What you need to know about leaky gut

The best way to deal with leaky gut

You’ve likely heard the term leaky gut before. It’s a popular and useful concept in the digestive health world, but a badly understood one.

Leaky gut, also known as intestinal permeability, is thought to be the cause behind digestive complaints, food allergies, immune issue, joint pain and/or skin problems in some people.

Because leaky gut is not well understood by the public, it is often remedied with herbs, amino acids and/or supplements that make little difference in resolving the symptoms.

By clearing up some misconceptions about leaky gut, I can help you successfully address it.

What is leaky gut?

The epithelial cells that line your intestinal wall serve to protect you and your immune system from the threat of pathogens (bacteria, parasites, viruses, toxins, etc.). Your gut lining is therefore the primary barrier between the outside and inside worlds.

The epithelial gut lining is thin and delicate, only a single layer deep. When that thin layer of cells is damaged, the epithelial junctions begin to come apart, creating small holes that allow food particles or pathogens to enter the blood stream. The introduction of foreign materials into the blood stream alarms the immune system, resulting in inflammation.

This inflammation can be experienced as pain, bloating, fatigue or food intolerance. It can also lead to mood issues.

Inflammation along the intestinal surface can also block cilia from absorbing nutrients, causing nutrient deficiency, despite what you eat.

Self-diagnosing yourself with leaky gut may cause initial panic and alarm. Don’t worry, this is not a disease but a fixable condition. It is typically a symptom of a larger imbalance in your gut or poor lifestyle choices/habits.

Many people make the mistake of trying to mend the intestinal lining with supplements or herbs as a first step. This usually doesn’t work because this approach is the last step in the healing process, not the first.

Before throwing expensive supplements at the problem it’s important to understand how your gut became leaky and compromised. You have to solve this problem before “spackling” holes in the gut wall.

What causes leaky gut

Many things can disrupt your epithelial lining.

I believe that our modern world disrupts the gut boundaries that protect us. The stressful pace of life, the processed, high sugar diets, the over-prescribed medications, drug and alcohol habits, and toxins that damage the biome all conspire to damage our gut.

Leaky gut is caused by bacterial imbalances in the gut (the fancy world for this is dysbiosis). And factors like personality, diet, stress, medications and lack of self care just make it worse. This bacterial imbalance is commonly driven by gut infections, pathogens, parasites or over growths. All of which are easily missed by routine medical examinations.

Emotional and environmental stress is a huge assault to the gut. Chronic stress or acute trauma is enough to open and damage the gut lining by itself. And a stressful life is often accompanied by bad habits like lack of sleep, lack of exercise or over exercise, poor eating habits and substance abuse (alcohol, cigarettes, street drugs or prescribed meds). Chronic stress can be external (work, financial, health) or internal (anxiety, worry, depression, perfectionism, lack of rest). Acute trauma could be a surgery, accident, child birth or an overwhelming event like a move, death, divorce, or isolation.

Diets high in chemicals, sugar, carbohydrates or alcohol can also stress the intestinal lining by feeding the wrong type of bacteria or yeast.

Over the counter pain relieving medications such as non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), such as ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, can damage and weaken the gut lining. Antibiotics can have a negative effect by throwing off the balance of beneficial gut flora and allowing pathogenic strains to attach to the gut lining and excrete toxins.

While leaky gut can cause multiple food sensitivities, it can also be caused by an initial food insult.  For example, consuming an inflammatory food like gluten causes some people to produce a chemical called zonulin, which directly opens up the tight junctions of the gut and increases permeability.

Once you have leaky gut it can snowball into more food sensitivities as undigested food particles enter the blood stream and cause immune reactions. These food particles can be tagged by the immune system as invaders and cause an immune response when ingested.

When leaky gut is caused by overgrowths, like SIBO, candida or parasites, chronic stress or food sensitivity, these issues must be addressed first before attempting to seal up and mend the gut lining.

Symptoms of leaky gut

Leaky gut symptoms can manifest in different ways for different people.

In some folks it causes inflammatory joint and/or muscle pain, with symptoms like arthritis, back pain or head aches.

In others it can manifest as food sensitivities, environmental allergies or skin reactions like acne, Rosacea or rashes/hives.

It can make some people more vulnerable to developing auto immune conditions such as ulcerative colitis, Hashimotos, or rheumatoid arthritis.

And yet in others it can show up as digestive issue like bloating, gut pain and cramping.

The good news is that these symptoms can be reversed or greatly diminished when the gut lining is resealed.

Food sensitivities don’t have to be a life sentence. When I had leaky gut during my bout with IBS 14 years ago, I developed a sensitivity to nuts. After sealing and healing my gut I can eat nuts again.

How to test for it

The second biggest mistake with leaky gut is diagnosing yourself based on symptoms.

Smart people and health practitioners know it is best to “test, not guess.” There’s always a chance leaky gut is not the root cause of symptoms or health issues.

And there are several ways to test.

Biohealth labs recently came out with an affordable test that measures for leaky gut markers.This is a good option for people who want to confirm leaky gut but don’t want to spend a lot of money on testing.

Another, more comprehensive, yet more expensive option is the GI Map.

The GI Map not only checks for the leaky gut marker, zonulin, but also tests for underlying causes of dysbiosis such as parasites, yeast, h pylori and other pathogens.

The GI Map does not test for SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), another common cause for leaky gut. The SIBO breath test is the only test for SIBO.

What to do about leaky gut

To determine the root cause of leaky gut you have to test for it and do a comprehensive health history evaluation, which looks at past stressors, health problems, medication, diet and lifestyle habits that contributed to the issue.

Once you understand have all the information you can begin fixing leaky gut by cleaning up your internal ecology (biome) and adopting healthier habits.

Anti microbial, anti fungal or anti parasitic herbs can address dysbiosis as can introducing a powerful probiotic like Megasporbiotic.

The intestinal lining does an amazing job of regenerating. Epithelial cells turn over every three days. All you have to do is remove the obstacles to self healing (dysbiosis, stress, sensitivities, medications) and your body will do the rest.

When the underlying problem is resolved, leaky gut and its associated symptoms can be corrected in a matter of days. With or without supplements.

After the gut has been healed and rebalanced, there’s no harm is adding in good habits like drinking broth, eating fermented foods or taking l-glutamine or collagen.

Why your doctor doesn’t believe in leaky gut

Most medical doctors don’t believe leaky gut exists. Doctors treat and diagnose disease and leaky gut is not a disease. It is a gut imbalance.

I don’t treat or diagnose disease. My experience lies in bringing the gut back into balance so it can heal itself as nature intended.

A leaky gut is a gut in crisis. You have to work backwards and figure out when and how this first happened and use available tools (testing, stress reduction, diet, probiotics, antimicrobials) to fix it.