9 Ways to Support Your Digestion During the Holidays background image
November 09, 2023

9 Ways to Support Your Digestion During the Holidays

Headshot of Dr. Thomas Wnorowski

Dr. Thomas Wnorowski

PhD, CNCC, Clinical Nutrition Researcher & Biomedical Nutritionist
Headshot of Pooja Mahtani
Medical Review By:

Pooja Mahtani

PHARMD, MS, CNS, LDN, IFMCP, RN

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Key Takeaways:

Key Points:

  • The holidays are a special time of year to spend with friends, family, and your all-time favorite desserts (did someone say pie?). But this time of year is particularly difficult for those who struggle with chronic (or situational) gut symptoms.
  • It’s estimated that about 2 in 3 people have daily digestive problems. While addressing them during the holidays is a priority for many people, it’s our goal for you to live the entire year symptom-free.
  • Simple solutions can help you feel better during the holidays — and not skip out on your favorite family recipes. Try herbal remedies, increase your fiber intake, use digestive enzymes, and swap some of the ingredients in your pantry for healthier options.

It’s a busy time of year to have digestive issues.

While your loved ones are celebrating the return of a favorite family recipe, you’re wondering how they can possibly eat it… without the dreaded side effects.

As isolating as gut dysbiosis can feel, there’s a huge number of people who struggle with it. One study suggests around 2 in 3 people have some sort of daily digestive problem.

The holidays can make these symptoms even more difficult. With a bounty of food, drinks, social gatherings, and peer pressure, saying “no,” is not an easy choice.

No one should struggle with daily gut symptoms, regardless of the time of year. Today, we’re sharing our best supportive supplements and lifestyle changes to help turn your digestive woes around ASAP.

Table of Contents:

Tips for Digestive Health this Holiday Season

This is the year you finally say “yes” to that dreamy chocolate pie.

Or dairy-rich mashed potatoes and gravy.

And invite everyone over for that cocktail party you’ve been talking about.

Digestive issues often feel all-consuming, but they don’t have to haunt your holidays. Here are 9 easy ways to optimize your digestion for fewer symptoms now and in the future. Pick just a handful to try, and choose the ones that resonate with you the most.

1. Regulate Your Nervous System

When faced with poor digestive health, it’s common to look for structural and biological root causes, like microbiome imbalances, low bile and stomach acid levels, poor motility, etc. But when we only look at those factors, we can miss a huge leading cause of digestive distress: dysregulation of the Enteric Nervous System (ENS).

The largest and most complex part of our nervous system, the ENS, is located in the gut. It’s made up of over 100 million cells and part of its job is to release digestive enzymes as needed, influencing everything from the digestive process to nutrient absorption.

The ENS can be greatly impacted by unprocessed trauma or chronic feelings of stress and anxiety — feelings that may be passed around the Thanksgiving dinner table right along with the cranberry sauce.

Regulating your ENS could be the difference between a relaxing holiday with friends and family while eating your favorite foods — or a holiday that’s interrupted by too many anxiety-induced bathroom trips.

These tools can help you regulate your nervous system for optimal “rest and digest”:

  • Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) tapping
  • Breathing exercises
  • Meditation
  • Somatic exercises
  • Nature walks
  • Massages
  • Gentle movement
  • Vagus nerve stimulation

When in doubt, take a few deep breaths and remind yourself that you’re in a safe space, even when you notice tension arise at the dinner table. Feel free to excuse yourself to a quieter space for a few minutes to regulate yourself too.

2. Don’t Skip Breakfast

Skipping a full meal is not only a nightmare for your hormonal health, but it can throw your digestion out of whack. Your digestive system is heavily influenced by your circadian rhythm — the “internal clock” that tells you when to eat and sleep while controlling other things like body temperature and mood.

Instead of opting for coffee in the AM, eat a nourishing breakfast instead. Better yet, focus on eating three full meals at the same time each day. Sit down to consume your food, do some focused breathing, and relax. Creating a safe space for your body through regular meal times might be just what you need to re-regulate and calm your digestion.

