270: How Eating Disorders Impact the Gut Microbiome (Repost)

Nourishing Women Podcast

The purpose of today’s episode is to share the digestive response our bodies have to an eating disorder and how this impacts our gut microbiome.

For the context of this episode, I’m going to refer to eating disorders to include the entire spectrum: chronic dieting, disordered eating, orthorexia, anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. Since I specialize in orthorexia, I’ll really be touching on this quite a bit in this episode, yet all eating disorders (ED) have an effect so this really is an episode to say all forms of ED impact digestion.

According to Marci Evans, 98% of those affected by ED have digestive issues. Specifically functional gut disorders (meaning no structural damage), although structural disorders can absolutely impact those with ED, too. In today’s episode we share why this may be that so many with ED struggle with digestive issues, as well as why those with digestive issues are more prone to develop ED.

There are so many mechanisms at play for how the digestive process is affected when we have an eating disorder, in this episode we will review how an eating disorder impacts digestion via:

• The gut brain axis
• The stress response of the body
• Inflammation
• Decreased variety of the microbiome
• Decreased intake of prebiotics (food for bacteria)
• As well as next steps to take as a patient and health care provider

Resources and References*:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30704642

https://healthspaceclinics.com.au/blog/the-role-of-gut-microbiome-in-eating-disorders

https://kelseykinney.com/got-anxiety-heres-how-your-gut-microbiome-plays-a-part/

https://kelseykinney.com/polyphenols-foods/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6047317/

https://marcird.com/improving-digestion-without-obsession/

https://marcird.com/digestive-disorders-eating-disorders-a-complicated-mix/

https://www.thereallife-rd.com/2017/07/eating-disorder-gastrointestinal-issues/

https://www.victoriamyers.net/blog/10-steps-fix-digestive-distress

*Please note that there may be triggering information in the research studies linked.

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