What are the Best Supplements for Digestive Health?

by Deborah Maragopoulos FNP | Nov 8, 2021 | Gut Health | 0 comments

It's so important to keep your gut healthy, and sometimes your diet isn't enough. If your gut has been out of balance for a long time, you may need to use supplements for digestive health. They will help get your gut functioning optimally.

**The friendly flora in your gut (called probiotics) break down certain carbohydrates like starch and fiber that you cannot digest yourself.**

When the beneficial bacteria break down these carbohydrates, they ferment just like making beer or bread. This fermentation process creates a byproduct, called short-chain fatty acids, which are super important for your gut to be healthy. If you don't have enough friendly bacteria in your gut, and especially a wide variety, you will probably need to support your digestive health by taking probiotics.

The best choice is a broad-spectrum probiotic that combines several different targeted species at clinically tested doses. The microflora we have in our guts when we're infants is different from what we have in our guts as we get older. And if you become sick or have to use antibiotics, your gut becomes unbalanced. You may find probiotics that seem to work really well for you, and then the formula changes. That's because our guts change. With scientific research, we find certain species work better. Now, you may not always have to take probiotic supplementation, especially once you're eating probiotic-rich foods. You can usually get your gut back in balance by taking probiotic supplementation for at least 90 days.

You also need to make sure you’re getting enough prebiotics. Food for your gut’s friendly bacteria.

It takes a lot longer to heal your gut by supplementing prebiotics than seeding your gut with probiotics. Using both prebiotics and probiotics hastens the healing. If you've got intestinal dysbiosis, meaning a severe imbalance in friendly bacteria or pathogens, the pathogens must be eradicated using antimicrobials. It’s best to do sensitivity testing on your gut pathogens to see what will work best.

Now, if you're having trouble digesting foods, you may need some digestive enzymes taken with your meals. They will support your digestion and absorption until your pancreas can make enough digestive enzymes on its own. But if you're constantly taking high doses of digestive enzymes with every meal, you're telling your pancreas that it doesn't need to make any. It usually takes three to six months to retrain your digestive tract and get your pancreas to make adequate enzymes. Like amylase to digest carbohydrates, proteases to digest proteins, and lipases to digest fats.

To heal your upper gastrointestinal tract, ginger is probably the most versatile supplements for digestive health.

The esophagus includes the stomach and upper small intestine.

Ginger soothes your stomach, can ease bloating, and support regularity. Plantain can also be incredibly helpful to heal the upper digestive tract. The greener the better. Plantain can protect against peptic ulcers and increase the thickness of the lining of the stomach. All to protect it from its own hydrochloric acid.

Licorice root, particularly deglycerolized licorice or DGL, is incredibly healing for the upper gastrointestinal tract. DGL can actually soothe inflamed and injured mucous membranes. The flavonoids in DGL may hinder the growth of H pylori. That is a bacteria that can contribute to ulcers and gastritis. DGL is safer to consume than licorice root. Licorice root can affect your adrenal aldosterone production. Which will affect your blood pressure and your salt-water balance.

Glutamine is usually necessary to heal your colon, especially if you have leaky gut from infection or chronic inflammation.

Glutamine is probably the most abundant amino acid in the human body, and 30% of it is found in your gut. To heal your colon, you need between one to three grams per day for 8-12 weeks. But you have to be careful because high doses of glutamine can have a rebound effect, inducing constipation, nausea, headache, and stomach pain. Slippery Elm is another supplement that helps support normal inflammatory responses in the lining of the intestine and can be very soothing to the digestive tract.

Your colon responds very well to psyllium husk, which is a great way to add insoluble fiber to your diet.

Psyllium husk forms a gel in your intestine by trapping water and increasing the bulk of your stool, making it easier for you to defecate. Psyllium can affect your gut by acting as a prebiotic to support your friendly bacteria, and help them produce short chain fatty acids which helps your gut to heal.