3. Drink Alcohol Responsibly

In general, alcohol isn’t considered gut-friendly. It can kill off some essential bacteria in the microbiome while having adverse effects on the liver and large intestine. Since the microbiome is a key player when it comes to alcohol metabolism, some people may struggle with alcoholic drinks more than others.

Our tip (if you’re going to drink at all) is to make sure you practice responsible drinking: eat a full meal, stay hydrated with electrolytes, and know which types of alcohol your body responds positively to. Choose alcoholic drinks that you enjoy and savor them slowly. Tune into your intuition and stop drinking before any adverse effects kick in.

4. Try Digestive Enzymes

Digestive enzymes help you to break down different foods. Some of these enzymes are made in the body, while others are provided through the foods you eat. For example, raw milk has a lot of digestive enzymes that help you digest it. When milk is pasteurized, it loses many of those enzymes.

If you find that certain foods and food groups exacerbate your symptoms, it might be helpful to try taking a digestive enzyme that’s aimed at breaking down that food group. Digestive enzymes can be tricky, though — it might take some experimenting to find the right one. You may need stomach acid or bile support as well. We often recommend that people work with a naturopath or functional medicine doctor to find the best digestive enzymes to support their own bodies.

5. Keep Up with Your Mineral Intake

Minerals are often overlooked when it comes to digestive health — but they’re involved in everything from cellular function to brain health and gut wellness. Minerals like selenium are known to help reduce inflammation, especially around the gut lining.

Another mineral, magnesium, can help relieve chronic constipation while regulating the activation of digestive enzymes. And of course, you want to stay well hydrated with key electrolytes like sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

6. Try Herbal Remedies

There are several herbal remedies that can come to your aid — both as preventative measures and to calm your stomach during a flare-up. Herbs like turmeric, cinnamon, and peppermint are helpful for inflammation (good options to take if you have cramping or heartburn) while chamomile and ginger can calm your stomach during a bout of nausea.

You can take herbal remedies in supplement form, tinctures, or in tea.

7. Eat Plenty of Fiber

Fiber is well-known for its ability to combat chronic constipation (it gets things moving in the GI tract). But did you know most fiber sources are also considered prebiotics? Prebiotics act as a food source for the microbiome in your gut. It’s broken down by healthy bacteria. Keeping these important gut bugs alive is essential to maintaining optimal gut health, and to keeping your microbiome intact.

If you struggle with digesting fiber, you may need to get your body used to it. Start slow with a green smoothie in the morning or even a greens supplement. Then, move your way up to a healthy dose of fiber (fruits and veggies) at every meal. Psyllium powder can also be a helpful form of soluble fiber for many people to keep the gut moving while simultaneously absorbing toxins in the gut.

You can also try the low-FODMAP diet if fiber has been a consistent issue for you. This diet helps to remove certain foods linked to bloating and constipation, giving your gut space to heal.

8. Enjoy Caffeine Responsibly

Some of us can’t function without coffee… especially during the holidays. Coffee-free Christmas morning? No thanks.

Good news for your favorite morning beverage, coffee is linked to low mortality rates and can offer a variety of fantastic benefits to the body. It’s packed full of antioxidants!

However, a lot of people struggle with coffee consumption, because it naturally increases muscle contractions (meaning, it can speed up the digestion process and have you running to the bathroom).

If you struggle with regular diarrhea, then it’s important to limit your coffee consumption and pay attention to your symptoms and intuition. This is a safeguard against loss of minerals and nutrients, too. We recommend keeping your coffee intake to 1-2 cups in the morning. We also suggest drinking plenty of water with electrolytes alongside your morning joe.

9. Swap Easy Ingredients

One of the reasons so many of us struggle with digestive problems is due to food quality. Most of our foods are packed with preservatives and sprayed with pesticides, which can disrupt our digestion. If you struggle with bloating from gluten or pain and gas from dairy, you could try switching these foods out for higher-quality alternative options.

In Europe, there are more regulations to help protect against heavy food processing. European flour also has lower gluten content. Try sourcing your flour from there, or swap for a gluten-free flour like buckwheat. A2 dairy or raw and grass-fed dairy from a responsible local farmer could help you consume your favorite dairy-filled foods, without the symptoms.

