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Leaky gut, also known as increased intestinal permeability, is an often-overlooked condition linked to a wide range of health issues. In this article you’ll learn about why leaky gut occurs, as well as some simple strategies to keep your gut lining healthy.
What is Leaky Gut?
The lining of your gut performs an amazing job. It must decide what substances to allow through from your digestive tract into your bloodstream. For example, ideally it will allow through nutrients and phytochemicals from your food, alongside beneficial chemicals produced by your gut bacteria. However, at the same time it must deny access to potentially harmful substances. These include environmental toxins, food additives, pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or fragments of food not yet completely digested.
This gatekeeper activity is performed by a lining that’s only one cell thick. Between each of the cells sit proteins known as tight junctions. These prevent substances from passing between the individual cells lining the gut. As their name suggests, they usually remain tightly shut. However, certain dietary or lifestyle factors can cause these tight junctions to open up. This is known as increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut.
When this happens, substances never designed to reach the blood can gain access. The presence of these substances in the bloodstream triggers the immune system to stay on high alert. This causes the release of inflammatory molecules into the bloodstream.
What Symptoms Are Caused by Leaky Gut?
Leaky gut is not yet recognised as a diagnosis by the medical profession. However, it’s supported by a mounting body of research. Increased intestinal permeability is linked with a raft of wide-ranging, multi-system symptoms, making diagnosis challenging without testing.
These symptoms include digestive issues like constipation, diarrhoea, bloating and wind, however, breaching the intestinal lining can cause systemic issues, too. These may include fatigue, low mood and brain fog, headaches, joint problems, skin conditions, behavioural issues, and neurodegenerative diseases.
An immune system on constantly high alert can easily become confused and attack the body’s own cells and tissues. Therefore, leaky gut is closely linked with autoimmune issues, including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriasis, and Sjogren’s syndrome. Having a leaky gut will contribute to widespread chronic inflammation in the body, as well as reduced absorption of essential nutrients, leading to deficiencies. If incompletely-digested molecules of food are absorbed into your blood, these will be unfamiliar to your immune system, increasing the likelihood of food sensitivities.
What Causes Leaky Gut?
Many factors can damage the delicate intestinal lining. These include:
- Medications, including NSAIDs, chemotherapy drugs, corticosteroids, and oral contraceptives.
- Chronic stress raises cortisol levels, boosting inflammation.
- Alcohol is a known digestive irritant.
- Nutrient deficiencies, including zinc (1), and Vitamins A and D, may impair intestinal barrier function.
- In research, blood sugar imbalances reduced tight junction integrity (2).
- Increased intestinal transit time. If the stool moves through the intestines slowly, toxins destined for the outside world can irritate the gut lining.
- Intestinal dysbiosis, an imbalance in the population of bacteria resident in your intestines, can cause leaky gut. One of the roles of friendly bacteria is to nourish and protect the gut lining.
- Bacterial infections such as H pylori, as well as certain intestinal parasites can increase the risk of leaky gut.
- Eating gluten-containing foods can worsen leaky gut. Zonulin is a type of protein produced by intestinal cells. It plays a crucial role in regulating the permeability of tight junctions by causing them to widen. Gliadin, a protein found in gluten, present in wheat, rye, barley and some oats, seems to trigger zonulin release, causing increased intestinal permeability.
- Some food additives, for example certain emulsifiers, solvents and binders can open tight junctions (3).
In fact, any factor encouraging inflammation in the body can increase intestinal permeability. This is because inflammation affects the proteins operating in the tight junctions.
Integrative Medicine Support for Leaky Gut
Leaky gut is connected with many health conditions, but more research is needed to establish whether it’s a cause or an effect. However, this serves to underline the importance of looking at gut health in its entirety, along with its far-reaching consequences on overall health.
Your gut links to every other organ and system in your body, so it makes no sense to consider it in isolation. A great start would be an Integrative Health Assessment. This takes a 360 degree look at your symptoms, diet, lifestyle, and health goals to assess the most beneficial pathway for you personally, in order to fix the root causes of your health issues.
A useful tool for assessing gut health is the GI Map test. This gold standard Functional Medicine test examines a sample of your stool, collected in the privacy of your own home. It reveals the types of bacteria resident in your gut, any pathogens, and levels of inflammation, as well as markers for zonulin. This test includes practitioner interpretation.
Supporting gut lining health means addressing causes of chronic inflammation. It’s helpful to adopt a plant-rich anti-inflammatory diet including plenty of gut-friendly fibre. It’s also crucial to assess nutrient deficiencies involved in gut barrier health, especially vitamin D, omega 3 fats and zinc.
Lifestyle strategies to improve gut health include reframing your body’s response to stress, prioritising quality sleep, reviewing your relationship with alcohol, and assessing whether medications are contributing to poor gut health.
If you’ve been trying to get to the bottom of your symptoms without success, it’s time to take control of your health – we’ll support you every step of the way. Contact us today to start your journey.
