Digestive Inflammation and Food Cravings

Your stomach’s appetite signal, ghrelin, plays multiple roles in health.  It is required for the release of growth hormone that repairs your body.  It is required for bowel motility so that your digestive tract moves along in a timely manner (and you don’t get heartburn).  Several new lines of research are showing that ghrelin levels are elevated during digestive distress in an effort to coordinate repair of your digestive tract.  If digestive issues persist, ghrelin will keep trying. 

The adverse side effect of elevated ghrelin is that your appetite will elevate and you will eat more food, making you gain weight.  On the other hand, if you lose your appetite from the digestive inflammation then your body is entering a more serious state of inflammatory-driven malnutrition.

Research pointing out this unique feature of ghrelin comes in part from Celiac research¹.  Patients with Celiac have highly elevated ghrelin² that correlates directly to the amount of digestive damage, which lowers when they quit eating gluten for a while.  It also comes from research sowing that ghrelin is elevated by bacterial toxins³ (which also inflame your digestive tract).  The research shows that ghrelin acts as a powerful repair compound to assist digestive healing⁴.

It is unfortunate that millions of Americans live with chronic digestive imbalances characterized by an overgrowth of hostile bacteria or Candida albicans, resulting in an ongoing overload of endotoxin and other inflammatory irritants that constantly inflame the GI tract. 

Since elevated ghrelin drives the urge for sugar or carbohydrates, it means that cravings for these concurrent with digestive distress indicates a flare up or problem with an overgrowth of bacteria or Candida.  It also means that when you eat better and improve your digestive health that the cravings will go away because your digestive tract is doing better.

We have known for over 20 years that people with Candida crave sweets and carbohydrates and I always thought it was the Candida trying to survive (Candida uses sugar as fuel) that was somehow making them eat.  Often giving natural antifungals makes the cravings go away.  Other times it makes them worse, as a battle ensues. 

At long last the mechanism is clear.  If you have digestive distress and excess carbohydrate cravings, at least part of the problem is your digestive system trying to fix itself and repair its lining.  Those with a history of digestive issues should recognize increased carbohydrate or sugar cravings as a potential first sign in a flare up of digestive problems.  Taking fast action to correct the digestive issue will not only stabilize your health, it may prevent you from gaining weight or gaining back weight after a period of weight loss.