What is the main cause of diarrhoea?
Whilst the main cause of diarrhoea is often a gut infection that can be cause by either a viral or bacterial infection, some other underlying causes which could contribute to more regular, loose bowel movements include: digestive insufficiency, stress or an imbalance in gut bacteria.
Why might we get diarrhoea?
Here I explore some of the reasons why we might experience diarrhoea:
1. Digestive insufficiency
Digestive insufficiency is often one of the main causes of loose bowels. Especially if this symptom is long-term or a persistent problem, then digestive insufficiency could well be underlying.
When I talk about digestive insufficiency, I'm quite often talking about the stomach and having too little stomach acid. See, you really need strong stomach acid in order to break down your food properly, and allow this food to then travel into the small and large intestine in the right states to be properly absorbed.
If, instead, your stomach acid isn't breaking down your food properly, then these larger particles of foods can travel into the large intestine and your body may not respond too well as they are in a state which is somewhat foreign.
So, although they come from foods, they, unfortunately, aren't in the correct form; the simplest units that your body is able to recognise and put to good use.
So, if this is the case, within your large intestine where water is usually retained, actually, as a protective mechanism, water can instead flood into the large intestine to take these 'foreign' particles away. This is when you can end up going to the toilet more frequently and experiencing diarrhoea.
Then, remember, there are also certain medications that could potentially make this situation worse, such as your PPIs or your acid-reducing medications. This is especially true if these are used long-term without a review by your doctor.
Another important consideration is that a state of digestive insufficiency is quite often an underlying and driving factor when it comes to food intolerances such as lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance. Because these specific particles of food, lactose, found in dairy products, or gluten found in wheat or rye; these particles aren't being broken down properly and then aren't tolerated well as a result. (Please note, food allergies involve quite separate processes).
What can be done to help?
This is where your digestive bitters can come in. Having a nice digestive bitters complex, such as our Yarrow complex, where you can really taste the bitterness in your mouth, can help to gently stimulate the production of stomach acid.
Try adding more bitter herbs to your diet, or you can take this in tincture form for convenience too.
2. A stomach bug
A stomach bug or bowel infection can also give rise to diarrhoea. Gastroenteritis is a common state of infection affecting the gut, for example. This state can actually be caused by different viruses or bacteria.
You have common viruses such as the norovirus, for example, which traditionally causes stomach upset, or bacteria such as salmonella, which is usually involved in food poisoning, for example.
These bacteria or viral infections can often cause quite acute diarrhoea that usually lasts for a few days, or even a week or so.
There are also more generic infections that can also give rise to diarrhoea. Influenza or flu viruses, for example, and also different colds as well, such as your coronaviruses can all give rise to diarrhoea as part of their symptoms.
What can be done to help?
Whilst symptoms as part of a bug tend to be a little bit more short-lived, as always, if your symptoms persist, or are quite severe, then we would always say to go to your doctor.
If it is a bowel infection contributing to your symptoms then Silicol Gel® can often come in handy to help manage the symptoms.
Silicol®gel for symptoms of IBS including nausea, flatulence, stomach ache, diarrhoea and discomfort.
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3. Stress
Stress may be a slightly lesser-known cause of diarrhoea, but stress can certainly also contribute to looser bowels and diarrhoea-type symptoms. These symptoms could be acute or chronic, depending on the situation and the source of the stress.
Acute stress, for example, could be something like a big event that you're worried about; a presentation, public speaking, or something similar that you're worried about and find yourself running to the loo more often as a result.
Interestingly, this symptom coming about in response to stress is a survival technique used by your body. Going back to traditional times when stress was quite often a life-or-death situation, your body needed to do everything in its power to prepare you for the worst-case scenario.
So, your body would employ the tactic of trying to clear you out and make you go to the toilet more frequently, so that your digestive system didn't need much more attention, and your system could instead focus on your heart, your lungs, your muscles, and systems that you would definitely need to help you run away, fight and ultimately save your life.
Unfortunately, your digestion could therefore suffer as a result since it wasn't seen as 'priority' during this time.
Nowadays, unfortunately, we have the modern problem of chronic stress.
So, these are ongoing states of stress. Unfortunately, when there's chronic stress, the effects of the stress on your system is similar, but this longer-term stress causes your digestive system to be continually 'switched off'.
Therefore, the state that is produced is once again in line with 'gastric insufficiency'. Chronic stress can have quite a direct effect on your stomach acid levels, and reduce them quite significantly, which then goes on to have the problems that we mentioned above.
What can be done to help?
If stress is likely to be one of your main underlying causes, then we would hope to target that in order to help. This would be where something like our Passiflora tablets could come in, in order to offer some nervous system support, and to help counter the effects of any additional stress.
4. An imbalance in gut bacteria
Once again, this them of an imbalance in good gut bacteria can often go hand in hand with some of the other areas that we've mentioned. See, digestive insufficiency can easily give rise to an imbalance in bacteria if those bigger particles of food are able to travel through and become subject to fermentation. Or, a stomach bug, potentially, could throw off your balance of bacteria for some time, even beyond the initial infection.
Stress, having negative effects on your stomach, could also potentially affect your balance of gut bacteria. This state is known as dysbiosis. And this can easily contribute to changes in bowel habits, such as with diarrhoea.
What can be done to help?
It can really help to look at the likely, primary underlying causes in order to influence how you got about treating the symptoms. Consider digestive insufficiency, the stress, perhaps, and trying to manage any sources of stress that you have control over.
And then we have some more direct routes of action in order to help influence our balance of gut bacteria.
Firstly we have prebiotics such as Molkosan, which can help to support the internal environment of the gut; exactly where these gut bacteria are expected to survive. We also have probiotics, and especially if you've been on a course of antibiotics in the past, or had an infection, then your bacteria could use a little support. Professional probiotic supplements can really help to target the balance of bacteria more specifically.
5. IBS
What I would urge you to remember with IBS is that it's really individual in terms of the symptoms, the causes, and therefore how we should approach the treatment. However, there is often overlap in the symptoms and diarrhoea, for one, is quite often a common symptom. Again, always consider the likely causes, including digestive insufficiency, stress or an imbalance in gut bacteria, all the same.
What can be done to help?
Even if you're still unsure of the exact cause, Silicol Gel can still often prove useful. This is licensed for the symptoms of IBS and it can often be especially useful if there's an imbalance in gut bacteria, for example.
6. Constipation
This cause of diarrhoea may be a little lesser known to some people. But especially if you have alternating bowels of both constipation and diarrhoea, the constipation is actually very likely to be an underlying contributing factor.
See, if you're quite constipated, or if your bowel is quite bunged up, then after some time, we may get this overflow state, and that can give rise to diarrhoea.
What can be done to help?
If you suffer from alternating bowels of constipation and diarrhoea, sometimes by managing the constipation quite head on, this in turn, could help to manage the diarrhoea, hopefully. Click here to read more on how to manage constipation.
