By Araleena Isse | Naturopath & Certified Metabolic Balance Practitioner
We've all heard the saying, "You are what you eat."
But many years ago, one of my lecturers challenged that idea with something I've never forgotten:
"You are what you absorb."
And it's true. You can eat the healthiest diet imaginable, but unless you're effectively digesting that food and absorbing its nutrients, you're not necessarily getting the benefits you expect.
I recently joined Cherry Wills and clinical nutritionist Karen Pyke on the Metabolic Balance Stories podcast to explore the foundations of gut health, including the microbiome, fibre, digestive transit time and intestinal barrier integrity.
What I particularly enjoyed about our conversation was the opportunity to connect these different aspects of digestion. Because when it comes to gut health, we're rarely dealing with just one isolated problem.
Your Gut Is Doing More Than Digesting Food
We tend to think about gut health when something goes wrong.
Bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal discomfort or unpredictable bowel habits are often the symptoms that prompt someone to seek help.
But digestive function influences much more than what happens in the bathroom.
Our gut is responsible for breaking down food, absorbing nutrients, supporting immune function and maintaining a complex relationship with the trillions of microorganisms that live within it.
And those microorganisms don't simply sit there.
They interact with our food, produce metabolites and influence processes throughout the body, including metabolic and immune function.
We're learning more about these relationships all the time. The explosion in microbiome research over the past decade has changed the way we understand the digestive system.
It's also helping explain why gut health can be connected to concerns well beyond digestion itself.
Why I Changed the Way I Approach Gut Health
Earlier in my clinical career, I often used herbal medicines and nutritional supplements to support patients with digestive problems.
And while I could achieve improvements, I sometimes found that those benefits were difficult to maintain once the supplements were withdrawn.
This led me to look more closely at the role of everyday nutrition.
Getting the food right is about more than simply following what we generally consider a healthy diet.
It's about understanding what works for that particular person, how their digestive system responds and whether the dietary approach is sustainable.
Since incorporating Metabolic Balance into my practice, I've found that establishing a structured nutritional foundation can make it easier to understand what's happening beneath someone's symptoms.
I often describe health as being a little like the tide.
When someone is experiencing multiple health problems, it can feel as though the waves just keep coming in. But when we get the foundations right, particularly nutrition, it's as though the tide goes out.
Suddenly, we can see what's actually going on.
For some clients, digestive symptoms begin improving within the first few weeks. For others, particularly those with longstanding or complex conditions, progress requires more time and additional support.
But establishing that nutritional foundation can create a very different starting point for treatment.
Fibre: It's Not Just About Keeping Your Bowels Moving
For a long time, we thought about fibre as something that simply helped push waste through the digestive tract.
Eat more fibre, go to the toilet more easily. That was largely the message.
Today, we understand that its role is much more interesting.
Different types of dietary fibre interact with our gut microbiome in different ways.
Some fibres are fermented by bacteria in the large intestine, producing compounds known as short-chain fatty acids, including butyrate.
These compounds help support the intestinal environment, and some play important roles in metabolic and immune function.
Fibre can also influence how quickly carbohydrates are digested and absorbed, helping regulate blood glucose responses after meals.
But here's where things become particularly interesting in clinical practice.
More fibre isn't always the answer.
I've seen clients who were diligently taking additional fibre supplements, such as psyllium husk, because they'd been told it would improve their digestion.
Yet they were becoming increasingly bloated and uncomfortable.
In some cases, removing that supplemental fibre and changing the types of fibre they were eating made a significant difference.
This isn't because psyllium is inherently problematic. It can be very useful.
The point is that we need to understand the person's digestive function before assuming that the same recommendation will work for everyone.
And one of the most useful things I've found to assess is digestive transit time.
You Can Have a Bowel Movement Every Day and Still Have Slow Transit
This is one of the most surprising things I've observed in clinical practice.
Some time ago, I started routinely assessing digestive transit time with many of my clients.
What surprised me was how many people had significantly delayed transit, despite reporting that they opened their bowels every day.
They weren't necessarily describing themselves as constipated.
Yet the time it took for food residues to move through their digestive system was much longer than expected.
Why does that matter?
When intestinal contents move slowly, it can influence microbial fermentation, gas production and bowel comfort.
It can also help explain why someone may react poorly to certain fibres, despite those fibres being considered beneficial.
Understanding transit time gives us another piece of information when deciding how best to support digestive function.
The Simple Sweetcorn Transit Test
One of the ways I begin exploring transit time with clients is through a very simple home observation.
Eat a serving of sweetcorn, note the time, and then observe when you first notice recognisable corn in your stool.
