A great study out of the UK recently connected gut flare ups in IBD people with anxiety and depression and somethig called, Somatization. Somatatization is when a physical symptom occurs related to an extreme mental state. This term is used a lot in related to respiratory (breathing) and skin conditions as well as here related to gut problems. In other words when they were feeling stressed in some way (mental symptom) their gut got worse even though they were not eating any offending foods and since it was medical study most were taking a medicine for colon issues. Second was that a lack of exercise or regular daily physical activity made the IBD worse when these emotional triggers were experienced.
As a Holistic doctor who has been preaching or teaching this relationship for decades to my patients my approach is not just chirpractic and herbal medicine, a big part of my treatment plans for somatizaiton is common sense. Plan a life full of activiity, stay active your entire life, exercise regularly, hike walk more than you sit, get outside, get off your screens. And of course eat the foods right for you. Eventually you can learn on your own but man times with help from a professional like myself which foods are good for YOUR gut regardless of the food allergy and “Dr. Google” articles you read. But you also have to address your personality and how you react to soial and environmental situations. Make sure you are learn emotional coping skills for your personality type. Sometimes this means seeking professional psychology sessions or groups to help you work it out. I do some simple work on this front with all my patients to some level but if they need more focused work refer them out for this part of their care.
The big thing I found most interesting as I read this article was that the focus of the medical community is becoming more open to realizing that patients are people not a “bag of symptoms” and have complex lives that drugs cannot fix. The researchers final comment summed it up:
“I think medicine is in a point of transition right now,” he added. “We’re (moving from) looking at people as disease states and ‘how do I treat the disease’ to ‘how do I take care of this human being,’ knowing that everything this human being does, including everything we put in our mouth, everything we experience, changes what happens inside our body, and it’s measurable.”
The PREdiCCt study is sponsored by the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Just sahring some new outlooks for the health journey we are all on.