Is My Gut Talking?

[Dr. Shane]

The brain does not act on its own.  There is a connection from the brain to the stomach and heart that is different from other organs.  In the past, some scholars have thought the heart and stomach were actually extensions of the brain or part of the brain.  However, that view is not accepted by prevailing medical scientists.  Yet, these organs have a profound connection that is worth exploring.  Let's look at the stomach in this post and, later, we can look at the heart.

According to scientists at John Hopkins,  our digestive system has two thin layers with more than 100 million nerve cells known as the enteric nervous system.  It is something like a lesser brain.  It doesn't think or solve mathematical problems.  It does control digestion and has a major impact on emotional shifts.  A recent study (Silva, 2020) indicates that our gut microbiota influences the brain regarding our choice of food to eat.  That means our gut is telling our brain what to eat.  The gut can turn off the switch that tells us when we are full.  That is, certain gut microbiota suppresses the hormone that shuts off our hunger switch.  Thus, we eat much more food than we need.  Some microbiota also decreases our ability to taste certain things like sweets and fats which means our food needs more sugar and fat for us to taste it. 

The treatment for bad gut health is to increase our short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs).  Those increase appetite control, neuroplasticity in the brain,  as they regulate acidity in the gut.  How do we get SCFAs into our diet.  That is easy.  Foods that are linked to SCFA production are fruits, vegetables, beans, lentils, whole grains, oats, potatoes, cornmeal

 

Silva, Y. P., Bernardi, A., & Frozza, R. L. (2020). The role of short-chain fatty acids from gut microbiota in gut-brain communication. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2020; 11: 25. Přejít k původnímu zdroji... Přejít na PubMed.