Even though I’m versed in the accurate physiology of leaky gut, the phrase brings to my mind a comical image of pizza pieces escaping from holes in an intestine into the bloodstream. Years ago, before I immersed myself in holistic health, a practitioner described leaky gut as food particles going into the bloodstream. And so this bizarre illustration was fossilized into my mind.
If the term leaky gut brings a similar illustration to your mind, I want to paint for you a more accurate picture. I hope this explanation of leaky gut to give you a physiological comprehension of both the causes and the solutions.
Understanding leaky gut changed my life. Hyperbole? Nope! By addressing this root cause of my autoimmune disease, I was able to avoid impending surgery and stop taking pharmacy-worth of medications.
What is leaky gut?
Leaky gut is another term for intestinal permeability. Leaky gut is a physiological fact – not some mythical alternative health concept. Look up “intestinal permeability” in PubMed – you’ll find almost 2,000 studies with human subjects.
Here is leaky gut described in a nutshell:
The small intestine, where nutrients are absorbed, is supposed to have tight cell junctions to separate the chyme (food turns into chyme in the stomach) from the bloodstream. But a chain of factors causes these tight junctions to degrade. Once the connections between intestinal cells are weakened, undigested proteins and bacterial toxins escape into the bloodstream. This leads to a heightened state of inflammation.
How does leaky gut develop?
Chronic stress and gut flora imbalance lay the foundation for leaky gut. Environmental toxins (such as fluoride and certain medications), genetic susceptibility, and/or infections (such as H. pylori) can also trigger leaky gut.
First, stress turns off digestion. In a disastrous cascade, it first diminishes our production of stomach acid. In turn, a state of hypochlohydria (low stomach acid) leads to inadequate enzyme production, bile release, and compromised movement of food through the digestive tract.
All of these factors wreak havoc on the balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut. Due to low stomach acid/bile/enzymes, proteins/carbs/fats are not properly digested. This deteriorates the good gut bacteria. Further, the stagnation of food due to slowed peristalsis fosters pathogenic bacteria to overgrow.
With the degradation of protective gut flora, the vulnerable intestinal lining is under assault.
Dr. Natasha, author of the landmark book The Gut and Psychology Syndrome, offers a helpful analogy. She compares the bacterial layer that protects the lining of the gastrointestinal tract to turf covering the soil below. Once the bacterial turf gets eroded, the intestinal “soil” will start to be eroded (the phenomena of leaky gut). But if the turf is healthy and nourished, it protects the soil from erosion.
How does leaky gut lead to autoimmune disease?
Sarah Ballantyne, PhD, in her book The Paleo Approach states:
Autoimmune disease is caused when the immune system loses the ability to distinguish self from foreign invaders. On top of this, the immune system must also be stimulated to attack. How this actually happens is complex and involves the interaction of three major factors:
- genetic susceptibility
- environmental triggers, infection or bad luck
- diet and lifestyle
You may have heard that leaky gut and autoimmunity are linked. Here is the connection:
Chronic stress and flora imbalance, along with genetic and environmental factors, create a viscous cycle of poor digestion.
The loss of protective gut flora, along with the improperly digested food, leave the intestinal lining vulnerable to destructive pathogenic bacteria. Improperly digested carbohydrates also wear down the intestinal lining. These factors deteriorate the tight junctions of the small intestine lining, creating leaky gut.
Only amino acids, not proteins from our food, are supposed to be in the bloodstream. However, the compromised gut lining allows undigested proteins (as well as harmful bacteria) to escape into the bloodstream.
The body revs up the immune system to create antibodies against these proteins, which are seen as foreign invaders.
Antibodies against food proteins trigger out-of-control autoantibody production. Autoantibodies attack our own body tissue. Although the body has a backup system in place to prevent over-production of autoantibodies, this system fails in the case of autoimmunity.
