Ep. 108: Why You’re Still Constipated: The Low Stomach Acid Connection No One Talks About

If you feel like your food just sits there like a brick or you’re bloated after meals, burping, dealing with reflux, or still constipated no matter what you try…

There’s a good chance one of the most important parts of digestion is being overlooked.

In this episode, we’re talking about low stomach acid: what it actually does, how to know if yours might be low, and why it can impact everything from bloating and reflux to constipation, iron levels, and even SIBO.

Because here’s the truth:

You can be taking magnesium, probiotics, fiber, or even iron…but if your digestion isn’t working well at the very top, your body may struggle to break down, absorb, and move food the way it should.

This is one of the biggest patterns we see in women who feel like they’re doing everything right…but still have GI symptoms 

Can't figure out why you are still having GI symptoms? Take this free quiz! 

In just 2 minutes, you'll learn exactly where your digesiton is breaking down and receive actions steps to address your symptoms! 

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Transcript

Dr. Heather Finley 0:44

Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain. I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I'm here to guide you. On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back. So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place. Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

1:35

If you've ever felt like food just sits in your stomach like a brick, then this episode is for you. This also is for you. If you eat and within an hour or two you're bloated, you're burping, maybe you feel overly full after meals, maybe you have reflux. You're constipated no matter how much magnesium you take, or maybe your iron or ferritin keep dropping and you can't figure out why. If that's you, there's a really good chance that one of the biggest missing things on your journey is stomach acid. Now, I know stomach acid doesn't sound that exciting or sexy, but honestly, it might be one of the most important and overlooked parts of digestion. That I don't see a lot of people talking about because so many women are taking magnesium, fiber, probiotics, greens powders, digestive teas, all the things, and nobody has ever stopped to ask, can your body actually break down? Absorb move food well in the first place because the thing is, if digestion is weak at the very top, you can keep throwing all the glutamine at your problems, all the probiotics, immunoglobulins, you name it, and still stay stuck. You maybe you're taking magnesium for constipation. You have to have stomach acid to break down and absorb minerals. It may not actually be doing what it needs to do. You could be eating iron-rich foods or taking iron supplements, but if your stomach acid is low, your body may have a much harder time. Actually extracting and absorbing the iron, and this is one of the bigger patterns that we see in women who especially feel like they're doing everything right, but they're still bloated, they're exhausted, they're backed up, they're confused. So that's what I wanna walk you through. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about what stomach acid actually does, how to know if yours might be low, why this matters so much for bloating and constipation and reflux, and even sibo. And then why this could be one of the biggest missing pieces if your gut doesn't feel better. So let's zoom out for a second and I wanna talk about what stomach acid actually does, because that's what's gonna set the stage for everything that we're gonna talk about in the rest of the episode. So I like to describe stomach acid, like an ignition switch of digestion. If your ignition turns on smoothly, then your digestive system or the whole system is gonna run the way that it's supposed to. If that ignition. Is weak or struggling to turn over. Everything downstream starts to feel off. Now, this happened to me a couple weeks ago. I was in California on spring break and I went to take my daughter to lunch and the car wouldn't start. So we had these jumper cables and we're trying to jump the car, and then it was this portable jumper cable battery situation. The battery wasn't working on that, and so the car. Like at first it wouldn't even click on. Then it kind of started and we had to give it some time to charge back up and then finally it, it struggled, but the car actually started. Now my biggest fear, of course, was that we would get to the place we were going and then have the same issue. So you drove around a little bit to let the battery charge, but all that to say this is the same way with your digestion, you. So it might not even be turned on, so nothing is working. Or maybe it's like kind, it's clicking, starting to turn over, but the whole stream isn't working. Or maybe you just need some time to drive around a little bit and get things moving again. So stomach acid is what kicks off the entire digestive process, and it's responsible for a lot of things. But the first thing that I want