By Sangita Pedro, ND
The digestive system is the foundation of human health. Digestion of food provides nutrients to build hormones, immunoglobulins, and neurotransmitters. It is also where the body rids itself of toxins, used hormones and excess cholesterol.
Digestion requires more daily energy than any other system in the body, but it also absorbs the nutrients needed to keep the system running. It is a graceful, elegant system and when it is working well, we experience health and vitality. And when any part of the digestive system – stomach, intestines, liver, gallbladder or pancreas – becomes overburdened, we feel it, we just don’t always pay attention to it.
There are many ways in which our digestive system can become overburdened and many signs and symptoms that tell us what is happening. The most common burdens I see in my clinical practice are SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth) yeast overgrowth and intestinal parasites. Sometimes alone and sometimes all together!
Some early symptoms of these conditions include heartburn or reflux, tightness in the chest, coughing, runny nose, sneezing or skin flushing after eating, abdominal bloating, gas, constipation, loose stools or diarrhea. You don’t have to experience these symptoms all the time for there to be a problem.
SIBO and yeast overgrowth (ie. Candida) are fairly well-known diagnoses, especially among patients with overt gastrointestinal symptoms but parasites are regarded as rare and only really a problem in developing nations.
There are many myths about parasites but the three I come across most frequently are:
1. Parasites cause diarrhea and I am constipated so I can’t have parasites.
2. I have never been outside the US so I can’t have parasites.
3. Parasites make you lose weight, and I can’t lose weight so I can’t have parasites.
All false! It is true that some acute parasitic infections, like Giardia, cause diarrhea and weight loss but chronic infections more commonly cause constipation and weight gain. And although travel outside the US along with history of food poisoning increases the likelihood of parasites it is by no means necessary. Food poisoning happens in the US all the time and outbreaks of Giardia and Cryptosporidium happen in municipal water supplies every year in the US.
So how are parasites linked to infertility?
Parasites eat your food, cause inflammation in the intestinal lining and decrease absorption of nutrients. This depletes you slowly, over many years, of the nutrients you need to build hormones. Low hormones make it difficult to conceive and maintain a pregnancy.
Parasites, especially worms, excrete estrogen-like substances that block receptors and confuse our hormonal system. The toxins they excrete also impair the body’s ability to get rid of used estrogens properly. Those used estrogens are accidentally recycled, creating further imbalance in our hormonal system.
Another reason parasites are quickly disregarded is they are very difficult to find on stools tests.
Parasites adhere very tightly to the gut lining and therefore are not scraped off easily during bowel movements. They also have life cycles; periods of relative quiet when they are reproducing and periods of greater activity or growth which means you have to get lucky and collect a sample in a more active, plentiful stage. And last but not least, parasites are smart. They have learned to keep their population below the threshold of our innate immune system response. If their numbers get too high and break that threshold, our immune system will see them and kill them.
If you are experiencing unexplained infertility or have in the past, you might have some unwanted travelers in your gut sapping you of your nutrients. Find a practitioner who understands parasites so you can take back your vitality and fertility!