The Most Effective Ways To Help A Client With Leaky Gut Syndrome
Everyone and their mother seem to be talking about “Leaky Gut Syndrome” lately. As a wellness professional, you may even have clients coming to you with symptoms asking, “Do you think it might be leaky gut!?”.
Leaky Gut Syndrome refers to an increase in intestinal permeability or intestinal hyperpermeability in extreme cases.
A healthy gut lining allows only specific components of food to pass through into the bloodstream. This is how nutrients enter the bloodstream and promote health.
However, poor diet, stress, and some medications can damage the gut lining over time. The result is a more permeable gut lining, which allows larger particles to enter the bloodstream while failing to properly absorb key nutrients.
Undigested food particles, gut bacteria, proteins, and toxic waste shouldnt be able to enter the bloodstream. But when the gut lining becomes compromised they do, causing negative consequences.
While Leaky Gut was once thought to affect only those with serious medical conditions such as Celiac Disease, we now know that even slight increases in intestinal permeability can cause chronic health issues.
Common signs and symptoms of Leaky Gut include autoimmune disease, food sensitivities, digestive issues, inflammatory skin conditions, compromised immunity, joint pain, brain fog and low energy.
Today I’ll be discussing the most effective ways to help a client with leaky gut syndrome including
Leaky Gut Syndrome Treatment: Herbal Therapies
Another goal of Traditional Chinese Medicine is to provide drug-free therapies based on natural herbal methods that take your overall health to the next level. Many herbal formulas address the liver, stomach, and spleen problems, and each of them is often modified so that it fits a patients particular condition. Herbal formulas are useful since they foster the patient to eat healthier food and regulate their diet. For example, patients are encouraged to eat larger meals earlier in the day, avoid processed foods, avoid skipping meals, and eat slowly. They should generally avoid foods high in sugar and carbohydrates since they can harm the digestive system and cause additional problems in people with leaky gut.
Your certified practitioner will prescribe a unique herbal formula for you, and it will be based on your particular condition and symptoms that should be addressed. A practitioner may suggest some vitamins and supplements you can add to your herbal formula to enrich your diet and boost the immune system. Chinese herbs are often used as a complementary treatment, which means that practitioners tend to combine it with acupuncture and functional medicine approaches to provide better and long-lasting results.
Anatomy Of A Leaky Gut
Most of the problems associated with leaky gut syndrome occur in your small intestine, but all the organs of your digestion are involved and impacted. The information here is compiled from Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, coauthor of Real Cause, Real Cure, and Liz Lipski, PhD, CCN, author of Digestive Wellness.
Mouth: Not chewing food thoroughly can be a setup for digestive troubles. Mechanically breaking your food down to a liquid state makes your stomachs job easier. It also mixes in digestive enzymes that begin dissolving proteins, carbs, and fats even before you swallow.
Stomach: Your stomach digests food with enzymes and acids, distilling it into a slurry that moves into the small intestine. If digestion is incomplete, food particles enter the small intestine. And if the gut lining there is irritated, those particles can pass into the bloodstream, setting the stage for inflammation and food sensitivities. Incomplete digestion can negatively affect your assimilation of nutrients and encourage the overgrowth of bad bacteria and yeasts.
Large Intestine: As your large intestine continues to break down food, the colon extracts water from the slurry for use elsewhere in the body. A solid stool of waste forms and is sent to the rectum. In the absence of adequate fiber, however, elements of slow-moving waste can reenter the system, creating a variety of inflammatory and toxicity problems throughout the body.
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What Are Some Ways I Can Treat Leaky Gut
Theres a wide range of things you can do to help get your gut its strength back. A firm sugar detox along with a low-starch, nutrient-rich diet is a great way to begin. Incorporating key gut-healthy foods into your diet can be very beneficial foods include collagen, apple cider vinegar, probiotics and prebiotics, digestive enzymes, and coconut. These foods are able to promote good bacteria, kill yeast, and strengthen the production of your gut tissue.
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The Best Leaky Gut Diet Plan Tum Tree
Apr 1, 2021 Best Leaky Gut Diet · Vegetables and leafy greens · Non-gluten grains · Clean animal protein from fish, poultry, meat and eggs · Healthy fats from
Oct 13, 2020 What are the Top Leaky Gut Foods to Avoid? · 1. Gluten · 2. Barcode Food · 3. Sugar · 4. Artificial Sweeteners · 5. Dairy · 6. Corn · 7. Alcohol · 8.
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Overcoming Leaky Gut Syndrome
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Nov 26, 2013 The key to healing a leaky gut is changing your diet and eliminating the foods that your body treats as toxic. On the advice of my nutritionist,
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The Best Diet for a Leaky Gut · Bone Broth You can make this using any type of bone from any animal . · Top Tip
Nutrient Insufficiency And Low Stomach Acid
If we arent absorbing the foods were eating, this can cause inflammation in the gut. This can range from not chewing foods well to having low levels of stomach acid, which doesnt allow us to properly break down and absorb the foods were eating. Pathogens can sneak into the gut that usually would be killed off by a low stomach pH, which can upregulate Zonulin protein, and undigested food particles begin to sneak through the gut lining.