you to think about is protein breakdown. So meat, eggs, collagen, plant proteins, all of these things rely on stomach acid to be eat. Properly broken apart, and this matters because you have to be able to break down protein, to extract amino acids and all the different things that you get from protein. Protein is so supportive for your metabolism, your hormones, your blood sugar, even your energy. Stomach acid is also essential for absorbing nutrients. We're talking about iron B12, zinc, magnesium, calcium, so there's actually a connection between stomach acid and B12, stomach acid and iron issues, stomach acid and osteopenia, osteoporosis because of calcium. So if your stomach acid is low, you might be eating really well or taking supplements, but your body may not be able to extract and absorb those nutrients efficiently, which is where you end up with low energy, brain fog, et cetera. The third thing is that stomach acid helps to turn the rest of digestion on, like the analogy that I just gave you. Once food hits your stomach and acid is present. It is gonna send signals to release other enzymes, bile, pancreatic support. So basically if stomach acid is low, it then affects the rest of digestion. So your entire digestive cascade is underperforming your stomach acid. Interestingly enough also. Acts as a protective barrier. So it's gonna help neutralize bacteria and microbes coming in with food. So when it's low, things are more likely to survive that normally wouldn't think of parasites. Pathogens, h pylori infections, that low stomach acid can make the gut environment more vulnerable to imbalance over time. This is why. Maybe you're the one that always gets food poisoning and nobody else does, or you're the one that gets sick when you travel and nobody else does. The last thing that I wanna touch on today is that stomach acid helps to prepare food to move through the GI tract properly. When food is broken down, well, it moves through more smoothly, but when it's weak, then that process gets really heavy. So when you think about all of that together, you can think about it like a domino effect. Stomach acid is really that first domino, and if that first domino doesn't fall, everything downstream. Your enzymes, bile, nutrient absorption, motility. All of that can start to feel off, and this is why you can be doing all the right things and still be dealing with bloating and constipation and low iron and reflux because your system was never turned on in the first place. So let's talk about some signs of low stomach acid, because that's where things get a little bit interesting. A lot of people hear low stomach acid and assume that it would feel like not enough acid, but ironically, low stomach acid often doesn't feel like not enough. It often actually feels like. Too much. You might have reflux, you might have fullness, you might have burping, bloating, food, backing up, constipation. This is why it often gets missed, especially when it comes to reflux, because most people aren't thinking, oh, my stomach acid is low. That's why I'm having reflux. They're thinking, oh, my stomach is sensitive. I guess I just can't tolerate that. I guess maybe that's giving me reflux when sometimes the issue is that food is just not being broken down. Well, so some signs that we wanna look for, number one, bloating after meals, especially if you feel bloated pretty quickly after eating. Not just like I'm bloated by bedtime, but more like I ate in an hour later, I'm bloated. This can be a sign that food is just sitting there and not breaking down. Well. Number two is burping. This is a big one. Frequent burping after meals can be a clue that food is lingering in the stomach longer than it should. It's fermenting more. It's creating that pressure upward, and the gas has to go somewhere. Number three would be fullness or heaviness after eating. So if you feel overly full after would be a normal sized meal for most people. Or maybe you say things like, I feel like I have a brick in my stomach, or I just feel so heavy the food is just. Sitting there that can absolutely point back to low stomach acid or just sluggish digestion reflux or heartburn. This is the one, like I said, that surprises a lot of people because we're often told that reflux means too much acid and then you're prescribed a PPI, making the issue worse. In many cases, it's actually tied to poor digestion and poor stomach emptying. So when food sits too long and that pressure builds up, that can create symptoms that feel like reflux or burning. So yes, sometimes reflux is not because you have too much acid, it's because digestion is weak and food is just backing up. You can also feel like food is just sitting there. This is one of the most classic descriptions, nausea after eating. Not everyone will get this, but for some people, low stomach acid can show up as mild nausea, and then constipation. This is one that I really want you to think about because if digestion is weak at the top. The whole system slows down. So yes, constipation can actually be connected with low stomach acid. We see it all the time. This is one