Over the course of this series, I will teach you what leaky gut is, what causes it, and how to heal it naturally. It will be broken down into multiple posts to make it easier to follow.
If you are ready to take the next and final step in the healing process, to completely heal your body and get your life back, you can follow my book, Healing Leaky Gut. It takes the information I’ve taught here and applies it to completely heal your leaky gut in a step by step format. You can find here.
What is Leaky Gut Syndrome?
Leaky Gut is reported to be found (in some degree or another) in roughly 80% of all adults in America. That’s no small number. Leaky Gut Syndrome goes by many names, including Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Celiac Disease, Intolerances of any kind and adult food allergies. I’m not saying that all of these instances are cases of Leaky Gut, but they usually are.
“Leaky Gut Syndrome” is the name for what happens when your digestive system becomes inflamed and the intestines in your body become “semi-permeable,” meaning that certain objects are allowed to pass through into your blood stream, including food particles and toxins.
Understand that the intestines should never, ever allow objects to pass through them. When food passes through into your blood stream, it is attacked.
Your body creates anti-bodies against these toxins, even if they are normal food particles, because they are foreign to your bloodstream. Any item in your bloodstream that doesn’t belong is called an “antigen.” Your body attacks these antigens and purges them from your system. It will purge them through diarrhea, throwing up, acne, hives, and many other ways, usually resulting in a violent sickness.
This is also the exact cause of a food sensitivity or “food allergy.” Food allergies are not normal in adults and are almost always caused by Leaky Gut. Celiac disease is another instance of this food sensitivity.
Leaky Gut is caused by inflammation in the digestive system. This is usually caused by:
Antibiotics – These kill off all good and bad bacteria in your digestive system. Without probiotics to restore the good bacteria, the bad bacteria is allowed to multiply and overwhelm the digestive system. This causes the intestines to become inflamed and creates a semi-permeable layer in your intestines.
Poor Diet – Processed foods have a lot of preservatives, chemicals and toxins that create inflammation and semi-permeability in the intestines. Fast food isn’t the worst thing in the world, but food like that every day can kill you. I’d suggest watching “Super-Size Me.” That might dissuade you from eating fast food.
Birth control – This is actually a very common cause of Leaky Gut in women. Birth control changes the chemistry of a woman’s body and can cause hormonal imbalance. This creates an imperfect environment for the body and can cause a lot of stress in the digestive system. Stress causes inflammation and that causes Leaky Gut. Birth control can contain many dangerous toxins which also add to creating leaky gut.
Medication – Contrary to popular belief, most medication is actually doing you more harm than it is good. While some people may need to take certain medications to stay alive, dependencies should be avoided and overcome if possible. Medication can contain many harmful substances that also create inflammation in the intestines which causes the semi-permeability. Many medications also disturb the body’s natural order which can cause malfunctions in the body and dependencies on the drug.
Vaccines – Next time you are considering getting a vaccine, ask for the ingredients label first. You will notice nasty ingredients on this list including formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), fetal DNA, food proteins, and other questionable ingredients. This may make you question inserting them directly into your blood stream where your body can’t filter through and process out the bad ingredients first. I know there is a lot of controversy surrounding this topic, but speaking from personal experience, vaccines can cause adverse reactions in your immune system. When these ingredients are put into your blood stream, your body not only attacks the virus but all the other ingredients (like food proteins), and this can cause your body to continue attacking those foods every time you eat them. A common example is eggs are used to create the flu vaccine, so naturally your body will attack the egg proteins when receiving the vaccine and continue doing so anytime you consume eggs.
Dehydration – When your body isn’t getting enough water, the toxin riddled food that should be flushed out sits in your intestines, causing constipation. This allows the toxins that would normally be disposed to cause inflammation and pass through your intestines and into your blood stream.
Stress – This can cause your body to not produce the necessary hormones for correct digestive function. Stress also prevents your “happy hormone,” serotonin, from being released into your blood stream, which causes more stress. It’s a downward cycle. Many people might not believe that being stressed can affect your healing process, but it makes a major difference.