6 Steps to Heal Leaky Gut
1. Follow a leaky gut dietary protocol
Certain foods universally exacerbate leaky gut. Leaky gut protocols – including the GAPS Diet and the Autoimmune Paleo Protocol – remove specific types of carbohydrates that can prevent gut regeneration and feed the pathogenic bacteria. They also provide nutrients from meats, vegetables, and bone broth that are crucial for that gut repair.
Note that these are temporary healing diets. In all these systems, more foods are supposed to be re-introduced after a regeneration period. It’s about discovering the optimal diet that is unique to you.
I recommend the following resources for a Leaky Gut Dietary Protocol
- The Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride
- The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballantyne
- Cookbooks: The Paleo Approach Cookbook, The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook and Nourish: The Paleo Healing Cookbook
2. Remove food stressors
Dietary choices contribute to the formation of leaky gut and it also perpetuates it. When we have an antibody response to consuming a food, it is a stress response. When we create a stress response, we turn down (or off) our body’s healing processes.
Unfortunately, even a nutrient-dense, real food diet can perpetuate the cycle of stress. With intestinal permeability, your body can potentially create antibodies against any food you consume, especially foods you eat on an extremely frequent basis. This is how food allergies and food sensitivities develop.
Case in point: a few months ago, I became sensitive to coconut. I was eating some form of coconut – oil, butter, or flour – everyday. So I needed to take out coconut products for three months to de-sensitize my body.
A rotation diet plays a key role in healing leaky gut. With a compromised intestinal lining, eating certain foods everyday often leads to a food sensitivity. I work with an experienced kiniesiologist (muscle testing) to determine which foods stress my body. You can also use this at-home food sensitivity test to determine food stressors.
3. Support balanced blood sugar
To heal leaky gut, you must foster the regeneration of the intestinal tissues. And without balanced blood sugar, the gut cannot regenerate.
When we have chronically elevated blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia), the excess glucose binds to proteins in the bloodstream in a process called glycation. Glycated proteins are unable be utilized for tissue regeneration.
To illustrate this, examine at the connection between diabetics and skin regeneration. A diabetic has chronically elevated blood sugar, which glycates proteins in the blood, and leads to extremely slow wound healing.
Following a leaky gut diet, as I discussed above, can greatly improve blood sugar balance… but not if you are consuming large quantities of fruit and snacking on grain-free baked goods all day.
Focus on healthy fats, proteins and veggies, and eat three square meals rather than grazing during the day. Also check out my post 10 Ways to Balance Blood Sugar Naturally.
4. Foster beneficial gut flora
Remember the analogy of gut flora being the turf that protects the intestinal lining? The body requires an influx of healthy bacteria to re-grow that turf.
Both high-quality probiotic supplements and fermented foods are usually necessary. I primarily recommend two brands of probiotics, which encourage long-term repopulation of the gut with friendly bugs:
- PrescriptAssist Probiotic, available here
- BioKult Probiotic, available here
5. Provide regular maintenance
If you read my Confessions of a Health Perfectionist post, you know that, although my life changed drastically through nutrition, I do not identify myself as a poster child for perfect health.
Healing leaky gut means allowing the gut to regenerate so the intestinal lining is no longer permeable. This goal can be reached through the steps discussed above. However, maintaining a healthy gut in our modern lifestyle requires exactly that – maintenance.
I know that I’m prone to leaky gut. Even though I carefully tailor my diet to my body’s needs, I’ve had some unavoidable stressful situations in the past few years that have compromised my gut. When that happens, I’ll take 2-4 weeks to extensively rotate my diet and temporarily remove foods which I re-introduced (such as eggs, these sprouted nut butters, and nightshades).
Another step for me in the repair-maintain cycle is constantly supporting my digestion by improving my vagal tone.
I hope this post sharing my experience supports your healing!
Hey beautiful,
I was wondering if you already have a blog post about which supplements to take while transitioning or how to choose the right ones? I totally believe that it is not a long term solution but it clearly helps at the beginning so I just wanted to ask you for your opinion especially on digestive enzymes and probiotics.
Thanks soon much for everything.