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How To Eat For Leaky Gut
Cleaning up your diet can really help heal your leaky gut because some foods youre eating may inflame your gut.
Though there are many possible healing diet options, the most important strategy for using diet as a therapy is to focus on real foods and to listen to your body, not what everyone else is saying.
That said, the following diets may be supportive for you while healing leaky gut:
| Diet |
Leaky Gut Elimination Diet
Feb 6, 2020 The Leaky Gut Protocol. · 1. Have the leaky gut shake for breakfast. · 2. Drink plenty of water, preferably filtered. · 3. Eat lots of vegetables
Fermented foods for a healthy gut Fermented foods such as kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut are excellent sources for probiotics. These are beneficial
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Scientifically Speaking What Is Leaky Gut Syndrome
Regulating intestinal leaking is one of the basic functions of the cells that line the intestinal wall. For people with sensitive stomachs, gluten could cause gut cells to release zonulin, a protein that breaks down tight junctions in the intestinal lining. Anything from toxins, infections, or even stress can cause these junctions to break apart.
Once the junctions are broken apart, you will have a leaky gut. At this point, toxins, undigested food particles, proteins, bad microbes, etc., can leak from the intestines and travel through the body through the bloodstream. This can lead to inflammation throughout the immune system.
Using The Wrong Diagnostic Tests
There is a test available that shows whether an individual has intestinal permeability. It works by measuring levels of two indigestible sugars, mannitol and lactulose, in the urine. Most physicians do not use this test and research shows that it is not very reliable. As we mentioned earlier, there is no evidence that intestinal permeability causes any disease be wary of anyone who claims that it does. Some unscrupulous individuals are even selling these tests to consumers online. Using this test to diagnose leaky gut syndrome would be like ordering a test to look for blood in the stool of someone with IBD and using a positive test result to prove that the bloody stools caused some other mysterious disease that in turn caused the IBD. We already know that bloody stools are a symptom of Crohns disease or ulcerative colitis, just as we know that intestinal permeability is a symptom of some diseases such as Crohns disease and celiac disease.
Proponents of leaky gut syndrome might also misuse tests that look for bacterial, fungal, or viral infections, or tests that measure immune function, to diagnose the disorder, when there is no evidence that the results are in any way related to this baseless syndrome.
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How Do You Get Rid Of Leaky Gut
Now that weve been talked about leaky gut symptoms, causes and opinions, lets talk about how to test for and repair leaky gut.
How do you test for leaky gut?
Several leaky gut syndrome tests are available that can help confirm a diagnosis and point you in the right treatment direction. Tests are helpful for identifying specific sensitivities and uncovering which types of toxins or deficiencies are contributing to your symptoms. Leaky gut tests include:
- Zonulin or Lactulose Tests
- Organic Acid Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies Tests
- Lactulose Mannitol Test
What leaky gut treatments are available?
After years of research and patient care, I developed a four-step process for helping to heal leaky gut. I cover this process in my article entitled the Leaky Gut Diet and Treatment Plan. If youre concerned that you or a loved one may have leaky gut symptoms, I encourage you to read the detailed instructions, food suggestions and recommended leaky gut supplements listed in this article.
The basic steps to healing leaky gut are as follows:
Two of the most common questions people ask are: What can I eat if I have leaky gut syndrome? And what should I NOT eat when I have leaky gut?
What Foods Should You Avoid If You Have Leaky Gut
Mar 24, 2021 If you have leaky gut syndrome, you should avoid these foods: refined carbohydrates, glutinous grains, white sugar, dairy products, vegetable
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by WAILG So The most important thing you can do to heal leaky gut is to eat a gut healing diet. That means plenty of fruits and vegetables, gluten-free
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What Foods Should You Avoid If You Have Leaky Gut Syndrome
If your doctor feels confident that you likely have leaky gut, they may recommend adjusting your diet to remove inflammatory foods that could impact gut flora, such as:
- Processed foods
- Foods that may trigger allergies or sensitivities, such as gluten or dairy
- Alcohol
Additionally, the doctor may also recommend a low FODMAP diet. Usually, this diet is recommended for people with IBS or even celiac disease, but it may help relieve some of the symptoms from leaky gut as well, especially since there is so much symptom overlap.
Creating a diet rich in foods that aid the growth of beneficial gut bacteria is important as well. Some great options are vegetables , roots, fruit, sprouted seeds, fish, cultured dairy products and nuts .
References
Do I Need A Supplement
According to research published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, there is some evidence that probiotics can improve the function of your gut and even help reverse leaky gut, but long-term studies are still needed. There is not a single study to date suggesting that probiotics are harmful.
