Leaky Gut: Explained

Something you might have come across in the field of autoimmunity or gut problems is ‘leaky gut’. Leaky gut or leaky gastrointestinal tract is now a widely accepted cause of many of our modern day ailments but what does this really mean?

Your gut is the seat of your health and where the outside world meets you. When you consume food, it doesn’t go ‘inside’ you technically, it first sits in the gut. Think if you were standing in a hole in the ground, you would still be outside the earth technically, you haven’t been absorbed into the soil.

Picture your gut like a mountainous valley filled with a dense rain forest. Think of the food you eat like types of weather, as this weather (food) rains down onto the forest, the trees gently buffer the ground below and absorb water into their leaves (Intestinal villi - small, finger-like projections that extend into the lumen) allowing the nutrients to travel down the trunks and into the ground below. The soil beneath is you, a complex ecosystem filled with blood vessels.

Now unfortunately, this forest of ours isn’t always in the best shape. Sometimes viruses damage certain species of trees (microbial imbalances) and so the trees are not as sturdy anymore, then occasionally we have some illegal logging where trees are cut down (inflammatory foods). This leaves spaces in our forest, exposing the delicate top soil below. This is what we mean by leaky gut.

So now when we consume foods, they bypass the trees and hit directly onto the soil below. Because these particles or macromolecules (large food particles) haven’t been broken down and absorbed slowly, they enter the blood vessels below and where are your blood vessels connected to? Your entire body. Your immune system doesn’t like this one bit, these particles float around the entire system causing systemic inflammation as your immune system tries to deal with them. A by product of this effect may also mean that you’re not able to absorb and assimilate the nutrients from food properly.

This is the foundation of how many autoimmune diseases begin; after a while your immune system can’t identify what things in its system are ‘bad’ or ‘good’ and in the crossfire, proteins which make up you get hurt.

Resolving leaky gut often resolves many other downstream effects, such as brain fog, chronic fatigue and bloating. For the most part, fixing a leaky gut will mean removing pro-inflammatory foods, particularly refined carbohydrates (and especially those containing gluten) and increasing protein and fat intake. This will help reduce ‘fermenting gut’ also which leads to unusually high burping and gas after consuming a carbohydrate heavy meal. I also recommend including a small amount of bone broth (350ml) each day to help sooth the gut lining. Alternatively for vegans and vegetarians, free form amino acids like l-glutamine can be useful a substitute.