Julia
That’s a great question Julie and I can consider it for a future blog post. In the meantime, I recommend immediately starting with our oil blend Vagal Tone, and the probiotic I recommend is here: http://empoweredsustenance.com/shop-category/healthy-living-products/
But what about candida? I did GAPS for 6 months and felt no different but then found out later I have a bad case of candida. Now I am treating that and hoping once it is treated the foods I eat will actually absorb. I struggle with poor appetite and cannot keep weight on. I feel like all I do is eat and nothing comes from it. I have been on paleo for 3 years now. I never feel any different. Can a gut healing diet kill candida? In my experience it is not enough. What do you recommend? Thanks!
Hey! About 3 years ago, I had a major struggle with anorexia and my health has never been up to par since. I’ve dealt with anxiety/depression, poor digestion, hormonal imbalance, perioral dermatitis, acne, hair loss, etc.. For the past few months I’ve been trying to heal my body by cutting out gluten, soaking nuts, eating no processed foods, lowering fruit and overall carbohydrates, and supplementing enzymes/l-glutamine/probiotics. This has helped my perioral dermatitis and gas/bloating, but I’m losing weight and I’m afraid I’m going to fall back into old habits. The information for leaky gut and yeast overgrowth is so overwhelming and is really causing me a lot of anxiety around food. I just want to heal my body and not worry about every bite or if I’m going out to eat with my family, etc. Do you have any tips, I’m honestly so confused as to what I should and shouldn’t eat. One site says gf grains and no fruit/starchy/honey vegetables and the next says the exact opposite. What do I do???
Hi Natalie! I empathize with the struggle of beginning a restricted diet after anorexia. I’ve been there too. The mindset shifts in this post may be helpful: http://empoweredsustenance.com/restricted-diet-is-not-restricting/ I’d also suggest you take a look at this post for digestive supplement support: http://empoweredsustenance.com/best-digestive-supplements/ And my ebook here will explain how the various autoimmune diets compare: http://empoweredsustenance.com/nutrition-autoimmune-success-guide/
What I have found- and learned from Dr Bergman (he has lots of videos- doctor/Chiropractor trainer and a genius) is to go back to basics to heal anything. This is what I’m doing- 1) detox – including home enema’s and detox clay baths and taking Diatomaceous earth and Bentonite clay daily and lots of water so I don’t get constipation from this. 2) eat only fruits seeds nuts and organic vegetables (learning to sprout and eating sprouts daily is a PERFECT addition to this diet) raw milk, kefir, carrot spinach celery etc. juices- and Bone broth daily. 3) In bed by 9 because that’s when the body begins to heal while asleep. 4) meditate for 15 minutes just “listening” or focusing on breath. NO STRESS- learn how to deal with stress so that you don’t automatically stress, fret, worry, tense…find a way… Stress makes cortisol and it does horrible things to the body- it also stops all healing until you are calm again and most people keep that sense of prolonged stress- play lovely music…learn to not stress. Don’t eat while watching TV it activates sympathetic nervous system- just don’t do it. The take away is- to go back to basics meaning detox out bad things…put in good things…sleep, water…relax, meditate. These habits tend to cure every “incurable” there is. Food and stress causes it all and our bodies have filters that need cleaning out (kidneys- liver) clean them out and things start to flow again. Great people to look for on natural healing- Markus Rothkranz- Dr. Berg…& Dr. Bergman. In Chinese medicine they say take Jing herbs and that bone broth is the basis for ANY healing otherwise there is no complete healing. Hope you get better soon (me too).
Hi Lauren,
would preparing leaky gut risky foods such as beans, chilies, dairies, red meats, etc. in a pressure cooker help reduce their harmful lectin contents?
I ask because I’m a fan of chilies and fruits but Dr. Gundry has them on the do not consume list so I’m trying to find a way around it lol
What’s really weird though is that chilies & fruits are part of the regular diet in Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, India… and the folks there aren’t that fat. Dunno what’s the leaky gut rate in those countries but doesn’t seem like they’re viewed as harmful by the locals.
