Powerful 5R Gut Healing Protocol to Address Root Causes
If you’ve ever wondered if there is more than just taking an antibiotic when you have a gut issue, well, you’re right! There is SO much more to be done to truly heal the gut. The process of gut healing is just that- a process. We need not only to get rid of what’s causing issues (like unhealthy bacteria). We also must follow that up with repairing the gut lining, balancing healthy bacteria, and supporting the immune system.
The functional medicine approach for gut health uses a process called the 5R gut healing protocol. This process helps address root causes of gut issues.
Why Gut Health Matters
A properly functioning digestive system is critical to overall good health. And the gut does so much more than just break down food & help us poop.
Gut Health and Immune Health
One of the most important roles of gut health is actually its role in immune health. Did you know that the gut houses over 70% of the immune system?!? Many of our immune cells are found within the gut lining, the layer of tightly connected cells that create the barrier and lining of the digestive tract. In the gut, there is a complex relationship among the gut’s community of microorganisms, the cells of the intestinal lining, and the nearby immune system.
Beyond its impact on local immune responses within the intestinal region, it’s becoming more evident that the gut microbiome also has an influence on the body’s overall immune system. So you can see that the gut is actually a key organ for thousands of processes in the body.
Gut Health, Brain Health, and the Nervous System
The trillions of bacteria residing in the gut are responsible for producing hundreds of neurochemicals. These neurochemicals in the brain regulate essential daily processes. These include those needed for mental processes such as learning, memory, and mood. In fact, the gut produces up to 95% of the key mood hormone, serotonin!
Gut Health and Inflammation
Disturbances in the gut process or the balance of these bacteria can have ramifications across the whole body. Even back around 400 B.C., Hippocrates had said,
“All disease begins in the gut”.
How true that is. Research has shown that much of inflammation primarily originates in the gut. Inflammation can lead not only to dysfunction in the gut, but also throughout the rest of the body. That’s because inflammation is an immune response. Although the immune system mostly originates in the gut, it has its impact everywhere throughout the body.
Chronic inflammation can lead to a multitude of chronic health conditions such as:
- weight loss resistance
- joint pain
- hormone imbalance
- autoimmune disease
- allergies
- autism
- chronic skin conditions
- and many more.
Major Functions of the Gut (Digestive System)
As you can imagine with all the info shared above, having healthy digestion matters a LOT for total body health.
The major functions of the gut and digestive system include:
- Digestion uses 10% of your day’s burned energy. Out of the thousands of processes occurring each day, digestion takes a tenth of it. That’s actually a lot!
- Nutrient Absorption: Except for the oxygen you breath in, all of the nutrients that your body needs must be eaten and then filtered and absorbed by your gut. Your gut is like the TSA of your body. All energy (from food) that you take in passes through it. The quality of your gut health dictates everything else your body can do. Likewise, any issues in your gut will lead to a domino effect of dysfunction in the rest of your body.
- 70% of your immune system actually takes place in your gut. This means gut dysfunction makes you more susceptible to infections and inflammation.
- The gut produces 90% of our serotonin (the feel good chemical in our body). So happy gut, happy you!
- Elimination of toxins, leftover or excess hormones, and more, happens mainly through your gut forming and expelling your poop. Without regular and quality elimination, your body will “back up” not just in your gut but everywhere. This could lead to numerous problems like immune issues, skin problems, and weight gain among others.
So you can see that a well-functioning gut is so much more than just going to the bathroom properly. It is the transit center for your metabolism. Your gut health affects every aspect of your life – from your mood to how efficiently your body processes energy. In other words, your ability to retain or lose weight.
Signs of Gut Inflammation – It’s Not Just About Symptoms Felt in the Gut
Gut inflammation can happen even if you don’t have symptoms that you feel in your gut. Symptoms and conditions elsewhere in your body are often signs that gut health needs to be addressed. We must understand a bit more about how our body’s systems work. This knowledge can give you peace of mind in knowing why symptoms arise each day. Additionally, you can finally understand how your behaviors affect your symptoms. In turn, you gain confidence to know which steps to take to see improvement.
What is Healthy Digestion?
Healthy digestion involves multiple steps in order to break down food into sufficient energy for the body’s innumerable processes daily.