Probiotic supplements are more like a fertilizer that communicates to your existing gut bacteria. It can regulate the pH and cross-talk to other bacteria, increasing short-chain fatty acids which is the food for the gut cells and help regulate inflammation and the immune system of the gut, says Dr. La Vella. Transitioning away from processed foods and toward whole foods is usually enough to keep your gut healthy.
Herbal supplements may be helpful in certain situations, but arent necessarily a quick fix.
I think of supplements as medications there is always a risk and a benefit. I prefer to think about restoring ecosystem balance rather than supplementing to cover up a bad dietary or lifestyle choice, says Dr. La Vella.
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Is Leaky Gut A Cause Or Symptom Of Disease
There is still a lot that science and doctors need to learn and understand about leaky gut. This includes whether leaky gut is the cause or symptom of certain diseases. While there is still much research to be done, there is some evidence that leaky gut is at least a precursor, if not a cause, to certain diseases like inflammatory bowel disease and type 1 diabetes.
There is also evidence of the importance of gut health for maintaining health in other areas of the body besides the digestive tract. When the balance of bacteria in the gut is disrupted, it can lead to increased intestinal permeability which can release substances into the bloodstream which travel throughout the body. Again, the specific cause is not known, but some risk factors like autoimmune disorders, stress, poor nutrition, and excess consumption of alcohol have been identified.
Another fascinating area of research is the connection between the gastrointestinal tract and the brain. This is called the gut-brain axis. While much more research still needs to take place, some research indicates that leaky gut may contribute to depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. This has the potential to create a new understanding of mental health issues, and revolutionary approaches to treatment.
The Leaky Gut Diet And Treatment Plan Including Top Gut Foods
Leaky gut syndrome is a condition thats thought to affect millions of people, many of whom dont even know it. The good news is following a leaky gut diet can help overcome this condition.
From the sound of it, you might think leaky gut syndrome only impacts digestive health, but in reality it can lead to many other health conditions. For example, according to recent research, the cause of your food allergies, fatigue, joint pain, thyroid disease and autoimmune conditions may be a leaky gut.
What is the fastest way to treat leaky gut? Following a healing leaky gut syndrome diet is one of the best strategies for getting your body back on track.
In this article, I outline specifically how a leaky gut diet works, so you can break through some of the stubborn health problems youve been struggling with.
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What Are The Clinical Signs Of Leaky Gut Syndrome
Most pets with leaky gut syndrome have gastrointestinal signs, such as weight loss, vomiting, flatulence, and soft stools.
However, it is not these gastrointestinal signs that are the primary concern in this condition. Instead, leaky gut syndrome is a concern because it is believed to increase a pets risk of developing a number of diseases that are not directly related to the gastrointestinal tract.
In humans, leaky gut syndrome is associated with inflammatory bowel disease, inflammatory arthritis, inflammatory skin disease, chronic hepatitis, chronic pancreatitis, and chronic fatigue syndrome. It is theorized leaky gut syndrome in humans contributes to inflammation. There is concern that leaky gut syndrome may also lead to inflammatory diseases in pets, meaning that the clinical signs of leaky gut syndrome could include a wide variety of inflammatory conditions.
Leaky Gut Syndrome Explained
If youve been struggling with GI issues or have noticed some systemic symptoms that negatively impact your life it could be leaky gut syndrome. Its very possible that this condition will be affecting many individuals each year, and with the proper treatment, they could restore a better quality of life.
For now, you can take steps to improve your gut health and decrease the risk of leaky gut syndrome by following some of the steps mentioned. By reducing inflammation, transforming your diet, and adding a wide range of beneficial supplements you could eradicate your symptoms and feel like your best self. If you feel you need help on that journey, our Integrative Nutrition Team treats both local and virtual patients. Wherever you are, were there too. Just or, you can start by filling out the form below.
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Top 10 Symptoms That Indicate You May Have Leaky Gut
One of the things you may have noticed is that many symptoms of leaky gut occur OUTSIDE of the intestinal tract.
These symptoms are known as extra intestinal symptoms.
And it is these symptoms that can make the diagnosis so difficult.
Why?
Because most conventional physicians will not link your recurrent or chronic depression to your intestinal tract even though the studies have suggested there is a clear link between the two .
This puts you as the patient at a disadvantage when it comes to dianogsis.
For this reason, it is critical that you have an understanding of why these symptoms occur and also how to go about with treatment.
Below Ive included a brief run down of what causes each symptom including relevant literary links to support the claims.
#1. History of Autoimmune Diseases
Autoimmune disease results in tissue damage in your own body from dysregulated immune function.
In a nutshell, this means that your own body is attacking and destroying itself.
This process can occur in basically any tissue in your body ranging from your thyroid gland to your joints .
Autoimmune disease as a condition is also increasingly becoming more and more common which is a concern for many patients.
Whats interesting is that there is a clear link between intestinal function, immune function and the development of autoimmune disease.
There are many ways that this occurs but one such method is known as molecular mimicry.
#2. Known thyroid dysfunction or other hormone imbalances
Why?