Fat is a crucial macronutrient that the body needs to function properly. It is essential for hormone production, brain function, and the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins like Vitamins A, E, D, and K.
Fat is also the most efficient form of energy, providing 9 calories per gram – more than double the energy provided by carbohydrates and protein.. Historically, fats were the predominant macronutrient. Fats are critical to the health and function of:
- Blood Sugar Regulation – Helps to regulate blood sugar as fat gives more energy per molecule than sugar. Fats help slow the entry of sugars into the bloodstream which helps you avoid blood sugar spikes.
- Cardiovascular Health – Saturated fats are the preferred food for the heart
- Inflammation – Calms Inflammation
- Structure – Fat is a source of energy for many tissues including the muscles, brain, and heart.
- Skin Health – Supports healthy skin and moisture retention
- Endocrine Health – Fats are precursors for hormonal health
- Cell Membranes– Every regenerative process and every longevity process needs fats in the cell membrane where cell communication happens. If you don’t have enough fats or the right fats, the brain can’t communicate from one cell to the next, including communication down the spine to the muscles, and to the organs.
- Bone Health– Saturated fats help the body put calcium in the bones.
- Liver Function – Saturated fats protect the liver from alcohol & other poisons.
- Detoxification– Supports the body’s detox mechanisms, including healthy lungs, liver, and kidneys
- Immune System – Enhanced by saturated fats
That said, fats can be challenging to digest, absorb and assimilate.
Inability to Digest and Absorb Fat
Many of us are unable to properly digest and assimilate fats and increasing the amount of fat, even healthy fat, in the diet only makes the problem worse.
A few years ago Vibrant Blue Oils attended a Paleo conference where we offered free health assessments expecting to find a very healthy population of attendees. Much to my surprise, almost every person we assessed showed signs of poor fat digestion and assimilation. While they were eating this pristine, nutrient-dense, whole-food paleo or keto diet, much of the fat was not being properly absorbed and assimilated.
When fat assimilation is not properly working the following problems can present:
- Fats and their corresponding fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K are not properly emulsified, digested, or absorbed. This robs of the body of the building blocks it needs to create healthy hormones and cells.
- Undigested fats rancidify creating an additional toxic burden for the body – Undigested or rancidified fats can be especially damaging to the mucosal lining of the small intestines and the damage to mucosal lining will inhibit fat digestion, creating a vicious cycle.
- Poor fat digestion contributes to bile stagnation and toxins, waste and old hormones that were stored in the bile for elimination via the intestines do not exit the body and are therefore reabsorbed further adding to the body’s toxic burden, contributing to hormonal imbalances and gallbladder challenges.
When you are unable to digest fats, it impacts your ability to digest other nutrients, including carbohydrates and proteins.
Malabsorption of the fatty acids means that fats are not being absorbed into the body but instead linger in the intestines contributing to gut inflammation and feeding pathogens like bacteria, yeast, and fungal overgrowth and that start injuring the inside of the intestines.
Symptoms of Poor Fat Digestion
- Dry skin and brittle hair
- Hormonal imbalances (fat helps synthesize new hormones and eliminate old hormones)
- Low levels of fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K despite ample supplementation
- Gas, belching, or bloating after meals
- Mild headaches over the eyes
- Greasy, smelly, light-colored, and/or floating stools.
- Gallbladder pain (right side, under ribs), Pain between the shoulder blades, or Gallstones
- Nausea or diarrhea after eating
Fat Regulates Blood Sugar
When it comes to blood sugar regulation, fat plays an important role in slowing down the absorption of glucose into the bloodstream. This means that when you eat a meal that contains fat, your body will release glucose into the bloodstream more slowly and steadily, preventing spikes in blood sugar levels.
Fat doesn’t break down into glucose during digestion, so it doesn’t directly cause blood sugar levels to rise. In fact, eating a balanced meal or snack that includes some fat can lead to more stable glucose levels. Fat slows down the digestive process resulting in a “delayed” rise in glucose levels as it takes a longer time to digest. This regulates glucose absorption and helps us to feel full for a longer amount of time.
Research on the “Effect of co-ingestion of fat on the metabolic responses to slowly and rapidly absorbed carbohydrates” found that “Co-ingestion of fat resulted in a significant flattening of the post-prandial glucose curves.”
How You Digest Fat
Healthy digestion, absorption, and assimilation of fat require that lipid molecules be broken down both chemically and mechanically and absorbed into circulation, and transported around the body. This digestive process for fat begins in the mouth, with saliva helping to break down lipids.
Mouth: Chewing mechanically breaks food into smaller particles and mixes them with saliva. An enzyme called lingual lipase is produced by cells on the tongue (“lingual” means relating to the tongue) and begins some enzymatic digestion of triglycerides, cleaving individual fatty acids from the glycerol backbone.
Stomach: Cells in the stomach produce another lipase, called gastric lipase (“gastric” means relating to the stomach) that also contributes to enzymatic digestion of triglycerides. Lingual lipase swallowed with food and saliva also remains active in the stomach where the mechanical mixing and churning helps to disperse food particles and fat molecules. As the stomach contents enter the small intestine, most of the dietary lipids are undigested and clustered in large droplets.
Small intestine: The majority of fat digestion happens once it reaches the small intestine. This is also where the majority of nutrients are absorbed with the help of bile, a yellowish-green fluid that is produced in the liver and stored concentrated, and released from the gallbladder and digestive enzymes released by the pancreas which is delivered to your small intestine through ducts where it all works together to complete the fat breakdown.