These simple swaps and others are often a better option than eliminating an entire food group — because they still allow you to absorb essential nutrients from that food group.

Tired of Gut Symptoms? Try Butyrate for Holiday Bliss

No one wants to worry about stomach aches and gas during the holiday season — but the truth is, these symptoms shouldn’t interrupt your quality of life at any time during the year. You deserve better, and there are answers to the symptoms you face.

We were tired of the gut problems, too. That’s why we created a Butyrate supplement. Butyrate can help to nourish the microbiome, while gently eliminating bad bacteria from the gut.

Butyrate embodies the intentions behind many of these tips alongside years of science to help you combat gut symptoms naturally.

BodyBio Tip: Start taking Butyrate a few weeks before the big holidays begin. This will give your body time to adjust to the new supplement and (hopefully) allow you to enjoy your favorite holiday dishes in peace.

Try Butyrate for Peace from Gut Symptoms

Related Articles

Semaglutide Can Change What People Want to Eat. Here's What Your Gut Has to Do With It.
Ashley Palmer | 10.27.2026

Semaglutide Can Change What People Want to Eat. Here's What Your Gut Has to Do With It.

Imagine you order the meal you've loved for a decade, and a few bites in, you realize you just don't care about it. You're not full, exactly. Just uninterested.

Many people taking semaglutide (a GLP-1 medication) describe this experience. Foods that were reliable favorites suddenly seem greasy, or too sweet, or just vaguely off. Scientific American captured the strangeness: a former food writer losing interest in cooking, longtime favorites tasting wrong.

The obvious explanation is that these medications make you feel full sooner. But fullness doesn't explain why a specific curry tastes bitter now, or why a go-to wine suddenly tastes off. Something more is happening, and it points to a hormone your body has been producing your whole life.

In this article, we'll look at what the newest research suggests semaglutide does to food preferences, what GLP-1 actually does inside the body, and where your gut microbiome and a short-chain fatty acid called butyrate fit into that system.

Table of Contents:

  • Semaglutide Isn't Only Changing How Much People Eat
  • Your Gut Was Making GLP-1 Long Before Ozempic
  • Where the Microbiome Comes In
  • Can Butyrate Support Natural GLP-1 Production?
  • Why Butyrate Matters Beyond One Hormone
  • Support the System, Not Just the Signal
  • The Bigger Story Your Gut Was Already Telling

Semaglutide Isn't Only Changing How Much People Eat

Researchers are starting to document what users have been describing anecdotally.

A 2026 observational study of hospitalized Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes found that those on semaglutide showed significantly reduced preference for sweet carbohydrates, non-sweet carbohydrates, and non-sweet fats — while preferences for protein and dietary fiber stayed essentially unchanged. This wasn't a blanket loss of interest in food. It was a selective shift.

For someone focused on weight loss, eating less may be the point. Still, a reduced appetite for fats is worth paying attention to, since dietary fats supply essential fatty acids and help the body absorb fat-soluble vitamins.

Taste perception may also contribute. In a 16-week, randomized, placebo-controlled study of 30 women with obesity and PCOS, semaglutide improved overall taste recognition scores and altered brain activity in response to both food images and a sweet solution. In other words, participants' sense of taste sharpened, which may help explain why some foods suddenly seem too strong.

A 2025 study found the opposite: reduced sensitivity across all five basic tastes in people taking GLP-1 medications compared with matched non-users. That means the more accurate takeaway isn't "Ozempic makes food taste different" so much as "GLP-1 signaling reaches further into how we experience food than many researchers expected."

None of these studies settles the question on its own. But together they point somewhere useful: GLP-1 isn't only a satiety signal. It appears to play a role in how appealing food seems in the first place.

Your Gut Was Making GLP-1 Long Before Ozempic

Here's what often gets lost: GLP-1 wasn't invented by a pharmaceutical company.

GLP-1 is a hormone your intestines release on their own, produced mainly by specialized cells called enteroendocrine L-cells. These cells sit in the gut lining, acting as sensors that detect what's arriving from your meal and releasing hormones that coordinate the response.

