Leaky Gut & Your Gut Microbiome

The spotlight is increasing more on the topic of leaky gut and let me tell you, I had one LEAKY gut! When I began my journey on the holistic side of things, I started cleaning up my diet and taking some supplements, greens and aloe (check it out here) to work on my gut health. I started using these superfoods and I had a CRAZY reaction! At first I didn’t realize it was connected, but 30 minutes to an hour after I would drink my greens I would start to get really warm in my face and it would turn bright red and then it would travel to my elbows and knees, and then my whole arms would be warm and pink. It would last for maybe 10 minutes and then go away, but during that time I felt like my skin was on fire! After 3 days of this happening, my health coach reached out to me and asked how I was doing and I mentioned what was happening. She was like, “girl you have got to back off ASAP!” I was a little shocked at her reaction thinking I was doing the protocol of that program wrong, but she explained that it sounded like I had a major leaky gut issues, which we assumed I would have some level of leaky gut with my Crohn’s, but I did not realize just how bad of shape my gut permeability was until then. What was actually happening was that all the greens I was ingesting was bringing all the toxins in my body out of where they were hiding and that the reaction was due to my body trying to rid itself of them all at once and the pathway they were trying to rid them through was my skin. My body was trying to heal and get out the crap but at such a high rate it was causing this crazy reaction on my skin. Leaky gut is no joke and the medical professionals are starting to find this is really a serious issue and so more research is being conducted so we can determine what leaky gut may just be responsible for when it comes to the root cause behind some diseases.

What is Leaky Gut?

The easiest way for me to describe it is your gut lining is like a cheese cloth. When your gut is in good condition the cheese cloth holes are very tight knit and keeps everything in that it should moving down the digestive tract and only allows what is meant to enter the bloodstream escape through the teeny tiny holes. Typically, your nutrients and minerals are what are going through these holes. When your gut lining (aka: the cheese cloth) gets all stretched out or gets torn and has big holes in it things that are not meant to be in the bloodstream are now escaping there causing you to have “leaky gut” or gut dysbiosis. Particles that are not meant to be entering the bloodstream are undigested particles of food, toxins, bacteria and parasites. This triggers more inflammation in the body and the longer things leak the more damage that can and will be done. We all have leaky gut, because no persons gut lining will ever be in perfect condition, but it depends if they are taking measures to help support the gut, so that it can repair itself. We know ultimately, the severity of leaky gut in someone will differ case by case.

What Causes Leaky Gut?

There are a number of things that researchers believe lead to leaky gut. Some of those include:

• Standard American diet (high in sugar, low in fiber)
• Genetic predisposition
• Stress
• Medications (antibiotics, NSAID’s)
• Environmental factors (air quality/pollution)
• Alcohol
• Infections (candida, SIBO)
• Parasites

 Leaky gut does not happen overnight as you can imagine, but is caused by a slow wear and tear on your gastrointestinal tract over time. Exposure to a higher number of the above things could be leading to a quicker onset of health conditions that are being linked with leaky gut as the root cause.

Signs You Have a Leaky Gut

1. Autoimmune disease
2. Food allergies/sensitivities
3. Brain fog
4. Skin issues (eczema, psoriasis)
5. Mood imbalances (depression, anxiety)
6. Digestive issues (bloating, gas, IBD)
7. Seasonal allergies
8. Asthma
9. Chronic fatigue
10. Hormone imbalances (endometriosis, PCOS, irregular cycles)

How Do You Repair a Leaky Gut?

The most important question is how do we work to repair a leaky gut. I have some suggestions for you and I’m sure when it comes to the dietary changes you will wince (or maybe you won’t), but if you are struggling in your health I would HIGHLY suggest you give yourself at least 6 months of time to work on your gut health. I am not saying that after 6 months you will be magically cured and ready to go. Why? You have done many years of damage to your gut lining, so 6 months of healing is not necessarily going to fix it all but I think you will feel a lot better than whatever your current situation is. In my case, with an autoimmune disease, I feel like healing will forever be a constant in my journey, because I do not want to put in the work and then be naive and think it could never come back if I went back to my old ways. So here are my suggestions:

1. Nix the inflammatory foods. The best thing you can do is remove the highly inflammatory foods in your diet and cut out the processed foods. Processed foods are loaded with GMO (which our body doesn’t recognize) and hidden sugars. This will help smother that fire that is going on in your body. Inflammatory foods would include your gluten, dairy, sugar, soy, alcohol, and caffeine. I suggest for a span of at least 4-6 weeks you cut these out to see if you notice any difference, but if you can go longer than that would be amazing! Ideally like I said above 6 months would be better if that’s attainable and you can use the 80/20 rule during this time if you feel like you need that little bit of give (see my blog post about this).However, the more time you can give your body a break from inflammatory foods the better. Something you can do to reduce inflammation as well is add in some aloe vera to your daily routine.
2. Nourish your body. Now that you have rid yourself of the processed foods, it is time to bring in the nourishing foods. We are looking to focus your eating habits on all the whole foods (one ingredient foods) and greens you could possibly add into your diet. Your body will need all those wonderful nutrients to have the energy to repair itself. These foods will also not feed the bad bacteria in the body, but instead starve them. This will be beneficial because you want to be getting those harmful bacteria in check because they are nutrient stealers too. We need a lot of servings of greens daily, most of which are grasses we do not get. Plus, lets say even if you are eating all the leafy greens it may be hard to get all the nutrients that your body needs out of them because you have to eat such a high number and then it’s still all about how many of those nutrients your body can actually absorb through the digestive process. To help myself hit higher intake of my greens I use this organic nutritional shake, which allowed me to get the nutrients of 6 superfood salads in just one drink!
3. Add probiotics and rebuild. You will be bringing in the nourishing foods and greens which leads us into bringing in the troops to help us. These “troops” I am referring to are probiotics. Probiotics are important because we want to rebuild the number of beneficial bacteria in your body while we are killing off the harmful bacteria. The probiotic I use here. It is recommended you rotate the probiotic you take to make sure you are replenishing the different beneficial bacteria strains in the body since we have millions of bacteria in our body. Did you know we are actually more bacteria than we are human? Next, add in FulvicSure™ and HumicSure™. These are acids made up of organic complex forming molecules that are capable of penetrating the cell membrane and stimulating the uptake of life essential minerals. These trace minerals will be essential to upgrading your health and so we most definitely want to be absorbing them. We will also want to rebuild the intestinal mucosa and work on reconstructing healthy villi, which are responsible for helping absorb our macro-, micro- and trace elements. Plusbiotics can help with the villi and mucosa rehabilitation. This is the supplement I take that has all three; the fulvic and humic acids and the plusbiotics.

These are just a few things you can do to help your gut, but what I felt were the most important in helping me restore my gut lining.

XOXO, Brooke

Resources:

• Harvard Health Publishing: Leaky Gut: What is it, and What Does it Mean for You?
• NBR: GCI has developed the first plusbiotic ingredient to be introduced into the nutraceutical market
• Purium: Is Gut Health Linked to Skin Health?
• Amy Meyers MD: 9 Signs You Have Leaky Gut
• NCBI: Leaky Gut As a Danger Signal for Autoimmune Diseases
• Global Healing Center: Leaky Gut: Symptoms, Causes, Remedies

*Disclaimer: Always consult with a professional medical practitioner before taking any dietary supplements or recommendations listed, especially if pregnant, nursing, taking prescription medications or under a doctor’s medical care.