Digestive health is increasingly implicated in many of the diseases caused by poor lifestyle, such as diabetes and obesity.

So what can we do to help out gut be more healthy without going to all kinds of extremes? 

Potter’s Herbals – traditional herbal treatments for today’s lifestyle ailments

Dr Chris Etheridge from the Henry Potter Advisory Committee, an expert health panel for the long established Potter’s Herbals, says: “It is so important to be aware that our digestive health can affect our weight, with so many of us apparently unable to maintain our weight at a healthy level. Addressing our digestive health is an important part of looking after ourselves, alongside diet and physical activity for reaching a healthy BMI. Research shows how the gastrointestinal tract contributes several peptides that act as signals in metabolic pathways influencing energy balance and hence body weight.[2] Keeping our digestive health in tip-top condition is vital for weight management as well as our overall health.

“Herbs such as senna, psyllium, dandelion, peppermint, fennel and buckthorn have been used for centuries to help digestive health. Informed by knowledge of traditional herbal practice, Potter’s Herbals, established by Henry Potter in 1812, uses their depth of experience to combine these herbs in a range of remedies for digestive health. Like the rest of the Potter’s Herbal range, these digestive health remedies are fully licensed and carry either the Traditional Herbal Registration (THR) or Product License (PL) to comply with legal quality standards.”

There are four remedies in Potter’s Herbals digestive health range. These have been blended together based on Potter’s deep experience of the synergistic effect of these natural, herbal ingredients to meet different digestive health needs:

• Potter’s Cleansing Herbs – Cleanse from the inside out.  This unique product is taken as a convenient loose leaf tea. It is a special infusion of tried and trusted herbs for digestive health, including senna, psyllium and buckthorn. It can be used for short-term relief of occasional constipation. RRP £4.24, available in Holland & Barrett, Boots, and all good health food stores.
• Potter’s Cleansing Herb Tablets also containing all natural, herbal active ingredients, it is specifically designed to provide symptomatic relief of occasional constipation and feelings of bloatedness. It contains an effective combination of senna, Cape aloes , cascara sagrada, dandelion and fennel. RRP £4.18, available in Holland & Barrett, Boots, and all good health food stores.
• Potter’s Malt extract with cod liver oil. Pleasantly flavoured, it is available in plain and butterscotch, and is free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives. A traditional and good quality nutritious malt extract, which is easily digested and has the added natural goodness of cod liver oil providing vital sources of Vitamin A & D. RRP £6.20, available in Holland & Barrett and all good health food stores.
• Potter’s Slippery Elm Indigestion Relief Tablets used by generations for its many benefits to the digestive system. It soothes and protects the lining of the stomach to address indigestion, dyspepsia, heartburn and flatulence and also aids beneficial bowel flora. It contains slippery elm bark, cinnamon, clove and peppermint oils. RRP £7.65, available in Holland & Barrett and all good health food stores.

Most of us are no strangers to stress and the effect stress can have on our digestive health. Bloating, gurgling tummy and stomach pain can affect any of us when we feel stressed. Research[3] by Potter’s Herbals found that a massive 92% of us suffer from stress at least some of the time. It will come as no surprise that work is the biggest source of stress with more than a third saying that either too much work or too much pressure at work is causing stress. Commuting to and from work is a source of stress for more than one in five of us, while children also caused stress among a similar proportion of respondents. All in all it’s almost impossible to avoid stress and though some stress is likely good for us, too much can cause our digestive health to suffer.

 The research by Potter’s Herbals shows that stress causes poor digestive health in more than half of us with the most frequent troublesome symptoms listed as:

• Diarrhoea 29%
• Stomach cramps 18%
• Bloating 16%
• Wind 15%
• Constipation 12%
• Heartburn 11%
• Painful stomach 10%

 Both men and women are equally affected across all ages. Although men suffer from less bloating than women (13% vs 18%), men suffer from more wind (16%) than women (13%).

 Despite Potter’s Herbals long history of aiding digestive health, more than two thirds of respondents in the Potter’s Herbals survey were unaware of these herbal products. Yet herbal remedies have a long tradition of use for digestive health.  And Potters Herbals have practised in this area for more than two centuries.

 Since before the time when Queen Victoria came to the throne and more than a hundred years before the first World War, Potter’s Herbals has been manufacturing herbal remedies for a range of ailments which today are either licensed as medicines or as traditional herbal remedies thus assuring the mark of quality of these traditional products in modern times.