Leaky Gut: The Biological Door to Inflammation

Back in my early days of nutritional study (circa 2015), working at a nutrition store as a molecular biology student I would see soccer moms and reluctant middle aged men sent by their wives to pick up our last box of gluten free doughnuts, or pizza dough, or gluten free cookies and it made me chuckle. They were all around 30+ lbs overweight and I'm sure 90% of them really had no idea what gluten was anyways. I felt like the whole gluten free craze was a joke, and people were just jumping on the next popular health craze likely made popular by Dr. Oz and ignoring the fact that they were still consuming processed carbohydrates at an alarming rate, continuing to progress towards more advanced inflammatory disease states 

So I got so sick of the differing opinions I would read on the subject in health magazines or online and decided to investigate this further and ultimately form my own professional opinion on the topic. Then I discovered a paper about Zonulin. This paper forever changed the way I thought about gluten, and the overall progression of inflammatory disease forever. If you would like to read it, here is the link. All of us exist on a spectrum of gluten intolerance, this goes for dairy as well but we’ll stick with gluten for now. Some people may be seemingly asymptomatic as the effects may present in other areas of the body such as fibromyalgia, depression, joint pain, (name autoimmune dysfunction here.) You don’t have to have Celiac disease to be affected, Celiac is a genetic disorder. So the way gluten works to cause inflammation is by activating the transcription of a gene that codes for the protein Zonulin. This protein is then excreted into the intestinal lumen and then physiologically “unzips” the tight junctions between each of the epithelial cells creating a gap large enough for macromolecules like bacteria, food particles, environmental toxins, drugs, and any other inflammatory shit that may be residing in your gut after eating your super-sized number three from Mcdonalds. Once this paracellular(extracellular) gap is created, now that tube (GI tract) that is our biggest interface between us and our environment is compromised and your intestinal contents are leaking into your bloodstream where your immune system resides. At this point your innate or “active” immune system evolutionarily designed to protect you from infection after fighting a bear is engaged 24/7.  It’s your fight or flight immune system that functions by oxidizing damaged cells or bacteria and marking them for death. Mind you this is the state most Americans are in nowadays, hence the increasing rates of disease on every front. So now you are in a chronic state of systemic inflammation where every cell in your body is subject to increased oxidative stress. This oxidation begins to pit and destroy your vascular system, contributing to the development of plaque build up from improper fat consumption (too much omega6, not enough 3.) Most of us all exist on a spectrum of neuropathy as well, for the same reasons. The myelin sheath insulation that covers the axons of our nerves is subject to oxidation until it is destroyed and not replaced by enough omega 3, which when compromised exposes our nerves and they start to get inflamed and destroyed. 

Gluten is not the only culprit for this by the way, pasteurized dairy does the same thing.

Developing New Food Sensitivities

So does an overall dysbiotic situation in your gut. If you are suffering from SIBO (small intestine bacterial overgrowth), candida overgrowth, IBS, Crohns, or have been through rounds of antibiotics without replenishing the good guys, this is happening in your body. This also may also result in new food sensitives you were tolerant of before. It is not uncommon for people after the age of 30 to become all of the sudden noticeably sensitive to things like gluten, dairy, nightshade vegetables (peppers, tomatoes.) Anyone with children should know that this happens to them too.

As doom and gloom as all of this sounds, there is some good news. All of this is reversible!! How do you say? Things like bone broth with high concentrations of glutamine, lysine, proline and collagen which aid in tissue repair. As a functional medicine guy, we start with:

1. Removing any obstacles to healing

This means putting a tourniquet on the source of inflammation, balancing gut bacteria, usually starting with an elimination diet because these things don’t progress overnight and who knows what has become a source of inflammation in your body at this point.

2. Replacing your diet with healthy foods

Doing a good gut detox, followed by good probiotics, prebiotic foods, and fermented foods like kimchi sauerkraut, kombucha, kefir, etc. 

3. Repairing tissue with supplements

Things like bone broth I mentioned earlier, probiotics, coconut products containing lauric acid, digestive enzymes, Licorice Root (DGL), Citrus bioflavonoids, Ascorbic Acid(vitamin c) basically anything anti-oxidant.

If you are wondering if you should get tested to see if this is happening to you, don’t bother. First of all, in my experience the majority of physicians out there either don’t care about any of this because they have no training in functional medicine or nutrition and if they are aware still use irrelevant tests to determine if you do have it. (mannitol) That molecule can move through trans-cellular pathways, through the cell instead of around it so it's inconsequential. They will remind you that they practice evidence based medicine simultaneously having no idea how to connect the dots between depression, asthma, fibromyalgia, and IBS. If you want to do something about it, just assume this is happening. You don’t need a physician to take charge of your health, and an investment now in your health will pay off later. The only true wealth you have is your health, so act now before you develop autoimmune disease, cancer, CVD, diabetes, etc.