Could an overgrowth of bad bacteria be causing your digestive symptoms?

Have you heard of SIBO? I’m guessing probably not. It’s not a commonly discussed phenomenon, but I am seeing more and more of it in clinic.

SIBO stands for Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. Pretty self explanatory, but what happens to our bodies when this occurs? We can develop a whole range of symptoms, and not all are digestive.

Some common symptoms are IBS like symptoms such as bloating, changeable bowel motions, heart burn, nausea, food sensitivities, rosacea, fatigue, anaemia and mood irregularities.

The list really does go on and on, but you get the gist.

Testing for this condition is very hard, as the small intestine is hard to gain access to. Stool testing and breath testing will give us a good guide of what exactly is going on and from there, along with gathering a good symptom picture we can determine the best form of treatment.

Treatment varies from person to person, so unfortunately there is no one size fits all protocol. Changing the diet to starve off any overgrowth is a vital part of treatment, as is supporting overall digestive function. A combination of herbs and specific probiotics may be used to really help the clearing out of excessive bacteria along. While this ‘clear out’ is happening some people can experience symptoms from ‘die off’ which may feel like a mini detox, which is what it is essentially! But instead of detoxing your liver, your digestive system is being detoxed.

Once this has been determined, the question needs to be asked what caused this to happen in the first place? Once this cause has been determined then we can put things in place to prevent it from ever happening again. Stress is a major factor, as is poor diet, medication use and overall compromised digestive function. And most of the time it is a combination of 2 or more of these factors which has bought people to this disease state.

Diet plays a fundamental rule in the development of SIBO. Certain foods stimulate the growth of certain bacteria's more than others. Foods which are starchy and rich in complex carbohydrates can stimulate to much of certain bacterias in our digestive system. Many peoples diet currently consist to much of these high carbohydrate foods, and as a consequence we are seeing all sorts of health conditions becoming more and more common.

Stress impacts on our gut flora in so many different ways. A major way that stress impacts SIBO is by reducing our stomach acid, allowing foreign bacteria and other potential pathogens to enter our digestive tract. These foreign bacterias disrupt the internal environment and SIBO begins to occur.

So how do you think your internal digestive bacteria is looking? Do you think it’s working for or against you?

For more information on this topic head to the SIBO website (below) or get in contact and ask me anything that might be on your mind!

http://www.siboinfo.com