GLP-1 helps regulate insulin release, slows how quickly the stomach empties, contributes to satiety, and carries information from the gut to the brain. GLP-1 medications didn't create a new pathway. They target one your body was already running.

But there's an important difference, and a lot of wellness marketing glosses over it. Your body's own GLP-1 is broken down within minutes of release. Semaglutide is engineered to resist that breakdown and activate GLP-1 receptors far more strongly, for far longer.

Supporting your body's own GLP-1 signaling through food or the microbiome isn't a lesser version of taking semaglutide. It's a different thing entirely.

Where the Microbiome Comes In

Your gut bacteria eat what you don't digest.

When fermentable fibers and resistant starch reach the colon, bacteria ferment them and produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), mainly acetate, propionate, and butyrate. These aren't waste products. They're signaling molecules, and the cells lining your intestines are built to receive them.

Intestinal cells carry receptors, including FFAR2 (also called GPR43) and FFAR3, that detect short-chain fatty acids. When SCFAs bind these receptors on L-cells, they trigger an internal cascade that can influence the release of gut hormones, including GLP-1 and a related satiety hormone called PYY.

So the pathway is real: fiber arrives, microbes ferment it, metabolites are produced, gut cells sense them, hormones get released, and the gut communicates with the pancreas and the brain. That last link is worth sitting with — your gut and brain are in constant conversation, and food-derived microbial metabolites are part of what they're saying to each other.

The quick version of this compresses to: fiber → butyrate → GLP-1 → less hunger. The actual biology is an ecosystem with many signals, of which butyrate is one.

Can Butyrate Support Natural GLP-1 Production?

The mechanistic evidence is strong. The human evidence is thinner, but still developing.

A small 2026 study in adults with obesity found that oral sodium butyrate combined with L-arginine significantly increased circulating GLP-1. That's encouraging, but the study had only seven participants, butyrate wasn't tested on its own, and participants reported no difference in hunger or fullness.

By contrast, in a 2025 randomized controlled trial of 50 adults with obesity, people taking sodium butyrate alongside a reduced-calorie diet saw reductions in weight, BMI, and waist circumference, but their serum GLP-1 didn't change significantly.

A 2026 randomized, double-blind trial of 46 adults added more nuance. After 12 weeks of sodium butyrate plus a moderately reduced-calorie diet, participants with obesity lost a meaningful amount of weight. Participants who also had type 2 diabetes did not, although their blood sugar control improved.

That pattern echoes an earlier finding. In a 2018 study, four weeks of oral butyrate improved insulin sensitivity in lean men but not in men with metabolic syndrome.

Together, these suggest butyrate's effects depend heavily on metabolic context: who you are, what your microbiome looks like, and where the butyrate ends up. But GLP-1 is only part of the story.

Why Butyrate Matters Beyond One Hormone

Focusing only on GLP-1 undersells what butyrate does.

Butyrate is the primary fuel source for colonocytes, the cells lining your colon. Not a supporting nutrient. Their main energy supply. Those cells use butyrate to power the work of maintaining a functioning gut lining, the barrier that decides what passes from your digestive tract into your body and what doesn't.

This is where the cellular health picture comes together. A well-fueled intestinal lining supports a healthy gut barrier. A healthy barrier supports a stable environment for the microbial community living there. And that community produces metabolites that signal to the rest of the body — including the gut-to-brain communication involved in appetite and satiety.

Butyrate sits at the center of that loop as both fuel and message. That role holds regardless of what the GLP-1 research eventually concludes.

Support the System, Not Just the Signal

The takeaway isn't that you should be trying to maximize GLP-1. Your metabolism and gut function are more complex than one signal.

Lasting metabolic regulation runs on an ecosystem: microbial diversity, adequate fermentable fiber, well-nourished intestinal cells, an intact gut barrier, and steady communication between gut and brain. Semaglutide shows what happens when you push one signal in that system very hard. It doesn't show that one signal is the whole system, or the only way to modulate it.

