. Unfortunately, these restrictive practices were creating more stress on her body and gut and only making her symptoms worse.
On functional testing, her stool test showed significant maldigestion as shown by overgrowth of both beneficial bacteria and opportunistic as well as low levels of digestive secretions and an over-reactive immune system. Her hair mineral test also showed low levels of key minerals needed for proper digestive function and energy production, suggesting a depleted state due to the high levels of stress put on her system. Restrictive practices, like keto and fasting, are tools that aren’t always appropriate for everyone and especially when a body is already experiencing symptoms and stress, these practices can make matters worse.
With this insight, we guided her through a personalized protocol that included realistic nutrition that helped to expand her diet, incorporating more categories of foods, and worked on building in fiber-rich carbohydrates to support a healthy thyroid and calm nervous system stress. We utilized targeted supplements to optimize digestive secretions and helped to gently clear the overgrowths when her body was ready. And lastly, we helped to build out her daily lifestyle habits with tools to support her gut’s natural rhythm and self-cleaning function.
After just 3 months, she was having 2 to 3 fully formed bowel movements per day, her bloating and migraines were completely gone, and she felt like she had a whole new body!
The same key foundations we helped this client restore her gut and resilience are the foundations we guide inside the Gut Health Reset program. The Gut Health Reset is focused on restoring the gut’s self-cleaning mechanisms by working with the gut and body to restore optimal gut function, not just quick fixes or elaborate elimination diets that are only temporary relief.
This live 6-week program restores digestion from its root to eliminate chronic gut symptoms, lower inflammation, and restore your energy. We are excited to relaunch our Gut Health Reset program to restore these key functions using targeted nutrition, lifestyle shifts, and a personalized supplement protocol based on your symptoms. If you’re looking for deeper insights, there’s also an option to add on a GI MAP stool test, which gives us detailed information about your digestive enzyme levels, bile flow, and stomach acid production - so we can customize your plan even further!
The 6-week Gut Health Reset program starts September 29th. Get on the waitlist to be the first to reserve your spot! Join the waitlist here!
6-week Gut Health Reset Is Coming
Related Posts: Unlocking the Gut-Brain Connection: The Vagus Nerve
