Summer Newsletter 2024 - The Gut

The time approaching Christmas usually a rush for us to choose gifts, prepare celebrations, finish projects and plan holidays.

It’s also the time of the year that the gastroenterologist’s phone runs hot for requests for Colonoscopies & Gastroscopies! 

Sounds strange but it makes sense, for two reasons. 

1.   We can get so busy during the year that we ignore/delay action on niggly gut and bowel issues and sometimes more serious symptoms and realise that we promised ourselves and loved ones that we would do something about it.

2.  The second reason relates to Health Insurance.  If you are in Australia and have Health insurance and you have had a hospital procedure during the year, you will not need to pay a hospital excess again for any additional procedures. This means if you book with a No Gap Gastroenterologist with a No Gap anaesthetist, before the end of the year, it will cost you $0! (check with your insurer!)

Hippocrates said that 'all disease begins in the gut, however from a holistic perspective it starts with our emotions and is then driven by a cycle of emotional or gut/brain influence. Emotional issues affect the gut (our second brain) and influence our neurotransmitter production (the bowel is the source of 95% of the body’s serotonin)1. and consequently, our moods. Our moods affect our diet and we eat more sugar and animal protein creating dysbiosis and the gut & bowel lose the ability to regulate the population of non-pathogenic microorganisms and dysbiosis develops with symptoms of constipation, diarrhoea, reflux and bloating.  Moreover, continued stress makes us more susceptible to gut and bowel infections, making us miserable and finding it hard to making decisions difficult.