of the biggest reasons so many women are taking magnesium, fiber, MiraLax, probiotics, but they're still not going to the bathroom because your stomach has to fill with acid in order to empty. And that emptying is what helps with gut motility and clearing the bowels, et cetera. Another thing that you can look for is undigested food in your stool. If you're seeing food in your stool besides like chia seeds or thing like corn, um, then that can be a sign as well. And then low appetite in the morning. That's kind of sneaky because there it could be other things as well, but if you wake up and you just don't feel hungry, or sometimes breakfast feels hard, that can also be a sign that your digestion is just sluggish overall. Those are just some things to think about, like, okay, is this part of my story? In addition to what I mentioned at the beginning, like the protein, feeling harder to digest or just, I feel worse with dense meals or kind of that meat aversion, avoiding heavier foods, low iron situation. Okay, so you might be listening thinking, well, I have like eight of those symptoms. That doesn't automatically mean that stomach acid is your only issue, but it does mean that this may be a really important piece of the puzzle that has been overlooked. And honestly, it gets overlooked a lot because the symptoms are often treated as random separate issues, right? Take this for your reflux. Try this food elimination for your bloat. Try this. Fiber for your constipation. Try this iron supplement for your iron when in reality they all may be tracing back to the same weak point in digestion. So I wanna just connect the dots because stomach acid becomes really relevant when you have a lot of things going on, especially when you have. Constipation or other iron issues, et cetera. Usually it's normal if you're bloated or constipated to think about the bottom of digestion. So you're thinking like fiber, your probiotics, your colon, your stool, your water, your magnesium. And while those things can definitely matter, food has to be broken down well at the top of digestion, or the body's gonna have a much harder time moving it all the way through. And that's one of the big reasons that you might be stuck is because of that weak point in digestion at the top. So your system isn't working, it's like an assembly line. Your stomach acid is one of those very first stations, and if that station is understaffed, then the rest of the assembly line gets backed up. So when stomach acid is low, a few things can happen. That protein doesn't get broken down. Well, that is what leads to that heaviness, that fermentation, that signaling, like I said, gets weaker. Another piece is that bile and digestive support can be weaker, so you might have more trouble breaking down fat. Lubricating the digestive process or just keeping things moving. And then a big one, especially if you're constipated and bloated, is food is more likely to ferment. We don't want a ton of excess fermentation going on. When food is just sitting there fermenting, it's creating gas that upper GI bloat, lower GI bloat that discomfort. So if you're bloated, distended, constipated, all at the same time, that's just showing that whole system is possibly congested and then motility is gonna be sluggish. This is a big one. Digestion is inefficient from the beginning. Your gut is gonna have a harder time moving things all the way through. And that's why constipation is so much more complex than just eat more fiber or drink more water. Because yes, while those things can help, we also have to make sure that your food is being broken down correctly. It's kind of like trying to push a traffic jam through the gut, right? You have to be able to clear the traffic jam versus just like. Adding more cars to the pile up or fixing what's actually slowing down the roads. That's a big piece of what we're gonna do with our clients is like, get things out of the way, get things broken down. How do we stimulate bowel movements? How do we get motility to move? And that's where minerals can be really important too, because if your digestion is underpowered, you may not be breaking down and absorbing nutrients the way that you think you are. That's a common question that I get from clients or potential clients is well, why would I need a mineral supplement if I eat a really healthy diet? Well, if you have GI issues and you're not actually extracting nutrients from your food, you're needing a lot more of a nutrient and dealing with possible deficiencies over time. So you could be taking magnesium, but if your digestion is weak, your body's not using it well. And the same goes for any other nutrient, not just magnesium. Could be B vitamins or sodium zinc. These are all gonna be nutrients that help with energy and digestion and even your nervous system. So we have to be able to absorb well and then we can end that really frustrating cycle of why am I stuck? Now I wanna talk about something that I know many of you are dealing with, which is low ferritin. You might feel exhausted, you might feel foggy, just not like yourself, even though you're doing