Why Avoiding the Foods That Make You Sick Isn’t Enough
When your body becomes allergic to a certain food, you stop eating that food, and obviously you stop experiencing the pains caused by that allergy. Many people attempt to adjust their life around that. It works for a while, but then they start to get sick again.
This happens because the food that you eat (usually the food that you eat the most, but not always) continues to seep through your semi-permeable intestinal wall and more antibodies are created to purge that food. Now you are allergic to two food items, not just one. Obviously you see the major problem that comes from this, as eventually, you will be forced to adjust your diet again and again until there is nothing left for you to eat. I call this the “Degenerative Food Sensitivity Cycle.”
The degenerative food sensitivity cycle isn’t the only problem that comes from these antigens seeping into your bloodstream. Your body can’t get rid of every toxin that enters through your intestinal wall, and as these toxins build up over time, the ones that are not purged from your system will be absorbed by organs, muscles, joints and bones in your body.
Every part of your body can and will absorb some of these toxins. The more toxins that are put into your body, the more toxins your organs absorb, causing them (against their hardest efforts) to malfunction.
Since every part of your body depends on your blood stream to operate, every part of your body can be affected by Leaky Gut Syndrome, which essentially means any problem can be caused by Leaky Gut. This is one of the major reasons why the effects of Leaky Gut Syndrome are so diverse and difficult to diagnose.
Here is a list of some of the results that may come from toxins building up. Remember, this is in no way a complete list:
- Food Allergies
- Food Intolerances
- Ulcerative Colitis
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Celiac Disease
- Acid reflux
- Gall Bladder Disease
- Burst Appendix
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Crohn’s Disease
- Lack of Mental Clarity
- Brain Fog
- Stomach/Intestinal cramps
- Irregular Periods
- Menstrual Cramping
- Excessive Gas
- Loss of Appetite
- Passing Out
- Sleeping Constantly
- Light Headedness
- Weak Muscles
- UTI’s and Bladder Problems
- Body Aches
- Joint Pain
- Shortness of Breath
- Hiatal Hernia
- Bad Memory
- Bad Vision
- Hot and Cold Flashes
- Back Pain
- Frequent Urination
- Constant Hunger Pains
- Hormonal Imbalances
- Decrease in Immunity
- Bi-Polar Disorder
These are only some of the problems that root from Leaky Gut Syndrome. Of course, Leaky Gut Syndrome is not the only cause of all of these problems but they all occur because of it.
When your body is so focused on getting rid of toxins, it fails to make as many defenses as it should and strengthen your immune system against other illnesses, leaving your body prone to more illness. It is not unusual if your body is constantly getting sick with the latest cold or flu.
One last thing this can do to your body is create a hormonal imbalance. Your digestive system is responsible for releasing Serotonin, the “happy hormone,” your body naturally produces. When your digestive system is weakened, it causes less Serotonin to be released. This can cause depression, anxiety, mood swings, bi-polar disorder and many other emotional problems. Read more about that here.
Other hormones are also affected which can cause any of your glands to malfunction or other hormonal problems.
What to Do
Remember that these problems are really only the offspring of one parent issue. Hospitals and doctors often treat these side effects as if they were individual problems, but in reality, they are just side effects of one larger problem, and by treating the side effects the way they do, they make the actual problem worse. This is called “Symptom Suppression.” Whether medical science is ignorant of this, or the hospitals do it on purpose to ensure that you come back and spend more money, I don’t know. All I know is that doctors don’t usually diagnose leaky gut (unless you’re lucky). They instead treat your numerous symptoms as individual problems with even more pills and medication. This of course adds to the original problem making your symptoms worse. Are you beginning to understand why symptom suppression doesn’t work?
The best hope doctors often will offer you is to tell you that you have numerous health issues that will likely never get better and your only hope is that if they perform a surgery, or give a monumental effort, it won’t get worse. Naturally, this isn’t always true or I wouldn’t be writing this series.
You see, our bodies were created to heal themselves. They know what to do if we allow them to do it. They know what their natural state is supposed to be, and if we allow them to heal, they will. The tricky part is giving our body the opportunity to get better. It needs to have the perfect environment to heal, and we can give it that.