Relationship Stress May Be Messing With Your Gut

 Can Stress Put Holes In Your Gut?

In my 2 decades coaching people of all ages back to vibrant health, I've noticed a common experience among the vast majority of them (myself included). They've lived for years with relationship stress, either from childhood or with the people they walk with now. And scientists are now finding out why. If you wonder how your state of mind connects with your immune system and overall health, this post is just for you!

A new study says that husbands and wives who fight, are more likely to suffer from a leaky gut.

To investigate how an unhappy marriage can affect an individual's health, scientists at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center recruited 43 healthy couples between 24 to 61 years old who had been married for at least three years.

 

The Study

The researchers asked couples to discuss touchy subjects likely to spark disagreement, such as money or in-laws, and taped the conversations. They used this footage to analyze verbal and nonverbal modes of conflict, including eye rolls. The team also took blood samples from the couples before and after arguing, and found those who were most hostile toward their spouses had higher levels of LPS-binding protein, a biomarker for a leaky gut.

Dr. Donald Kirby, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the Cleveland Clinic, told WebMD that symptoms include bloating, gas, cramps, sensitivity to foods as well as aching and pain. He said of the little-understood condition: "Leaky gut really means you've got a diagnosis that still needs to be made."

Read More: What is Leaky Gut?

How to Know if I Have It and What Causes It?

 

The leakage of substances into the bloodstream is likely caused by malfunctioning junctions in the gut that influence what passes through the lining of the small intestine.

In the Ohio State University study, scientists found the highest levels of LPS-binding protein in participants who had the nastiest fights and a history of mood disorders such as depression. The biomarker was also linked to inflammation in the body.

 

Other Evidence of the Mind Body Connection

The Ohio State University study was small, but previous studies have linked a rocky marriage to slow healing and a spike in risk of conditions linked to inflammation, including heart disease, diabetes and depression. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, and director of the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, explained:

"We think that this everyday marital distress—at least for some people—is causing changes in the gut that lead to inflammation and potentially, illness.

"Marital stress is a particularly potent stress, because your partner is typically your primary support and in a troubled marriage your partner becomes your major source of stress."

Read More: 3 Secrets To Understanding Men (and Expanding Your Peace)

Dr. Michael Bailey, associate professor of biosciences at Ohio State University and co-author of the study, explained that stress, the sympathetic nervous system and changes to microbes in the gut appear to be linked. "With leaky gut, the structures that are usually really good at keeping the gunk in our gut—the partially digested food, bacteria and other products—degrade and that barrier becomes less effective," he said.

In turn, bacteria triggering inflammation in the blood could lead to mental illness in what Bailey described as a troubling loop. And as the participants were relatively young and inflammation worsens with age, older couples could suffer more, the researchers said.

  

The Good News...

The good news is, there are proven reliable steps you can take to heal your leaky gut, AND if you're ready to learn something you didn't suppose before, there's still a lot of useful road to travel in understanding some basic differences between men and women that are responsible for so much relationship stress.

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Keep your "Eyebrows Up" and your mind open, because no matter how many years you've been frustrated by your efforts to improve your life, walking more peacefully with the people in it, is entirely possible.