Understanding the Potential Value of Personalized Vitamins to GI Symptoms

Feeling backed up, bloated, and constipated? Guess what? You are not alone. Constipation is something many people suffer from—young and old. By definition it is somewhat subjective. Meaning, there is no hard-and-fast rule about how often someone should have a bowel movement. For some, their normal is to go every day. For others it is to go a few times a day. The problem arises if you experience GI distress. Fortunately, a personalized vitamin assessment can factor GI symptoms into your vitamin recommendations. Take a personalized vitamin survey to enter information about yourself and your GI symptoms and it will calibrate your nutrient composition and dosing based on your inputs.  

The official definition of constipation includes hard stool, straining with defecation, or going less than three times per week. Studies suggest that about 15 percent of people suffer from this problem at any given time. It is more common in women and adults over sixtyfive, but can happen to anyone. If you experience these symptoms, you should of course check with your own doctor to rule out underlying problems. Warning signs of more serious issues can include a sudden change in your bowel habits, blood in your stool, fever, unexplained weight loss, and persistent abdominal pain. Assuming there are no  underlying blockages or medical conditions, you can start to treat the symptoms of chronic constipation, or what can be a form of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), with vitamins and supplements in conjunction with other healthful habits.

This is a term you will hear batted around quite a bit these days. Firstly, IBS should not be confused with IBD, or Inflammatory Bowel Disease (a term for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, which are autoimmune-type conditions, requiring treatment by a gastroenterologist). In contrast, IBS is a less well-defined condition and essentially is a term for GI symptoms (constipation and/or diarrhea, bloating, discomfort) that cannot be attributed to another cause. If all testing is negative for things like IBD, cancers, infections, and celiac sprue (a serious intolerance to gluten), then symptoms are attributed to IBS. 

As you can imagine, this means there are many different varieties of IBS out there. For the purpose of this article, we will focus predominantly on constipation and mixed IBS (characterized by both diarrhea and constipation). The reality is both are treated similarly. That is because they are both due to a dysregulation of the GI tract. In other words, the normal biorhythms that tell your colon when to move things along are out of whack. Essentially your system needs to be retrained. Using the right combination of dietary changes and natural products, this can often be done simply, safely, and effectively. 

Let’s start with an example: We saw a college student who complained that she was only moving her bowels once per week. Not surprisingly, in the days in between, she felt bloated, uncomfortable, and sluggish. She had on occasion used over-the-counter stimulant laxatives for constipation relief, but felt they were “hard on hersystem” and worked unpredictably (not so convenient when you are sitting in class!). She would on rare occasions also have unexpected bouts of loose stools, preceded by cramping. She was tired of living with these symptoms and very frustrated that her efforts to alleviate her symptoms seemed to backfire.

This is a prime example of a consumer that would benefit from a personalized vitamin approach. They should stop wasting time in the endless vitamin aisle and discover a more targeted formula for their needs.