What is Leaky Gut?
It's microscopic holes in the intestinal lining that allow undigested food particles to enter the blood stream. Leaky Gut happens when your intestines have become so inflamed that the intestinal lining can't repair fast enough the daily damage sustained from your food passing through.
Why is this bad?
When whole food proteins enter the bloodstream via a leaky gut, the immune system identifies these as foreign proteins and assumes they must be pathogens. It then begins to attack your food. Talk about a waste of energy! When this goes on long enough it can lead to the immune system attacking your own body tissues and an autoimmune disease ensues.
The immune system kills pathogens when it finds them. It finds them by looking for the foreign proteins that make up the structure of the pathogens. Food comes from foreign plants and animals and so has foreign proteins in their cellular structure. The gut is supposed to break these proteins down into the building blocks called amino acids. The body then uses these amino acids to build uniquely human proteins to repair our own cells. When the immune system is busy attacking your food and your own body, it often can get distracted from it's real job, fighting foreign microbes.
The biggest side effect of too much immune activity (attacking food and self) is lots of unnecessary inflammation. Inflammation leads to the symptoms listed above: headaches, pain, insomnia, foggy brain, and so on.
So what causes the inflammation in the gut that leads to the leaky gut in the first place?
Almost always, gluten from bread and pasta products and casein from dairy products is the culprit. Gluten and casein are proteins that irritate the gut in some people. Depending on how sensitive you are and depending on the amount of these products you eat daily, you could develop a Leaky Gut from eating dairy and wheat laden foods.
Is it possible to have Leaky Gut but not have an autoimmune disease?
Yes. Some people never get an autoimmune disease from Leaky Gut, they just feel unhealthy in some way: tired, depressed, achy, and so on. Having an inflamed intestine doesn't always cause abdominal pain or discomfort, it may not even cause indigestion. But the inflammatory chemicals released by the immune system in your gut spill into the blood circulation causing low grade chronic inflammation anywhere in the body. If it's in your brain, then you may not have any symptoms other than just “feeling not quite right.”
I only have wrist pain, but otherwise I feel fine. Can this be from Leaky Gut?
In the case of localized pain, as in a single wrist, usually physical dysfunction causes this, not Leaky Gut. That being said, Leaky Gut will increase the amount of inflammation in a physical injury site, delaying its recovery. So even if there is a known injury, let's say a fall where the wrist is sprained, but the wrist doesn't heal in the usual six weeks time, this could be a sign of delayed healing due to excess inflammation from a Leaky Gut.
How do I know if I have Leaky Gut or not?
Blood tests can diagnose you with gluten or casein intolerances but they are not 100% accurate. Stool tests can identify certain markers for Leaky Gut, but sometimes they are absent even though you have it. The best way to know if you have Leaky Gut is to avoid all dairy and all grains for three weeks. I call this the three week test. Keep a symptom journal each day for a week before during and after the 3 week test. Then continue tracking symptoms while reintroducing these foods one at a time. If you have substantially less symptoms (at least a 25% improvement) by the end of the three weeks off, and then they return after reintroducing them, you likely have Leaky Gut. At a minimum you have an allergy to wheat or dairy.
Could it be only gluten or only dairy that I need to avoid?
Yes, but generally those who are sensitive to one are sensitive to the other at least slightly, and so it's best to avoid both for 6-12 months while your gut heals.
More on this in part 2…. stay tuned!
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