Digestion actually begins before food even enters the stomach. It results from the sight, smell, taste or even thought of food. This means that your brain is actually sensing the need for digestion and begins to send signals to the digestive tract to get ready. This is call the Cephalic Phase of digestion.
Next follows the steps of chewing food into smaller pieces, mixing it with saliva, and swallowing. The stomach then works on the food, acidifying and chemically breaking it down with stomach acid and enzymes.
Further breakdown of food happens in the small intestine. There the food gets absorbed into the bloodstream. Leftover bits of food and fiber undergo fermentation of by bacteria in the intestines. Finally, elimination of unwanted by-products occurs as a stool (poop!).
When Digestive Issues Arise
Gut health issues surface at any of these stages if the proper foundations aren’t met. Supporting the foundations of gut health requires not only dietary changes and often supplement support but also nourishing lifestyle habits.
When we experience a health concern, we need to first understand the body as a whole. Next, we consider root causes so that we can choose the most effective steps toward healing.
How to Improve Gut Health Naturally with the 5R Gut Healing Protocol
In a functional medicine approach to gut health, we use a process to restore digestive and whole body health called the “5 R’s”. The 5 step process of the 5R Gut Healing Protocol includes: Remove, Replace, Repopulate, Repair, and Rebalance.
Goals of the 5R Gut Healing Protocol
- Identify the timeline of health events that have led to current health concerns.
- Normalize digestion, absorption, and assimilation of nutrients, while promoting effective detoxification.
- Address nutrition and lifestyle factors through education and appropriate interventions.
- Normalize the levels of gut bacteria and eliminate any pathogens.
- Promote diversity of types of gut bacteria.
- Promote gut healing through diet, effective supplementation, and lifestyle intervention.
The 5 Steps of the 5R Gut Healing Protocol
We first assess our client’s health needs thoroughly and then create a personalized plan to walk through these steps over the course of several months. Some of these steps will be done simultaneously and in a unique order depending on your needs. Thorough functional medicine assessment includes reviewing a detailed history of health (medical, symptoms, lifestyle, dietary) as well as often doing functional lab testing. Functional lab testing is a comprehensive look into one’s health to help identify root causes of dysfunction. In the case of assessing gut health, the GI MAP stool test is paramount.
Here is the general process each person needs to walk through in order to get lasting gut healing. This process is often called the 5R Framework, or 5R Gut Healing Protocol:
- Remove: address gut infections with herbal antimicrobials; dietary reset: remove trigger foods via elimination diet- some foods may only be temporarily triggering until the gut is healed, reduce carb intake, focus on real & minimally processed foods; remove other stressors (overeating, excessive exercise, toxic environments, etc)
- Replace: continue to meet sufficient & appropriate intake of protein, healthy fat, carbs, and fiber, supplement with nutrients if needed, add in digestive enzymes, support proper stomach acid.
- Repopulate: introduce beneficial bacteria (probiotic supplements, probiotic/fermented foods), re-feed gut bacteria with diverse types of fiber
- Repair: Nutritional support for healing and regeneration of the gut lining; add in nutrient dense foods, phytonutrients (antioxidants, flavonoids, etc), omega 3 rich sources, gut repair supplements
- Rebalance & Retain: Personalized lifestyle interventions for maintenance of good health: mindful eating, exercise, relaxation, consistent & spaced mealtimes with ample time for gut rest at night, choosing the right foods (blood sugar balance, avoiding double stacking carbs); a plan to maintain the new normal gut environment.
Functional Medicine for Gut Health
As you can see, this functional medicine approach for gut health goes far beyond the conventional approach to gut issues. A conventional approach often just uses antibiotics without following up with any additional gut repair. The conventional approach to gut health usually stays stuck in the Remove step. But even then, it usually doesn’t address nutritional needs in the Remove step. Another unfortunate aspect of conventional gut health care is that medical antibiotics are usually knock out some healthy bacteria. This often leads to potential secondary gut health issues often then needing additional antibiotic use, in a vicious cycle.
Functional medicine for gut health provides the full support needed to achieve real gut healing. It helps us understand why we might have become ill in the first place and how we can make changes to address root causes and heal our bodies instead of just suppress or simply “manage” symptoms.
As functional medicine dietitians, we work with many clients to help them address and heal root causes of their gut health issues. You can learn more about our Gut Health Functional Nutrition Coaching as well as why we love utilizing the GI-MAP Stool Test.