Last, vitamin D is a supplement that acts as an immune modulator.

Since your gut houses much of your immune cells, vitamin D can help heal your gut. You want to make sure that you're taking enough vitamin D to keep your blood levels around 50. Although above 30 is considered normal, a vitamin D level of 50 or more is best for optimal immune function and gut health.

Supporting your hypothalamus is critical in helping your gut heal as your hypothalamus controls your immune system as well as your gut-brain connection. If you have any questions about supplements for digestive health, please join me in our Hormone Support Group, where you'll get access through our free Hormone Reboot Training.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can your hypothalamus cause weight gain?

Yes. The hypothalamus is the master regulator of metabolism, controlling how your body stores and burns energy through its signaling to the thyroid, adrenals, and pancreas. When the hypothalamus becomes dysregulated by chronic stress, poor sleep, inflammation, or blood sugar instability, it defends a higher weight "set point" — causing the body to hold onto fat regardless of diet or exercise. This makes hypothalamic dysfunction an upstream root cause of stubborn weight gain.

What is a weight set point and why won't mine move?

A weight set point is the body weight your hypothalamus works to defend, calibrated over time by stress, sleep, hormones, and inflammation. When you diet, the hypothalamus perceives scarcity and responds by slowing metabolism, increasing hunger hormones, and suppressing satiety signals to return you to that set point. This is why most people regain lost weight within two to five years of conventional dieting — the set point itself was never recalibrated, only temporarily overridden.

Why do I gain weight under stress even when I'm not eating more?

Chronic stress raises cortisol, which disrupts blood sugar regulation, promotes abdominal fat storage, and signals the hypothalamus that the body is under threat. In survival mode, the hypothalamus defends fat stores and slows metabolism — so weight can increase even without any change in calorie intake. The stress chemistry, not the food, is driving the weight gain, which is why stress reduction is essential to any lasting metabolic reset.

Why do I regain weight after stopping GLP-1 medications?

GLP-1 medications work peripherally on appetite and gastric signaling, but they do not address the underlying hypothalamic dysregulation that sets your defended weight. Because the hypothalamic set point is never recalibrated, the body resumes defending its original weight once the medication stops — leading to significant regain. Long-term success requires restoring hypothalamic regulation so the set point itself lowers, rather than relying on appetite suppression alone.

How long does it take to reset your metabolism?

Genuine metabolic recalibration takes a minimum of 90 days, because the hypothalamus needs consistent signals of safety and sufficiency before it will lower its defended set point. This differs from a diet, which produces temporary suppression the body quickly corrects. A 90-day reset typically moves through three phases: stabilizing stress chemistry (days 1–30), rebuilding metabolic efficiency (days 31–60), and lowering the weight set point (days 61–90).

Why does my thyroid feel slow even though my labs are "normal"?

Under chronic stress, the body converts thyroid hormone into reverse T3, which blocks active thyroid receptors and slows metabolism at the cellular level — even when standard lab values appear normal. This means you can experience genuine symptoms of slow metabolism, such as fatigue, cold intolerance, and brain fog, while your thyroid panel looks unremarkable. Addressing the upstream hypothalamic and stress signaling often improves thyroid conversion and symptoms.

Is stubborn weight gain a willpower problem?

No. Stubborn weight gain is a signaling problem, not a willpower problem. The hypothalamus governs weight through survival mechanisms that operate below conscious control — defending its set point by slowing metabolism and increasing hunger when it perceives threat. No amount of discipline can override this system; lasting change comes from restoring hypothalamic regulation through reduced stress, balanced blood sugar, restorative sleep, and targeted nutritional support.

About the Author - Deborah Maragopoulos FNP

Known as the Hormone Queen®️, I’ve made it my mission to help everyone - no matter their age - balance their hormones, and live the energy and joy their DNA and true destiny desires. See more about me my story here...

   

Last Updated: January 12, 2023