Feeding that ecosystem starts with fiber-rich whole foods: vegetables, legumes, cooked-and-cooled potatoes and rice (good sources of resistant starch), and other plant foods your gut bacteria can thrive on. Give it time. Gut environments shift over weeks and months, not days.

For targeted support, BodyBio Butyrate provides butyrate in supplement form to support the gut lining and a healthy microbiome.*

The Bigger Story Your Gut Was Already Telling

Semaglutide has taught researchers a great deal about how strongly GLP-1 signaling can influence not just hunger but desires: what sounds good, what tastes right, and what gets left on the plate.

And yet, the more interesting revelation may be how much was already happening without it. Every meal you eat feeds a microbial community that turns fiber into signaling molecules, which intestinal cells read and translate into messages sent onward to your pancreas and your brain. That conversation has been running your entire life.

Butyrate is one voice in that conversation. It fuels the cells that hold your gut barrier together and takes part in the signaling between your microbiome and the rest of your body. Supporting butyrate production in the gut won't replicate a pharmaceutical. It doesn't need to. Feeding the system well is its own goal, and the benefits build gradually, often in small shifts that are easy to miss at first.

Support your gut at the cellular level with BodyBio Butyrate.*

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

This article is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice. If you're taking semaglutide or another GLP-1 medication, talk with your healthcare provider before adding new supplements.

Comprehensive Guide to Butyrate: What it is, Benefits, Side Effects, & More
Ashley Palmer | 06.16.2026

Comprehensive Guide to Butyrate: What it is, Benefits, Side Effects, & More

Butyrate is a necessary component to a balanced microbiome, also working as an inflammation guard*. One of several, short-chain fatty acids created from fermented resistant starches, low butyrate levels have been associated with serious health concerns.

Butyrate and IBS: What Your Gut Cells Actually Need
Ashley Palmer | 04.24.2026

Butyrate and IBS: What Your Gut Cells Actually Need

You've tried the probiotics. You've cleaned up your diet. You're doing everything you're supposed to do, and your gut still isn't cooperating.

If you have IBS, that frustration is familiar. Bloating, urgency, unpredictable mornings, the constant guessing game of what's going to set things off.

What often gets missed in the conversation around IBS isn't a trendy new supplement or a stricter elimination diet. It's something more foundational: what your gut's own cells actually need to function.

Here's a closer look at what butyrate does, why IBS and low butyrate levels are closely linked, and how supporting the gut at the cellular level can make a difference.

Table of Contents:

  • Understanding Butyrate

  • How Butyrate Works in the Gut

  • Why This Becomes an Issue for People With IBS

  • Supporting the Body More Effectively

  • Butyrate, IBS, and the Cellular Health Connection

  • How Butyrate Supports IBS Comfort Long-Term

Understanding Butyrate

Butyrate is a short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) produced in the colon when beneficial gut bacteria ferment dietary fiber, specifically resistant starch. It belongs to a class of compounds called postbiotics, the functional byproducts of a healthy microbiome.

Unlike probiotics, which are living bacteria, butyrate is a metabolite. It's a compound your body puts to work directly at the cellular level. Understanding the difference between probiotics and postbiotics, like butyrate, is a useful shift you can make when thinking about gut health.

Why the Body Relies on Butyrate

Your colon is lined with specialized cells called colonocytes. These cells run almost entirely on butyrate, providing up to 90% of their energy needs.

When colonocytes have what they need, they do their job well. They maintain the integrity of the gut lining, regulate what passes into the bloodstream, support a healthy inflammatory response, and help keep gut motility on track. Without enough butyrate, the gut’s main source of energy, the gut simply can't do its job well.

How Butyrate Works in the Gut

Butyrate supports three interconnected systems in the gut: the gut lining, the immune environment, and gut motility.

The gut lining is just one cell layer thick. Butyrate fuels those cells and supports the tight junctions between them, the structural connections that keep the barrier intact and functioning.

At the immune level, butyrate helps the body maintain a balanced inflammatory response in the colon without triggering overactivation. And because it directly influences the rhythmic contractions that move contents through the digestive tract, it plays a meaningful role in the irregular patterns that so many people with IBS experience.

