34: Leaky Gut - What It Is and What to Do About It

Hey, friends.

Megan here. Before we dive in, a quick note about today's episode.

We are reaching way, way back to

2022, when Donna and I experimented with recording a few live episodes on YouTube. This was one of those sessions. And honestly, the content is too good to leave in the archives.

Leaky gut is one of the most

misunderstood topics in gut health. And this conversation breaks it down in a way that actually makes sense. So settle in for a deep dive into intestinal permeability with Donna and I.

Let's get into it. Hi, Donna.

Hi, Megan.

How's it going?

Good. Cool. So I am. I'm super excited. I know I say this about every single topic that we talk about.

Yeah.

But leaky gut is super exciting for me to talk about. It really, really is. And I think that a lot of people would be very interested in hearing about it and understanding what the hype is about.Because the words leaky gut or the terminology leaky gut has popped up lately. And depending on what school you come from, some would say it's just a made up thing.Others would say like, oh, no, it's very, very real and very, very serious. And so I'm excited for us to just share our knowledge about it and our experience with it and hopefully help some people out there.

So let's get into it. We're going to start off with, what is this thing? What is this leaky gut? Teach me, wise one.

I feel like Yoda. I've never seen that movie, by the way. Leaky gut, I like to put it in terminology that people would actually understand.And so when you think about our digestive system as a whole, some would call it our gut. Right, right. Meaning from the mouth down to our buttholes, everything is actually one layer of cells.So you can imagine it as like a very thin cheesecloth or a kitchen cloth.And the job of the gut or the job of the digestive system is actually to press down and like break down the food into smaller and smaller pieces until they're small enough to go through the little holes in the cheesecloth and go into our body, if it's nutrients, if it's actual food particles, and go into our bloodstream and our body in general. And so if you can imagine it, it's basically. And those who are watching the video can. Can see me do this explanation.The cells are actually really packed, tightly packed together. Right. That's the way our cells are supposed to be. And when we have leaky gut, we actually have little cracks.

I don't know if you can see

it little cracks between those cells.And those cracks mean that now food particles and other things, right, medication, drug, whatever we're taking is now going into our bloodstream and bigger pieces and in, in things that shouldn't actually be where they are. And the body is actually then detecting that something is wrong, something is in the bloodstream where it shouldn't be.And now we're led to having an inflammation or suffering from food sensitivities, et cetera.

Another I add on to that another way I've heard it describ described is that so the food needs to be broken down into a small enough molecule that it actually permeates through the cell and then goes out the other side of the cell. So that's the size that we're looking for.When you have anything that goes into your body has to be broken down that small to get into the bloodstream. And when the cells start to come apart and now you have space between the cells.So you could have a molecule of carrot, right, A bit of carrot that has not broken down into its lowest components. Right? So the carrot itself is inherently not an issue for your body, assuming you're not allergic to carrots.But the problem is that on the other side of your intestines, you have little soldiers over there, your white blood cells going, and things that are trying to recognize stuff that's coming through. This is your immune response.And when it sees that bit of carrot, it doesn't recognize it because it's too big, it's got too many components, and it doesn't recognize it as a pattern match to what it should be allowing through. And then you have an inflammation response to that bit of carrot or whatever.A lot of times you see the word toxin going through that carrot to the body is toxic because it is not broken down into the usable parts that it needs to be for the body. And that's kind of then where the inflammation starts from eating normal food, food that would be quote, unquote healthy for you.

Exactly. And something really important to to mention here is that an inflammation is not necessarily a bad thing. Thing.An inflammation is the body's reaction to something that it needs to attack. If it's a virus, if it's a bacteria, if it's whatever the body needs to respond to it.When it's problematic, it is when it's chronic, meaning when we constantly have inflammation because we're constantly eating that carrot thinking that we're doing ourselves a favor, but our body is now seeing it as the enemy because of the leaky Gut.Because that huge particle, as Megan mentioned, it is now too big to actually be roaming around where it is, which is the bloodstream, and now the body is just going into attack. It's a huge component in food sensitivities and intolerances.It's a huge component in brain fog and bloating and thyroid issues and joint issues and skin rashes. And so the. The symptoms could be anything across the scale. And it really does depend on how your body reacts to it.