everything right. And that's, this is another piece where stomach acid plays a really big role. And it's something that we see a lot because we have a lot of women that come to us that say like, I've been on Iron Ivy, iron, I've been on Supplemental Iron, I've been taking beef liver, I've been eating red meat, vitamin C. And their ferritin either barely moves or temporarily moves, and it's so frustrating because you feel like your body's just not responding. So here's the piece to connect here. You could be eating all the iron rich foods or even taking iron, but if your digestion is weak, absorption is going to be a struggle. In fact, we were just reviewing this yesterday on one of our clients and she has been dealing with low iron. She's so exhausted having trouble getting through the day. She's like, I think I just need to go get an infusion. And while I don't know, possibly an infusion might make her feel better. It's interesting because her iron labs are actually pretty good. It's her gut. You look at her GI map and her. Digestive markers are so poor, which makes a lot of sense. It's like, okay, you're inputting all of this, but your body's not even breaking it down. So the biggest thing, although not a quick fix, is how do we actually get your body breaking down nutrients, Allah, iron in this case so that then it can move it and transport it and store it as ferritin and help relieve your hair loss and fatigue and, and all the things. So stomach acid is going to help release iron from food, so you're eating steak or any iron containing food, and your body actually has to break that food down to access any minerals like iron inside of it. It. It's also gonna help with the absorption piece and then gonna support that transport of iron utilizing iron building hemoglobin when it break, when your body is actually using stomach acid to break down protein. So sometimes low ferritin isn't just oh, you need to increase your iron intake. It's okay. How do we actually get your body to extract and absorb what is there? I want to shift also and talk about SIBO or just bacterial overgrowth. This is where low stomach acid can also play a role in the gut environment more broadly. Because stomach acid, while it does help you digest food, it's also part of your body's protective barrier. So the analogy that I often use is your body's bouncer. It helps decide what gets through, what doesn't, what should have been handled before it moves deeper through the digestive. Okay, so when stomach acid is low, that protective barrier becomes weaker, meaning that more microbes are able to survive. So things that normally wouldn't have been easily handled in the GI tract may have an easier time getting through. Food is more likely to sit in ferment leading to those. Symptoms like gas and bloat that we talked about, and the gut environment is easier to disrupt. And over time, that can make it easier for the digestive system to become more imbalanced. So you end up with bloating and SIBO and overgrowth patterns and recurring symptoms. So I wanna be clear, that does not mean that low stomach acid is the only cause of sibo, or that if you have SIBO, you automatically have low stomach acid because it's a lot more complex than that. But low stomach acid can absolutely be one of those terrain pieces with the gut that often gets overlooked. And so it's a really helpful piece of the puzzle when especially you've done like repeated treatments or you're like, why did my gut become such a hospitable environment for sibo? Why does this keep coming back? Same thing with fungal overgrowth. Supporting digestion, especially stomach acid helps. So much with fungal stuff and is often a very much missed root cause. So why does this get missed? This is a big question that a lot of our clients get. Asked. Most people are never taught to think about digestion from the top down in gut practitioner, which is my practitioner training. That is the framework that we use is top down digestion. We're taught in school to think of our symptoms in isolation. So if you're constipated, you're told magnesium, MiraLax, fiber. If you're bloated, you're told, cut out dairy and gluten, try this probiotic, blah, blah, blah. Reflux. You're told just. Take this PPI if you're told, if you have sibo, take this antibiotic. And the problem is that sometimes those things can help temporarily, but if your digestion is weak from the very top, you're gonna do all these things and still feel stuck. And that is such an important thing to understand because a lot of women start to internalize that as like. I've tried everything. Something's wrong. Maybe my body's just difficult, maybe I am gonna be like this. And a lot of the times that is not the case. 99.9% of the time, that's not the case. It's that the sequence of digestion is off. And that's one of the biggest patterns that we see in our clients is nobody has ever helped them rebuild their digestion From the top down, nobody has ever explained how. Is your body actually breaking down food? How is it absorbing nutrients? How is it signaling digestion? How is it preparing food to move all