What Happens When Butyrate Levels Are Supported vs. Strained

When butyrate is available in adequate amounts, the gut lining stays resilient, motility is more regular, and digestive comfort improves, whether you have a diagnosis of IBS or not.

If butyrate levels fall short, the gut barrier may become less stable, motility can become unpredictable, and the colon's immune environment may shift. How pronounced these patterns are varies from person to person. Diet, stress, genetics, and microbiome composition all play a role in your body’s patterns too.

Why This Becomes an Issue for People With IBS

Modern Stressors on Butyrate Production

Butyrate is made by gut bacteria that ferment resistant starch, a type of fiber found in foods like cooked and cooled potatoes, legumes, and underripe bananas. The modern diet is low in these foods. That means many people simply aren't giving their gut bacteria the raw materials they need to produce adequate butyrate levels.

Antibiotic use, chronic stress, and certain medications can also reduce the population of butyrate-producing bacteria in the colon. Over time, that compounds the butyrate production gap.

Why Common Approaches Often Fall Short

Probiotics can be a valuable part of gut health support, but most probiotic strains are not butyrate-producing species. They can shift the microbiome, but they don't directly address the fuel shortage that many IBS-related symptoms may stem from.

Fiber-based approaches come with a similar challenge. In some people with IBS, increasing fermentable fiber can worsen bloating and gas before it helps, because a disrupted microbiome may not efficiently use that fiber to make butyrate.

Since butyrate works at the cellular level, the signs of low butyrate can overlap common IBS symptoms, which is part of why the connection between the two gets overlooked.

Supporting the Body More Effectively

Foundational Support for Butyrate Production

Diet is the first step to improving the body's natural butyrate production. Foods high in resistant starch give butyrate-producing bacteria what they need to function properly.

Foods that naturally support butyrate production include cooked and cooled rice, potatoes, and legumes. A steady intake of resistant starch over time does more for the microbiome than occasional high-fiber days followed by low-fiber ones.

Stress management and adequate sleep can also support a more stable gut environment. Chronic stress directly affects microbiome composition and motility through the gut-brain axis. 

When Targeted Butyrate Support Makes Sense

For people whose microbiome is disrupted or whose diet can't consistently provide enough resistant starch, direct butyrate supplementation is another option for long-term support.*

Supplemental butyrate delivers the short-chain fatty acid directly to the colon, where colonocytes can put it to use.* Clinical research has shown that sodium butyrate supplementation is associated with improvements in abdominal comfort and bowel regularity in people with IBS.

Sodium butyrate and calcium magnesium butyrate are both effective options, and the differences between which works best for your body often come down to your individual health history and mineral needs.*

Butyrate, IBS, and the Cellular Health Connection

IBS is complex, and its causes vary from person to person. But one consistent finding in the research is that people with IBS tend to have lower levels of butyrate-producing bacteria and overall reduced short-chain fatty acids in the gut. That points to a cellular resource problem as much as a microbiome problem.

When the cells lining the colon are undersupported, the entire digestive environment becomes less stable. Gut barrier function, motility, immune signaling, and communication along the gut-brain axis all depend on colonocytes having what they need to function.

Supporting the gut at the cellular level is not a replacement for other gut health practices (whole food probiotics, exercise, etc.). It’s the foundation that makes those practices more effective. When your cells are supported, the body functions more efficiently as a whole.

How Butyrate Supports IBS Comfort Long-Term

IBS can feel like a moving target, and the path toward better digestive comfort is rarely a straight line or a quick fix. Supporting your gut at the cellular level creates a more stable foundation, and that starts with making sure colonocytes have the fuel they need.*

Butyrate works best as part of a consistent approach that includes diet, lifestyle, and targeted support where needed. Progress tends to be gradual, and that's expected. It reflects the time it takes for the gut lining to strengthen and the microbiome to rebalance.

IBS makes a lot more sense when you know what the gut's cells actually need. And that clarity is often where real progress begins.

Support your gut at the cellular level with BodyBio Butyrate.*