Gallbladder: Stores, concentrates, and releases bile into the first section of the small intestine – known as the duodenum – to help emulsify and digest fat. Bile salts have both a hydrophobic and a hydrophilic side, so they are attracted to both fats and water. This makes them effective emulsifiers, meaning that they break large fat globules into smaller droplets. Emulsification makes lipids more accessible to digestive enzymes by increasing the surface area for them to act.
READ THIS NEXT: What Does Your Gallbladder Do?
Pancreas: The pancreas secretes digestive enzymes, including pancreatic lipases into the small intestine to enzymatically digest fats. Some of these enzymes, called lipolytic enzymes, further break down the fat and allow you to absorb it. Lipase works together with bile to help you digest, absorb, and assimilate the fat consumed in your diet. If you don’t have enough lipase, your body will have trouble absorbing fat and the important fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K)
Intestinal Mucosa: The small intestine is where most fat digestion takes place, and the lining of the small intestinal mucosa is highly specialized for maximizing digestion and absorption. The lining is highly folded to form microscopic finger-like projections called villi, which increase the surface area to help with absorption. During the digestive process, fat and cholesterol are packaged into tiny particles to allow them to enter into circulation so that they can be used by cells around the body. Bile helps with this process by clustering around the products of fat digestion to form structures called micelles, which help the fats get close enough to the microvilli of intestinal cells so that they can be absorbed. The products of fat digestion then diffuse across the membrane of the intestinal cells, and bile salts are recycled back to do more work emulsifying fat and forming micelles.
Once inside the intestinal cell, short- and medium-chain fatty acids and glycerol can be directly absorbed into the bloodstream, but larger lipids such as long-chain fatty acids, monoglycerides, fat-soluble vitamins, and cholesterol need help with absorption and transport to the bloodstream. Long-chain fatty acids and monoglycerides reassemble into triglycerides within the intestinal cell, and along with cholesterol and fat-soluble vitamins, are then incorporated into transport vehicles called chylomicrons which contain an outer membrane that makes them water-soluble so that they can be more easily transported through the lymph to the bloodstream. Chylomicrons from the small intestine travel first into lymph vessels, which then deliver them to the bloodstream.
Lymph: Unlike other nutrients, fat cannot be absorbed directly into the blood from the gut because fat molecules are simply too large to be taken up by the tiny capillaries that line it; it would simply clog them up. Instead, it must be absorbed by another route – the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system absorbs fats from food through lymph vessels in the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. After fat has been digested, fatty acids are passed through the lymph system and then assimilated throughout the body via your bloodstream to be used or stored for energy, cell repair, and growth. Your lymph system also absorbs fatty acids to help fight infection.
Essential Oils to Support Fat Digestion
The following essential oils can be topically applied to help support the following organs of fat digestion and assimilation:
Parasympathetic®: Your body needs to be in the parasympathetic nervous system “rest and digest” state to promote optimal digestion, absorption and assimilation of fat. It is in this optimal parasympathetic state that the pancreas releases digestive enzymes and the gall bladder releases bile to emulsify and break down fat. To ensure optimal digestion in the parasympathetic state, you can apply the Vibrant Blue Parasympathetic® blend to the vagal nerve (behind the earlobe on the mastoid bone) before meals to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system “rest and digest” state.
Liver™: The liver produces bile, a yellowish-green fluid that aids in the emulsification of fats and the digestion and absorption of fat-soluble substances, like vitamins A, D, E, and K. The liver also stores fat-soluble toxins, including old hormones (like excess estrogen), in the bile for transport out of the body through the digestive elimination process. This means the liver needs to be functioning optimally to both produce bile and filter and store old hormones. You can support optimal liver function by applying Vibrant Blue Oils Liver™ over the liver (right side of the body, under the ribs) 2 – 3 times daily.
Gall Bladder™: Once the liver produces bile, it is stored and concentrated in the gall bladder. When we eat a meal with fat, the bile should flow freely into the small intestine to break down the fat, so we can absorb it. Unfortunately, stress, hormones, and excess fat consumption can make the bile thick, viscous, and stagnant which impedes its ability to flow. To support the optimal flow of bile from the Gall Bladder, apply Vibrant Blue Oils Gall Bladder™ on the right side of the body under the bra under-wire or along and slightly under the right rib cage, can help ease bile flow for optimal fat assimilation and absorption.
Pancreas™: The pancreas secretes digestive enzymes into the small intestine. Some of these enzymes, called lipolytic enzymes, further break down the fat and allow us to absorb it. To support optimal enzyme release for fat digestion, apply 2 – 3 drops of Vibrant Blue Oils Pancreas™ on the fifth rib (2 down from where the bottom of your bra) on the left side of the body.
Intestinal Mucosa™: The small intestine is where most fat digestion takes place, and the lining of the small intestinal mucosa is highly specialized for maximizing digestion and absorption. The Intestinal Mucosa blend was designed to gently permeate topically through the skin to regenerate and heal the mucosal lining of the small intestine to increase optimal nutrient absorption. Intestinal Mucosa™ protects the cells and nourishes “good” bacterial flora which in turn feeds the lining of the small intestine keeping it robust, healthy, and able to support the final steps of digestion, allowing only appropriately digested food particles to be absorbed. Topically apply 2- 3 drops in a clockwise circle around the belly button.
Lymph™: The lymphatic system absorbs fats from food through lymph vessels in the lining of the gastrointestinal tract. Lymph™ is uniquely formulated to increase the circulation of fats and white blood cells within the lymphatic system for optimal delivery of nutrients to cells and removal of waste from the cells. Topically apply 2- 3 drops in a circular motion around the belly to access the ileum where the Peyer’s patches – or the lymphatic area in the gut reside, right before the ileocecal valve. Lymph™ blend is designed for liberal usage.
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