Improving digestion is the cornerstone to good health. With a healthy digestive system energy levels improve, skin becomes softer and clearer, body odor reduces and the immune system is strengthened. The trick is to work from the top down, first ensuring good digestion, then good absorption and then good elimination.

A lack of nutrients and the wrong kind of food can mean faulty digestion, faulty absorption, abnormal gut reactions including bloating and inflammation, gut infections and poor elimination. Digestive enzymes are substances that digest the foods you take in and convert the macromolecules into smaller, quickly digestible elements. These substances perform an essential function during the digestion and absorption of food.

The human body can produce digestive enzymes naturally. However, this ability is influenced by a number of aspects such as stress, chronic diseases, and aging. As a result, the human body creates inadequate amounts of digestive enzymes. This, in turn, hampers the digestion and absorption process.

The production of digestive enzymes depends on many micronutrients, especially vitamin B6. Sub-optimum nutrition often results in sub-optimum digestion, which, in turn, creates sub-optimum absorption so nutritional intake gets worse and worse. The consequence is undigested food in the small intestine which helps to generate excess of the wrong kind of bacteria and other micro-organisms. The symptoms of this can include flatulence, abdominal pain and bloating. The easiest way to correct such a problem is to supplement a broad-spectrum digestive enzyme supplement with each meal. This can make an immediate difference. Likewise for the family pet as well – if Fido experiences flatulence, you might want to find a good pet digestive enzyme to clear the air :)

If you experience any specific digestive difficulties the best person to see is a nutrition consultant. With current testing methods and recent advances in natural treatments most digestive problems can be solved with relative ease, little expense and no need for invasive tests or treatment.

Author's Bio: 

Since 2003, Therese Patterson has co-owned and operated EdibleNature.com which is an organic and natural products online store. Therese started writing articles for various online publications, while studying homeopathics and learning about various herbs, supplements and other alternative remedies. The progression to get Certified as a Nutritionist was a natural one.

Therese couple's her holistic health knowledge with her nutrition certification knowledge to bring better health to clients via NakedTruthNutritionist.com. Therese is also a featured blogger on ACAM (The American College for Advancement in Medicine) and Community Table. Additionally, Therese contributes to the local community blog the Encinitas Patch and has more than 5,000+ monthly subscribers that follow her healthy words of wisdom via the Edible Newsletter.