When people say they’re rather in tune with their gut feelings, it’s been proven that sceptics shouldn't scoff at them and here’s why — your gut actually has a second ‘brain’ that is capable of exchanging signals with our cranial brain and can manifest its health in other ways.
While this incredible ability that our gut has may not be tantamount to the functions of our actual brains , which can sort out your taxes and compose poetic prose, our gut’s brains can still communicate dissatisfaction and signal signs of distress back to our main brain. The enteric nervous system (ENS) consists of two thin layers of over 100 million nerve cells that line the gastrointestinal tract all the way from the oesophagus to the rectum.
Another discovery that researchers have found is that there could be a link between prevalent digestive gastrointestinal issues such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), constipation and diarrhoea and emotional or mental health issues like anxiety and depression. An astonishing find is that it may be possible we have been getting it the wrong way round!
Researchers in the field of neurogastroenterlogy now believe that gut health and the signals or warnings sent to the central nervous system can actually be seen in our state of mental wellness and not vice-versa; it was believed that people developed digestive issues because of anxiety or depression because of irritation in the gastrointestinal tract.
These new findings now can pave the way for new treatment opportunities for sufferers of poor gut or mental health and not just for mainstream medicine but also for traditional forms as well. In TCM, formulating herbal remedies requires a thorough body and tongue check to ensure that the supplements provide a targeted holistic treatment and not a panacea.
With new groundbreaking revelations about our body being discovered ever so often, there is hope that more solutions to our health issues may come about and we can better understand, accurately diagnosed and treat medical conditions by both conventional and traditional means.
