You might be a person who doesn’t think too much about digestion, but after reading this article you might just change your mind. Digestion is an essential process in our body— not only does it allow us to get the nutrients that we need from food; it also plays a significant role in our immune system. When our digestive system starts to struggle, a lot of other parts of our body do too. In today’s article Dr. Bristow unpacks a condition called “leaky gut” and explores why digestive health is a key factor that keeps our bodies running smoothly!
You are what you eat and, unfortunately, what you don’t digest. Leaky gut syndrome is the topic of today’s Naturopath Calgary post, but before we get to talking about symptoms and causes, we need to first understand a little about digestion and the small intestine.
Digestion is a key function that nourishes and protects you when it’s working properly. When it’s damaged, we experience symptoms that eventually lead to disease. While there are many who experience digestive symptoms, not all who have improper digestion have these direct symptoms. Many people have symptoms that are seemingly unrelated to their intestines, but Naturopathic Doctors are trained to look for the root cause of health problems, and many of these are related to digestion and stress.
Damage to the the small intestine
The small intestine is where we can either have strong and effective digestion, or damaged and leaky digestion that leads to food sensitivities. The small intestine has finger-like projections where the final digestion occurs, allowing us to break down and absorb nutrients. The diagram below shows this border. These small projections contain digestive enzymes that break down molecules to their simplest form. When nutrients are in their most simple form, the cell transports the nutrients across to the blood stream.
Normally, these cells are stuck together, like bricks on a house, creating a tight barrier between our intestines and the rest of our body. However, damage to the small intestine causes tiny spaces to form between cells that allow incompletely digested food to enter into the bloodstream, along with toxins from food, water, and microbes that evaded destruction in the stomach. When these larger food molecules enter the blood stream, the body views them as a foreign invader and your immune system (located mostly in your intestines) attacks them. Ongoing inflammation and damage can result in more undigested food crossing the barrier, and the immune system continues to react to this. This condition is known as increased intestinal permeability, but is more commonly referred to as leaky gut syndrome.
What causes leaky gut?
As mentioned above, leaky gut is caused by damage to the small intestine. So what causes this damage to the small intestine? These are the main culprits:
- Intestinal inflammation (most often caused from inflammatory foods such as dairy and wheat)
- stress
- aspirin/advil/naproxen
- alcohol consumption
- overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine
- insufficient digestive enzyme production
- intestinal infections (GI bugs)
- antibiotic use
What are the symptoms of leaky gut / intestinal permeability?
So how do you know if you have leaky gut? Here are the most common symptoms:
- Digestive: pain or discomfort, bloating, reflux, constipation, diarrhea and loose stools, frequent bouts of ‘food poisoning’, frequent gas and burping, foul smelling stools, undigested food in stools, IBS, and IBD.
- Mucosal lining: yeast infections, vaginal itching, bacterial vaginosis, chronic nasal congestion, sinus infections, itchy ears, asthma.
- Skin: eczema, acne, psoriasis, dermatitis, fungal infections.
- Other: migraines, headaches, muscular pain, foggy/cloudy thinking, physical and mental fatigue, weight gain/difficulty losing weight, arthritis, autoimmune conditions.
- Mood: anxiety, depression, attention deficit disorders.
How can I find out if I have leaky gut?
A clinical intake with a Naturopathic Doctor (along with a food sensitivity test) is an appropriate way of determining the degree of intestinal inflammation and uncovering potential connections between your other symptoms and conditions and the state of your digestive track. If you’re interested finding this out for yourself, you can book an intake appointment with me, here.