Thirdly, consider taking digestive enzymes. If you often feel bloated, get indigestion after meals or suffer from excessive flatulence, you may not be making enough enzymes to digest your food properly. It' s a vicious circle, because with fewer enzymes you absorb fewer nutrients and with fewer nutrients you make fewer enzymes. If this is your problem, there' s a simple solution. Supplement a digestive enzyme tablet with each meal. The good ones contain lipase (for digesting fat), amylase (for digesting carbohydrate) and protease (for digesting protein). Some also contain papain (from papaya) or bromelain (from pineapple). Eating these fruits fresh can also aid digestion.

Also supplement a multivitamin and mineral containing 10mg of zinc because zinc is needed to make stomach acid. If you improve your eating habits you may well find that within a month, you can stop taking the digestive enzymes and still stay well.

If these steps don' t work, you should see a nutritional therapist, who can assess other potential problems in your digestive system (such as dysbiosis or an imbalance in intestinal flora, or parasites).