The benefits of IV hydration for gut health, overall wellness and reducing daily fatigue
In today's fast-paced world, where daily demands can often leave us feeling drained and fatigued, it's critical to prioritize our health and well-being. Thankfully, there is a safe and effective method to get an edge on these stressors. Those who are looking to increase their resilience and vitality need to look no further than IV hydration, for this is the most effective way to ensure we have the physiological reserve to meet the demands of daily living.
IV hydration involves the administration of a carefully formulated solution of vitamins, minerals, electrolytes and fluids directly into the bloodstream through an intravenous catheter. This method of delivery, ordered by a physician and delivered by a well-trained nurse, offers many benefits to taking supplements orally. When nutrients are delivered intravenously, they are immediately available in the bloodstream, bypassing all the barriers that prevent adequate uptake through oral administration.
Many people are aware that the digestive system has slow absorption, but do you know of all of the other barriers that affect peak plasma concentration? Peak plasma concentration is a measure of the amount of substance that makes it into the blood, and you might be surprised to find out how little of the benefits of what we eat actually makes it to our bloodstream.
Let’s break down the barriers to adequate oral absorption. When supplements are taken by mouth the first thing that will inhibit its full absorption into the blood stream is the capsule it is in, or the binders used to press it into a tablet. Much of the substance will be released though, and the amount of supplement exposed to the stomach will then be partially neutralized by stomach acid. At this point, the remaining amount of nutrition in that supplement will need adequate cofactors for it to be properly absorbed from the gut.
Two common cofactors required for proper gut absorption are derived from the B vitamins niacin and riboflavin. These cofactors are nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD). As you age, you make less of these cofactors, which affects your ability to not only absorb nutrition from food, but also causes fatigue and encourages disease states to develop.
Cofactors mechanically bring micronutrients across the gut, which can be easy or hard depending on the health of the gut. The gut is the hollow tract that runs completely through our body; it is predominantly comprised of the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine. Additionally, there are other organs that interface with these structures and are essential for food processing. The liver, gall bladder, and pancreas are chief among this supporting cast of organs. The gut is a dynamic membrane that changes shape based on what it is exposed to. A diet high in inflammatory and processed foods can cause gut thickening, which leads to malabsorption and a micronutrient deficiency.
The diet we expose our gut to has a distinct affect on how well our gut works. Think of this like putting sugar in your gas tank. That sugar immediately gums up the engine and will ruin a vehicle. You make recall this happens in the movie Kingpin with Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray, one of my personal favorites.
The message here is, the cleaner you eat the cleaner your engine will run. A vegetarian diet has been found to be associated with the healthiest gut features, and perhaps unsurprisingly but disappointingly, the western diet has been found to have the worst changes in gut health, resulting in production of short chain fatty acids as energy sources and harmful byproducts. Bloating, heartburn, and irregular bowel movements are common indicators that your diet is affecting your gut health and causing malabsorption. It is also important to promote gut health with bacteria that aid in digestion. This is the principal behind eating foods high in probiotics, like Greek yoghurt, sauerkraut, and kombucha.
Let’s talk drugs. The modern health system is dependent, if not completely reliant, on prescription medications. Two commonly used medications are antibiotics and proton-pump inhibitors used to treat heartburn. While antibiotics directly affect the healthy levels of bacteria in the gut which are required for healthy absorption of nutrients, proton pump inhibitors such as Prilosec or protonix work to alter the level of acidity in the stomach which interferes with the digestive process and can lead to malabsorption of vitamins.
Now, assuming a healthy gut, with good bacterial balance, proper pH, and an abundance of cofactors like NAD, the micronutrients will then be mechanically transported into the blood stream. At this point the first place it goes is to the liver to be ‘filtered’ before being passed into the general bloodstream where it can be taken up by cells that need it. In the end, less than 10% of what is taken in orally ever makes it to the blood stream. That means that taking supplements orally is more than 90% ineffective!
Now that you know how difficult it is to absorb nutrients from our food, is it any wonder we feel chronically tired dealing with daily stressors? This type of routine chronic exposure to stress onto cells low on critical vitamins and nutrients is one of the major contributors to disease states.
What can we do about it? The best thing to do is to break the cycle of malabsorption and micronutrient deficiency with bi-monthly IV vitamin infusions. When micronutrients are given by IV, you get 100% of that vitamin available in your bloodstream instantly. It is the best, quickest, and most effective way to deliver rescuing nutrition to your body. For an added benefit, get an infusion of NAD, which will help you get more from your food and does amazing things for overall health, turns back the time on aging, and increases your daily energy levels. For optimal health, get labs tests done to check your micronutrient levels and treat specific deficiencies with a customized IV hydration plan from Daybreak Hydration here in Las Vegas, Nevada.