Leaky gut syndrome is a rapidly growing condition that millions of people have and don’t even know it. It might seem leaky gut syndrome only affects the digestive system, but it can lead to many other health conditions.
The cause of food allergies, low energy, joint pain, thyroid disease, autoimmune conditions and slow metabolism could be leaky gut symptoms progression.
The lining of your digestive tract is like a mesh with extremely small holes in it that only allow specific substances to pass through. Your gut lining works as a barrier keeping out bigger particles that can damage your system.
With leaky gut (referred to as increased intestinal permeability), the “mesh” in your digestive tract gets damaged, which causes even bigger holes to develop, so things that normally can’t pass through, are now be able to.
Some of the things that are then allowed to pass through include proteins like gluten, bad bacteria and undigested foods particles. Toxic waste can also leak from the inside of your intestinal wall into your bloodstream causing an immune reaction.
These “leaks” lead to inflammation throughout your system and can cause symptoms, such as:
- Bloating
- Food sensitivities
- Thyroid conditions
- Fatigue
- Joint pain
- Headaches
- Skin issues like rosacea and acne
- Digestive problems
- Weight gain
- Syndrome X
One warning sign that you may have leaky gut can be multiple food sensitivities.
Partially digested protein and fat can seep through your intestinal lining, making their way into your bloodstream and causing an allergic response.
This allergic response may not show as a rash all over your body, but it can lead to one of the symptoms above. If left un-repaired, it can lead to more severe health issues like inflammatory bowel disease, IBS, arthritis, eczema, psoriasis, depression, anxiety, migraine headaches, muscle pain and chronic fatigue.
Leaky gut syndrome may be a major cause of autoimmune diseases, including Type 1 Diabetes and thyroid autoimmunity (Hashimotos & Graves).
Another problem with leaky gut is that it can cause poor absorption of vital minerals and nutrients including zinc, iron and vitamin B12, key minerals required for proper thyroid function.
Leaky gut can also affect the brain. Mood swing in a child with autism can be caused by intestinal permeability. Gluten-free and casein-free diets have proven effective for many children with autism because these proteins can leak through the gut and then recirculate and act on the brain similarly to an opioid drug.
Leaky gut syndrome has also been linked to other psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. So, often, if you can heal the gut, you can heal the brain.
HCL
Enzymes or papaya
Glutamine
Collagen powder
Probiotics
Foods
Bone broth
fermented foods
vegetables and fruits – lots of colour
protein variety
avoid
gluten
sugar
stress
The human gut contains 10 times more bacteria than all the human cells in the entire body, with over 1,000 known diverse bacterial species. In fact, you could say that we’re more bacterial than we are human.
We’ve only recently begun to understand the extent of the gut flora’s role in human health and disease. Among other things, the gut flora promotes normal gastrointestinal function, provides protection from infection, regulates metabolism, and comprises more than 75 percent of our immune system.
Dysregulated gut flora has been linked to diseases ranging from autism and depression to autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s, inflammatory bowel disease, and type 1 diabetes.
Unfortunately, several features of the modern lifestyle directly contribute to unhealthy
gut flora:
• Antibiotics and other medications like birth control and NSAIDs
• Diets high in refined carbohydrates, sugar and processed foods
• Diets low in fermentable fibres
• Dietary toxins like wheat and industrial seed oils that cause leaky gut
• Chronic stress
• Chronic infections
Antibiotics are particularly harmful to the gut flora. Recent studies have shown that antibiotic use causes a profound and rapid loss of diversity and a shift in the composition of the gut flora. This diversity is not recovered after antibiotic use without intervention.
We also know that infants that aren’t breast-fed and are born to mothers with bad gut flora are more likely to develop unhealthy gut bacteria, and that these early differences in gut flora may predict overweight, diabetes, eczema/psoriasis, depression and other health problems in the future.
When the intestinal barrier becomes permeable (i.e. leaky gut syndrome), large protein molecules escape into the bloodstream. Since these proteins don’t belong outside of the gut, the body mounts an immune response and attacks them. Studies show that these attacks play a role in the development of autoimmune diseases like Hashimoto’s and type 1 diabetes, among others.
It has been repeatedly shown in several well-designed studies that the integrity of the intestinal barrier is a major factor in autoimmune disease.
The theory holds that the intestinal barrier in large part determines whether we tolerate or react to toxic substances we ingest from the environment. The breach of the intestinal barrier (which is only possible with a leaky gut) by food toxins like gluten and chemicals like arsenic or BPA causes an immune response which affects not only the gut itself, but also other organs and tissues. These include the skeletal system, the pancreas, the kidney, the liver, and the brain.
This is a crucial point to understand: you don’t have to have gut symptoms to have a leaky gut. Leaky gut can manifest as skin problems like eczema or psoriasis, heart failure, autoimmune conditions affecting the thyroid (Hashimoto’s) or joints (rheumatoid arthritis), mental illness, autism spectrum disorder, depression, and more.
Researchers have identified a protein called zonulin that increases intestinal permeability in humans and other animals. This led to a search of the medical literature for illnesses characterized by increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut). Imagine their surprise when the researchers found that many, if not most, autoimmune diseases—including celiac disease, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease—are characterized by abnormally high levels of zonulin and a leaky gut. In fact, researchers have found that they can induce type 1 diabetes almost immediately in animals by exposing them to zonulin. They develop a leaky gut and begin producing antibodies to islet cells, which are responsible for making insulin.
One of the main reasons to avoid wheat and other gluten-containing grains is that they contain a protein called gliadin, which has been shown to increase zonulin production and thus directly contribute to leaky gut in susceptible people.
What else can cause leaky gut, the same things listed above that destroy our gut flora: poor diet, medications (antibiotics, NSAIDs, steroids, antacids, etc.), infections, stress, hormone imbalances, and neurological conditions (brain trauma, stroke and neurodegeneration).
The most obvious first step in maintaining a healthy gut is to avoid all of the things listed above that destroy gut flora and damage the intestinal barrier. But of course that’s not always possible, especially in the case of chronic stress and infections. Nor did we have any control over whether we were breast-fed or whether our mothers had healthy guts when they gave birth to us.
If you’ve been exposed to some of these factors, there are still steps you can take to restore your gut flora:
• Avoid foods and chemicals that irritate the gut
• Eat plenty of fermentable fibers (starches like sweet potato, yam, yucca, etc.)
• Eat fermented foods like kefir, yogurt, sauerkraut, kim chi, etc.
• Consider taking a probiotic and/or a prebiotic supplement
• Treat any intestinal pathogens (such as parasites) that may be present
The Elimination Diet
Dr. Izabella Wentz with Tom Malterre on the Elimination Diet
45 min