Throughout life, we all experience digestive discomfort from time to time. Maybe it’s an unsettled feeling, gurgling stomach, cramping, or gas but as we get older, issues like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, and foul gas can become more common! Certain aspects of our physical health change naturally with age, but a nutrient-deficient repetitive diet, imbalanced gastrointestinal flora, and reduced digestive enzyme production can wreak havoc on both our digestive and immune systems.
Our production of gastric, pancreatic, and other digestive system secretions reduce as we age. Also, oftentimes the variety of our nutrient-dense food choices declines. The diversity of healthy bacteria decreases, proper digestion decreases, and therefore nutrient absorption is reduced. This can lead to impaired immune function and leakage of unwanted molecules into the circulatory system (a.k.a. leaky gut), which can cause symptoms and inflammation in the body.
Some symptoms of age-related gut decline include occasional gas, bloating, abdominal discomfort, poor elimination, fatty stool, fatigue, and headache. Our ability to efficiently digest food changes as well. The amount of stomach acid we produce decreases, our skeletal muscle decreases, and our body’s nutrient needs increase; while hunger, thirst, and calorie needs decrease.
So let’s break this down.
Importance of Stomach Acid
For proper digestion, we need our stomach to have an acidic environment. However, with age, our stomach naturally produces less stomach acid which can impact the absorption of nutrients like vitamin B12, calcium, iron, and magnesium. Therefore it is important to provide high-quality food sources of these nutrients and to assess micronutrient status and potentially genetic markers to confirm that levels are adequate at a cellular level.
PPIs or proton pump inhibitor medications are occasionally prescribed but actually perpetuate the problem by reducing the stomach acid. Instead, a longer-term solution would be to reduce the foods that are causing inflammation and irritation to the lower esophageal sphincter that sits between the esophagus and stomach, and most often, lose body fat that is pressing against vital organs and pressing contents of the stomach up into the esophagus causing heartburn.
Hunger and Thirst Cues
As we age, our thirst and hunger senses naturally decrease, as well as our caloric requirements because our metabolism slows down. However, the nutrient needs are greater, specifically vitamins and minerals—like vitamin D, calcium, and vitamin b12. A nutrient-dense diet lower in total calories is ideal for our digestive system as we age.
Hydration is an important part of healthful aging as well! Even though the thirst response is down-regulated it is important to prioritize this area of health. Water is how we transport nutrients across cell walls, how we eliminate toxins from our body i.e. create consistent bowel movements and sweat—and how our body can reduce systemic inflammation. Getting at least 1/2 your body weight in ounces is ideal!
Skeletal Muscle
Another thing that decreases as we age is skeletal muscle, however eating more high-quality protein food sources can help maintain muscle, slow the rate of muscle loss, and actually help to build more muscle! Of course, combining a protein-rich diet with exercise and resistance training—like weight lifting—is the most effective combination.
Older adults are at a greater risk of fractures due to absorbing less calcium with age, as well as thinning, aging skin and a lowered ability to make vitamin D as efficiently. Most people know that calcium and vitamin D are important for bone health, but it is really the combination of Calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, zinc, and vitamin K2 that are most impactful.
It’s not just the overall amount of calcium you have that matters for bone health, but also how well you absorb it and where it goes. Vitamin D’s job is to stimulate and facilitate calcium absorption from your food and minimize calcium excretion from your kidneys. Vitamin K2 is described as the traffic cop because it directs calcium to deposit into bones and teeth and prevents it from settling into soft tissue like blood vessels and joints.
Zinc also plays a role in the structure of many proteins, including vitamin D receptors inside cells.
Magnesium is also required for the metabolism and activation of vitamin D to support calcium absorption.
And on top of it all.. certain medications that are often prescribed like prednisone (a steroid medication) both slow bone formation and speed the breakdown of bones.
Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) used to treat heartburn, are linked to a higher rate of hip fractures, likely because they reduce calcium absorption by decreasing stomach acidity.
Excessive thyroid medication, drugs for breast and prostate cancer, and the injectable birth control drug Depo-Provera are also known to reduce bone density.
To counter these effects, it’s essential to consume enough calcium from food, including cooked dark leafy green vegetables, seeds like chia, poppy, and sesame, sardines and canned salmon, beans and lentils, dry roasted almonds, and if you can tolerate dairy, high-quality cheeses, and yogurt.
Vitamin D-rich foods like salmon, herring, sardines, egg yolks, and mushrooms. Most often though many people still need supplementation for Vitamin D because we aren’t spending enough time outdoors and we put on sunscreen at every opportunity we do get outside.
A high-quality comprehensive bone support supplement that combines vitamin D, K2, magnesium, calcium, and zinc is ideal to reduce the risk for osteoporosis and prevent bone loss as we age.
Vitamin B12 is another nutrient to address. It is a vitamin that is needed to make red blood cells and to maintain healthy brain function. Vitamin B12 in the foods that we eat is also bound to the proteins in our food and before we can use it for the bodily functions we need, the acid in our stomach needs to separate it from the protein sources.
To Conclude
The aging digestive system is associated with changes that can make you prone to deficiencies in calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, and magnesium as well as the effects of decreased stomach acid production, loss of bone and skeletal muscle, and reduced ability to recognize sensations like hunger and thirst.
The good news is you can take actions to prevent these deficiencies!
Make a conscious effort to drink water throughout your day, eat a variety of nutrient-rich foods like quality protein sources, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and beans, work toward removing medications that may be doing more harm than good, and get your labs and micronutrient panel tested to determine if taking a supplement is right for you!
At Move Fully Nourished we utilize therapeutic diet interventions and diagnostic laboratory testing to help individuals regain and maintain optimum health. Our micronutrient panel allows us to assess the exact deficiencies we need to help correct through food or supplementation.
Check out these videos for more information!
Your Online Dietitian Coach, Ashley Anderson MS, RDN, LDN, CPT, PN1
Your Online Dietitian Coach, Rachel Brown, RD, IBCLC, CDECS, MBA
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