Gentian Root: Russian Remedy for Digestive Health

If you have had gentian tea, you know just how bitter a tea can be. There's no doubt that gentian root is a medicinal herb. It tastes awful.

The world's most famous gentian tonic, however, can become an acquired taste. In 1824, a German doctor named Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert, who was the surgeon general of Simón Bolívar's revolutionary army in Venezuela, developed an alcoholic beverage he called Angostura Bitters, named after the town in Venezuela where it was made. Angostura Bitters are a mixture of 94-proof alcohol, gentian root, and spices that can be used to make "interesting" cocktails and after-dinner drinks. Now nearly 200 years later, they are still being made (now in the neighboring country of Trinidad), and extremely popular in parts of Europe as an apéritif or digestif for a heavy meal. Gentian helps digestion.

What Is It About Gentian That Helps Digestion?

The reason gentian powers normal digestion is in part due to the fact that bitter substances trigger a reflex of the vagus nerve. When you consume anything bitter, about as quickly as the taste hits your tongue, your stomach starts releasing more acid. There's a very simple reason for this. Many of the poisonous substances in nature are alkaloids, which have an intensely bitter taste. Releasing stomach acid gives your body a chance to break down the potentially toxic substances before they can reach your bloodstream.

With this safeguard in place, the bitter flavors that taste bad actually increase your appetite. This is a principle worked out by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who was more famous for experiments on "Pavlov's dog." Pavlov wrote about bitter substances, "The appetite is sharpened because the gustatory nerves are stimulated; this reflexively leads to dilation of the gastric vessels and to an increase in the gastric and salivary secretions." There aren't any alkaloids in gentian, but it activates the same reflex. Gentian helps you enjoy your meal and digest it better, too.

Gentian Isn't Like Other Bitter Herbs and Foods

Many other "herbs" have a similar effect. One reason for drinking coffee after dinner, for example, is for the bitter taste of the coffee to stimulate your digestion. It's both the bitter compounds in coffee and caffeine that have this effect. Drinking tea can also stimulate digestion, if it contains caffeine. However, caffeine has a secondary effect. It increases your pulse. Your heart beats faster when you drink coffee, if only slightly.

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Gentian (and another herb that isn't as universally accepted, wormwood, also known as artemisia) acts in a slightly different way. It stimulates the release of acid to help your stomach break down food, but instead of increasing your heart rate, it sends blood flow to your abdomen. This helps your bloodstream absorb the newly digested amino acids, fatty acids, and sugars from your small intestine. It helps you stay hydrated by stimulating the absorption of water from your colon. And it stimulates the release of bile from your liver, which helps your body absorb just the right amount of cholesterol from your food, while carrying away byproducts from hormone production.

How You Can Use Bitters Like Gentian to Improve Digestive Health

The fact that gentian and other bitters stimulate the production of bile explains why they aren't for everyone. If you happen to have gallstones, it's not a good thing for your liver to secrete more bile. This places pressure on the stones and can result in significant pain. You should also avoid bitters if you have a hiatal hernia.

However, if you have chronic problems with :

• Bloating,
• Flatulence,
• Heartburn,
• Nausea,
• Alternating constipation and diarrhea, especially if you have mucus with your bowel movement,
• Severe abdominal pain with diarrhea right after eating, or a diagnosis of 
• Irritable bowel syndrome

then using bitters can help you control your symptoms. Here's how.

• Increase your use of bitter foods and decrease your use of acid foods. Bitter foods include radishes, radicchio, endive, dandelion, chicory, and coffee. These foods stimulate stomach acid and help digested food pass through your digestive tract faster. Acidic foods, especially vinegar, make food linger in your stomach. Oddly enough, they reduce the amount of acid your stomach generates on its own, but increase the risk some of it will come up into your throat with gastroesophageal reflux (GERD).
• If you drink alcohol, take a shot of Angostura bitters in a cocktail before any big meal. Cocktails that use Angostura bitters include the Singapore Sling, Vodka Pekoe, Amaretto sour, and Añejo Highball. Just a dash of Angostura bitters is enough. Swedish bitters aren't quite the same thing. They don't contain gentian, but they do contain rhubarb root and aloe, which are laxative herbs. They contain chemicals (actually, these chemicals have to be released by probiotic bacteria after they reach the colon) that stimulate nerves lining the bowel that propel feces outward and paralyze nerves that enable you to "hold it" until you can get to the bathroom. You want to digest your food more quickly, not necessarily to run to the bathroom.
• If you don't drink alcohol, then take gentian tablets or drink gentian tea (most of us have to take it as a shot) before a meal, especially a heavy, fatty meal. 
• Be sure to chew your food thoroughly. Don't expect stomach acid to do all the work. The more thoroughly you chew your food, the more easily it can be digested in less time, so you have fewer problem symptoms.
• Avoid acid-blockers, such as Tums, Nexium, and Prevacid, unless your doctor has prescribed them. The problem is not enough acid, not too much acid.
• Take bitters before your meal, and drink bitter beverages after your meal. Coffee is the obvious choice. Decaf can be helpful for digestion, without stimulating heart rate. Sugar and cream may be problematic for other reasons, but they don't cancel out the effects of the bitters in coffee.

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If you have persistent discomfort on the left side of your abdomen up under your rib cage, the problem may be a deficiency of pancreatic enzymes. Supplemental pancreatic enzymes (which you can buy in health products stores and pharmacies) may solve the problem. If not, see your doctor.