Known for causing physical discomfort, bloating can also impact your mood, energy, and self-esteem. Its wide variety of triggers, ranging from dietary habits to stress, can often cause further distress and confusion to people trying to curb it via different diets and pills.
Popular National Health Service Surgeon and content creator, Dr Karan Rajan, took to Instagram on Monday to share his top zero-cost bloating hack.
What is the Surgeon’s fix?
In his Instagram post, Dr. Rajan advises netizens to space out their meals and maintain a gap of at least 3 to 4 hours between meals if they want to improve their overall gut health. He further explained that spacing your meals out improves the efficiency of your gut’s self-cleaning cycle, also referred to as the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC).
What is the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC)?
Dr. Rajan further explained that your gut possesses a self-cleaning mechanism which can only work most effectively when you give your intestines some time in between meals to process and digest your food intake.
“Your gut actually has its self-cleaning cycle, but only if you give it the chance to kick in,” the surgeon shared
“This mechanism, known as the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC), is a wave-like motion within your digestive system that occurs between meals. Its purpose is to clear out residual food particles and bacteria from the small intestine, acting like an internal housekeeping crew to maintain a clear and efficient digestive pathway,” he added.
What other measures can you take to improve your gut health?
In his videos, Dr Rajan further reported that gulping your food too fast can also expose you to some severe health risks.
“The speed at which you eat has a significant impact on your overall gut health. When you eat too fast, you can override multiple physiological mechanisms designed to optimise digestion, overloading your gut’s workload. It all begins in the mouth, where the enzyme amylase starts breaking down carbohydrates,” the surgeon shared.
“So the next time you eat, slow it down. Chew. Taste. Pretend you’re at a Michelin-starred restaurant, not starring in an episode of Man vs Food,” he added.