the way through? So if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, this sounds a lot like me, what should I actually do? The first thing I wanna say is, the answer is not just randomly taking a bunch of battan HCL, that's not the goal. In fact, that's my last choice when it comes to stomach acid. We want to ask the question, why did digestion get weak in the first place? Because stomach acid is usually not the only root cause. It's showing something else. Is your body under stress? So it's turning off digestion. Is it under resourced and depleted? So it doesn't even have the minerals to make stomach acid. Stomach acid is hydrochloric acid. It requires minerals to be made. Um, it also could be something more upstream even. Salivation is really important, being in a fight or flight state and rushing through eating so. Where I would start. If this sounds like you is number one, slow down when you eat. This sounds basic, but it matters so much. If you're rushing, multitasking, standing at the counter, I'm guilty of this with kids stressed, scrolling, distracted. Your body is much less likely to fully turn digestion on. I also want you to chew your food so well, 20 times applesauce, consistency, however you wanna think about it. Chewing is one of the most overlooked parts of digestion, digestion. Doesn't start in your stomach, it starts in your brain and in your mouth. So if you are inhaling your meals, swallowing large bites, that makes stomach acids job even harder. You wanna stop eating in a stressed or activated state. This is really huge. If your nervous system is in fight or flight, digestion is gonna get deprioritized. So take a couple deep breaths, sit down, pause before the first bite. Step away from work or chaos. I also want you to notice how you feel after things like meat or eggs or protein shakes or heavier meals. Do they energize you or do they leave you feeling heavy, bloated, nauseous, or overly full? That can be really useful information. That doesn't mean don't eat those foods. That means probably pair some stomach acid support, even something simple like digestive bitters with those heavier, harder to digest meals. I also want you to consider whether reflux meds or antacids may be a part of the picture. For some people, long-term use of acid reducing support is going to be a big trigger for downstream digestive issues. That doesn't mean that you should stop anything abruptly without guidance is not medical advice, but it does mean that this is worth looking into, especially if you notice that your GI issues got worse, or maybe SIBO started after starting antacids or reflux meds. And then zoom out and ask what may have weakened digestion in the first place. This is where some deeper work comes in. Chronic stress burnout, postpartum depletion, mineral depletion a head injury, low vagal tone, h pylori, long-term undereating dieting history. Honestly, this is where so many of our clients have this light bulb moment of like, oh, wow, this actually didn't happen randomly. My body has been under resourced for a long time. Or, this really did start after I started PPIs. Or this did really start after a. A bad car accident where I had a, a concussion, et cetera. It's really helpful to connect those dots so you can stop blaming your body and actually really understand what's going on and what it's asking for. I hope that this episode made a lot of things click for you. I just want you to know that you're not crazy for feeling like your body hasn't responded the way that you expected. You're not failing because nothing has worked. You might just be missing some important pieces of the puzzle, and stomach acid could be one of those. We have to restore the ability for your body to digest and absorb and mood move food well from the very beginning. And then everything else starts to work a little bit better. So this is one of the biggest reasons that so many women stay stuck with constipation and bloating for years because they're focusing on food and food elimination and probiotics. And supplements without realizing that the problem is much higher up. So that is what I'm going to teach you in even more depth on my upcoming training on April 19th. If you are doing all the right things, you're still constipated, you're bloated by the end of the day, no matter what you eat. Your symptoms started after food poisoning, a stomach, bug, travel, pregnancy, postpartum, a stressful season. Maybe you've tried lo fodmap that didn't really solve the issue. You feel like you've done all the normal recommendations. I'm gonna walk you through a. Step by step why your constipation is not a fiber problem. The root causes that we see. How to actually find relief long term instead of being stuck in this cycle of trying something, getting a little relief, stalling out, trying something else. If you're ready to stop guessing, you want to understand this, make sure you register for the training. I will put the link in the show notes. I would love to have you there, and I'll see you next week on the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast. Thanks for joining.