Does your Gut Bacteria play a role in nutrient absorption?

Do you know that everything you eat is not digested in your body & converted into energy? There are some things in the food we eat that do not convert into fuel. However, these small tiny bits are as important as breathing, since your body will not be able to process & breakdown the food without them. These compounds, although tiny ones, are necessary for life & therefore called essential nutrients. We commonly refer to them as vitamins & minerals. Given that our body cannot create them, we need to consume them regularly through our food. We have close to 30 minerals & vitamins which are required proper & day to day functioning of our body. Deficiencies of any nutrient can result in dysfunctional impact on our overall health. Every micronutrient has a role to play & deficiency of either of them can drive us towards serious health concern & diseases.

In today’s world, getting access to nutrient dense food is relatively easy & straight forward. The modern nutrition strategy endorses consumption of rainbow diet or all colours of fruits & vegetables to make sure that you are consuming all vitamins & minerals from the food you consume. A lot of cereals, whole grain, bread & even dairy products are fortified with various vitamins & minerals to offer a more stable nutrition filled diet & make sure that we do not miss out on nutrients in today’s fast paced world which has focussed on ready to go foods. So if you are having a diverse diet consisting of fruits, vegetables & proteins, your body is getting all essential nutrients. However, if this is the case why do we still see so many people suffering from chronic diseases? Probably the reason is not what we eat but our body’s ability to absorb it. 

Depending upon your current state /composition of your gut microbiome, your digest system may not be properly equipped to carry out the nutrient absorption process. This ability/reduced ability depends upon various factors including health of intestinal lining & an optimum gut microbiome composition. It also depends upon how & where the nutrients are absorbed! So the question arises where are these nutrients absorbed & how can we improve the absorption process.

The first step in our digestive process performed by the digestive system is to break down the food we consume into small usable components. This begins when we place food in our mouth & starts breaking it with our teeth. Our saliva gland starts secreting enzymes for breaking carbs. Once swallowed, this food enters the esophagus &  travels to the stomach where it is further exposed to stomach acid that degrades, carbs, protein & fats. Immediately after, the digested food is released into the small intestine where digestive enzymes are secreted by the liver, gallbladder & pancreas as it prepares for nutrient absorption.

The small intestine consists of three parts-duodenum, ileum & jejunum. Majority of nutrient absorption process occurs in these 3 parts in the small intestine & remaining components of the food are passed on to the large intestine. Our small intestine absorbs the breakdown components of food in sugar, amino acids, fatty acids & most important-micronutrients. 

Most of the vitamins & minerals are consumed in the small intestine however each of these micronutrients require a distinctive mechanism to cross intestinal cell lining. Understanding the different types of micronutrients can help in improving our absorption process. Two categories of vitamins are water soluble vitamins & fat soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins need fluids to transport & absorb these vitamins. Getting plenty of fluids can improve our ability to absorb these vitamins. On the other hand, fat soluble vitamins require fat to support the absorption process. An apt way to improve this is to consume healthy fats along with fat soluble vitamins 

Fat soluble vitamins & minerals require special transporters found on the lining of intestinal lining to cross the cell membranes & make their way into the blood. These nutrient transporters make sure that appropriate particles pass into the cell. This process ensures that the right amount of components enter the bloodstream. 

As digested food passes through the small intestine & undergoes an absorption process, it moves into the large intestine where it undergoes the final digestion before the excretion.

Historically it has been assumed that the role of the large intestine for digestion of food is simple. The remaining/left over components of food are moved to the large intestine to remove excess water & salt before excretion. As food material enters the large intestine, the majority of nutrients have been absorbed. What remains are fibre & other non-digestible foods. We all are aware that a large intestine or gut is populated by a diverse gut microbiome which feeds on the food not digestible by our body & leads to improvement in our overall health.

Although bacteria reside & is spread in the overall digestive system, a large part of these bacterias reside in the colon that is responsible for intestinal integrity. As such they transform larger part of food remains into essential nutrients required for smooth functioning of our body

Although we do not need bacterias residing in colon for nutrient absorption, it provides a support function that helps in increasing the level of beneficial nutrients. To optimise the absorption process, our body needs intestinal cells to uphold nutrient intake. Gut dysbiosis or imbalance gut bacteria can disrupt the nutrient uptake. This reduces the ability of our digestive system to absorb essential nutrients for repair of our healthy cells. Vitamin K is one of those essential nutrients which is made by our gut bacteria & contributes to half of our daily Vitamin K requirements.

Learning about gut bacteria can help you improve your nutrient absorption.Take our gut intelligence assessment here & fix up free discovery call to know more.