Ditto with me, I eat plenty of different fruits, specially post-work out followed by dairies and lots of the foods on the banned list but I never felt bloated or anything… In fact, I’m 8.5% body fat and hardly ever get sick or tired. So is it cool if I don’t remove them from my diet?
I’ll definitely reduce my consumption of meat & sugar but all the restrictions regarding grains, fruits, capsycum family, et al would remove so many gastronomical sources of pleasure. So was wondering what’s your take on it. Thx!
Why are you changing your diet? If you’re lean and not sick or tired, it doesn’t sound like you need to change your diet.
It doesn’t hurt to eliminate foods for a few weeks, and reintroduce them to see how you do. I personally thrive on fruits and fermented dairy and feel worse without them. Everyone’s different.
Hey, I’m about to start a candida diet, as I have a candida overgrowth, and some bad bacterias that have shown up in a test. I assume I hae leaky gut too. I’m currenlty on a paleo-ish diet.. and taking supplements morning and night as prescribed by a naturopath. I was wondering, is there a way to know when you’re leaky gut is healed? before you do the candida diet or you’re saying the cadida diet is basically bad?
You have some great articles on this site. I know I have leaky gut. For 20+ years I was on antibiotics multiple times each year, sometimes very high doses. My gut is a mess. 15 years ago for over 3 years I did a strict candida diet and did see a lot of improvement. However life became unbelievably stressful and I could not maintain the healthy eating. I am doing better with eating, but last summer I decided to stop my home-made dairy yogurt because I would get a bit of an upset stomach. Was that ever a mistake! I now have thrush, and the candida symptoms of bloating and gas are back. I also have acid reflux which I understand can be caused by h-pylori. I have fibromyalgia, early onset arthritis, and other symptoms of chronic inflammation. I am already on disability and cannot afford to go to a natural doctor. My family doc told me only severe immunocompromised individuals, such as AIDS and cancer patients get thrush! No help there! I am so confused where to start. I am wheat-free, as testing years ago indicated I was allergic to wheat bran. The tests did not indicate a problem with gluten. I also don’t do dairy other than my home-made yogurt. I have been trying to get back to the candida diet, but you are suggesting a GAPS or Paleo diet would be better? Thanks
PM
Eating only fruit nothing else for 6 days will get rid of thrush on the tongue!! To make it easier cut up apples with lemon juice in a bag and have oranges already peeled for eating. Everything is always easier to me if it’s just grab able out of the fridge especially if your feeling like giving up. Hope you get to feeling better! Life can be rough I’ll pray for you!
How can anyone live off of fruits only. This sounds absurd. I couldn’t do this for sure. Talk about stress.
Cindy, I hope you can find some help. I’m male with Candida (mutliple home test kits confirmed) yet my natural doc said the same thing re: only severely immunosuppressed individuals getting it.
I’ve seen a number of natural docs now and tried different supplements and diets. I believe the obsession with trying to fix the problem only adds to the stress which in turns makes it worse. But there is so much conflicting information online that it seems almost impossible to feel safe in taking one or another approach.
Eating only fruit nothing else for 6 days will get rid of thrush on the tongue!! To make it easier cut up apples with lemon juice in a bag and have oranges already peeled for eating. Everything is always easier to me if it’s just grab able out of the fridge especially if your feeling like giving up. Hope you get to feeling better! Life can be rough I’ll pray for you!
Hi Lauren,
Where can I purchase Vagal Tone as the Meo Energetics website appears to be down? When will it be back up? Any possibility to order Vagal Tone somewhere else?
Thanks.
Hi Clem,
The products are no longer available and I explain why here: http://empoweredsustenance.com/what-happened-essential-oil-company
I am using coconut sugar to bake and with smoothies. I’m thinking that this is probably highly processed. What kind of sugar substitute do you recommend using?
So how to incorporate natural sugar in a Candida diet? I was told not really to eat sugars but I guess fruits are ok? Any fruit or specific type? With other foods or by itself as a snack?? Thanks so much