What is Leaky Gut?
Have you heard the term “leaky gut” but not sure what it means? Do you think you may have a leaky gut but not sure exactly where it went wrong? Read on to learn how this happens and what you can do to fix it.
“All disease begins in the gut.”
Our gut and gut lining is how our bodies communicate with the world. We eat food which is information for our cells and can either be feeding health or disease. Unfortunately, this barrier is only one single cell thick making it very vulnerable to toxins like pesticides, herbocides, GMOs, microorganisms such as parasites, gluten, excessive stress…etc. This will increase the permeability of the gut wall, allowing partially digested food, toxins, and microorganisms to penetrate between those tight junctions seen in the photo above. This process causes the immune system to react and with prolonged exposure, your body will compensate with the incoming stress by producing antibodies as a way to protect your cells. The gut becomes “leaky” and this triggers systemic inflammation and further changes in your gut flora (healthy bacteria) occur, that usually leads to problems within the digestive tract and beyond.
Some Symptoms Include:
Systemic Inflammation
Fatigue
Nutritional deficiencies
Digestive disorders
Food Intolerance
Multiple Allergies
Headaches
Joint pain
Difficulty concentrating
Skin problems, such as acne, rashes and eczema
The discovery of leaky gut has been correlated through research to be one of the causal factors of multiple conditions including, Multiple Sclerosis, Crohn’s Disease, Ezcema, Psoriasis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Thyroid disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Allergies and Asthma.
How to Heal your Gut
Depending on the damage acquired to the gut lining, healing the gut may take two weeks or in some severe cases six months or more. The good news is, you grow a new gut lining every 3-7 days. The number one thing to start with is removing the common offenders and going on an elimination diet which removes all corn, dairy, soy, gluten, unhealthy processed oils including canola, safflower, soy, corn, and in some cases eggs and all grains. It is estimated that 25% of individuals have problems with nightshades which include tomatoes, bell peppers, eggplant, cayenne pepper, white potatoes and paprika. For those suffering from autoimmune disease, it is recommended to also remove grains, at least in the acute healing phase in order to determine if they are a problem for you.
The next step is to add in foods to support gut repair including grass fed bone broth, collagen, coconut, organic cooked vegetables, organic cold pressed fats including avocado, olive oil, red palm oil and coconut, organic pasture raised and finished meats, and wild caught fish.
One of the other crucial steps includes supplements such as probiotics, gut healing herbs including DGL Licorice Root, Marshmallow root, Aloe, and L-Glutamine which all work together to heal and soothe the chronic inflammation going on within the gut lining and the intestines.
Those with chronic food intolerance’s or other conditions along with symptoms of leaky gut are recommended to work with a practitioner as they may require testing to determine what specifics foods are affecting you, in addition to testing to the presence of pathogens including parasites, bacteria, yeast or mold as this is a common finding in those with leaky gut.
Mu Q, Kirby J, Reilly CM, Luo XM. Leaky Gut As a Danger Signal for Autoimmune Diseases. Front Immunol. 2017;8:598. Published 2017 May 23. doi:10.3389/fimmu.2017.00598
Fasano A. All disease begins in the (leaky) gut: role of zonulin-mediated gut permeability in the pathogenesis of some chronic inflammatory diseases. F1000Res. 2020;9:F1000 Faculty Rev-69. Published 2020 Jan 31. doi:10.12688/f1000research.20510.1
Obrenovich MEM. Leaky Gut, Leaky Brain?. Microorganisms. 2018;6(4):107. Published 2018 Oct 18. doi:10.3390/microorganisms6040107