Because the outer covering of sweetcorn is resistant to digestion, it can act as a useful visual marker.
This gives us a rough indication of transit time, although it isn't a diagnostic test and doesn't tell us precisely where a delay might be occurring.
It's a simple, inexpensive way to begin paying attention to something most people have never considered.
And the results can be surprisingly informative.
When we're dealing with persistent constipation, diarrhoea, significant bloating or unexplained changes in bowel habits, further medical assessment may be needed.
But understanding transit can help us ask better questions about what's happening.
Our Digestive System Likes Rhythm
Another topic we explored in the podcast was the importance of consistency.
Our bodies operate within a remarkable series of biological rhythms.
Sleep, hormone production, hunger, digestive activity and metabolic processes are all influenced by our daily patterns.
Yet modern life often encourages us to eat according to our social schedules rather than our physiological needs.
We skip breakfast, have a late brunch, snack throughout the afternoon or eat dinner at a completely different time each evening.
Of course, life needs to be flexible. Food is social and enjoyable, and that's important too.
But I find that many people benefit from establishing a more consistent eating routine, particularly when they're working to improve digestive or metabolic health.
One of the things I appreciate about Metabolic Balance is that it helps people re-establish that rhythm.
Regular meals, appropriate portions, adequate hydration and a clear structure can reduce some of the daily uncertainty around food.
Over time, these habits can become surprisingly easy to maintain.
And as health improves, there's often more room for flexibility.
What Does 'Leaky Gut' Actually Mean?
The expression leaky gut has been circulating in natural health conversations for decades.
But what are we actually talking about?
The lining of our small intestine is an incredibly sophisticated structure.
Its job is to allow digested nutrients to pass into the body while maintaining an effective barrier against potentially harmful substances.
It's not designed to be completely impermeable.
Quite the opposite.
We need it to be selectively permeable, allowing the right substances to cross while regulating what stays within the intestinal tract.
This process involves intestinal cells, the junctions between those cells, the protective mucus layer and interactions with our immune system.
When this barrier function becomes disrupted, intestinal permeability may increase.
Changes in intestinal permeability are recognised in a number of gastrointestinal conditions, although the relationship between permeability, symptoms and wider health concerns is complex.
For me, the important point is that good gut health isn't only about what we're putting into the digestive system. It's also about the health and function of the digestive system itself.
We need adequate nutrients to maintain the intestinal lining.
But we also need healthy digestive processes to make those nutrients available in the first place.
The two are closely connected.
Bringing It All Together: It's About the Whole System
One of the most valuable lessons from more than 20 years in clinical practice is that digestive problems rarely exist in isolation.
The foods we eat influence our microbiome.
Our microbiome interacts with dietary fibre and produces metabolites that influence the intestinal environment.
Transit time affects how long those intestinal contents remain in the digestive tract.
Our intestinal lining determines how nutrients are absorbed and helps regulate interactions between the gut and the rest of the body.
And our daily routines influence the environment in which all these processes occur.
It's a complex, interconnected system.
Which is why I'm cautious about approaches that focus exclusively on one factor, whether that's eliminating a particular food, increasing fibre, taking probiotics or trying to address an isolated microbiome finding.
Sometimes those interventions are useful. But they work best when we understand the broader picture.
In my practice, I use Metabolic Balance as one way of establishing a structured nutritional foundation, alongside appropriate naturopathic assessment and support.
When we get the fundamentals right, it can become much easier to identify which other areas need attention.
And sometimes, the improvements are much simpler than people expect.
A Final Thought
If you've lived with digestive discomfort for years, it's surprisingly easy to start thinking of it as normal.
But persistent bloating, unpredictable bowel habits and ongoing digestive discomfort deserve attention.
You don't necessarily need a more restrictive diet or a longer list of supplements.
You may need a better understanding of how your digestive system is functioning and what it's responding to.
Because ultimately, good nutrition isn't simply about what you eat.
It's about what your body can digest, absorb and use.
Listen to the Podcast
I joined Cherry Wills and clinical nutritionist Karen Pyke on Metabolic Balance Stories to explore the microbiome, fibre, digestive transit time, gut barrier integrity and the connections between digestive and whole-body health.
Watch the full conversation on my podcasts and speaking page.
About Araleena
Araleena Isse is a degree-qualified naturopath (BHSc Naturopathy) and Certified Metabolic Balance Practitioner with over 20 years of clinical experience.
She is the founder of Alchemy Medicine, based in Eltham, Melbourne, where she works with clients experiencing digestive concerns, metabolic health issues and chronic inflammation, both in person and online.
Learn more at Alchemy Medicine.