Let's hold on symptoms. So we get to the next. How you. How do you know you have it? Because there's a few. A few more things that we should talk about in terms of what is it.It's something that the medical community, and I'm talking Western conventional medicine, has not really taken a hold of as a medical condition. And this is interesting.When I was doing my research for this, so back in the day, those Greeks coming up with all this, or maybe it was Latin, I don't know. But anyway, back in the day, there was a term for conditions that came about from the gut, and it was hydrochlorinism.So that term came because the top of the gut is called the hydrocon. And anything that they thought was diseases that were deriving from the gut or illnesses, they would lump it into this.But because it was so hard to diagnose something that was happening in the gut, soon that word hydro. Hyper, Hypochondriac. Why was I saying hydrochondriac? Oh, hy.

I was like, hydro, that's water. I don't understand the connection. Sure, I'll go with it.

Hyperchondriac, Hypochondriac. Okay, let me look at my notes, Megan. So a hypochondriac is now somebody who is said to have fear that they have an unknown disease.But in reality, those people back in the age were right. There is so much, and that's what we're learning now, where so much is happening in the gut.So to reiterate, leaky gut, when you hear it, you go to your doctor and you say, I think I have leaky gut. They're going to look at you and go, there's no such thing as leaky gut if you go to a conventional doctor. Right. So I have something to add.

Oh, okay. I have something to add. I have something to add because you can say the same thing about ibs.So a lot of people go and they go to the doctor and they say, look, I have a lot of stomach cramps. I have a lot of Gas. I have a lot of diarrhea and. Or constipation, often alternating. So often people will suffer from both on different times.I have this and I have that.And they'll get tested, meaning they'll have a camera stuck up their throat or up their butt, and they'll check things and they'll go like, look, we understand. We see that your intestines are busy bees, and they're kind of working extra hard and things like that, but we can't find the actual problem.So you have ibs. IBS is irritable bowel syndrome. Now IBS is exactly that. It's.We gave you a word that will hopefully help you to shut up, but we don't have a solution for it, unlike ibd, for example, which is something that they. They see and they know, okay, great, here's some medication. Here's some. Probably antibiotics and. And whatever and medication that will help you. So.

And.

And just to add to it, for the parents out there, if you had a crying baby, and they would not stop crying, and the doctors would say, oh, they have colic. Same shape, different word, is basically colic equal. Yeah. They won't stop crying. No. We have no idea what's going on.So that, you know, this is very typical. And again, there's, you know, both Megan and I think you both. Everyone needs to understand this.And I sometimes come off as, like, dismissing conventional medicine. I do not dismiss it whatsoever.But I think we need to understand that there's a lot that conventional medicine doesn't necessarily know because there's the lack of understanding of nutrition or clinical studies. They don't.

They haven't studied it yet as well.

They haven't studied it. And it really matters who pays for these studies.There was a study about sugar in the 80s, and the sugar lobby came and paid off Harvard scientists, you know, and that's when the fat being evil came into play, because basically people were paid off to tell you that. So we need to understand. Well, you need to put things in context. Of course, there's a lot of place for conventional medicine, but I think there's.There are also a lot of leaky guts out there and a lot of gaps in the information that we. We do need to understand that is missing.

Yeah, yeah. That is the. The understatement of the medical world for the last decade or more. More.But I think that we've covered most of really kind of what is lucky gut. Lucky gut. Lucky gut.

No, lucky gut would be amazing.

So let's move on to how do you know if you have it?

And that's a very tricky question. I find that it's a tricky question because as I kind of mentioned before, each body will signal the alarm signs differently.And of course, we have to consider that there are probably things that are now connected with that leaky gut. It could be ibs, as I mentioned before.So it could be that you realize that nowadays, more and more you're suffering from gas and bloating and diarrhea and constipation and whatever it may be. Okay? So there is that to consider. And of course, that's an easier correlation in our brain, because that's gut. Right. Like we're.Something is wrong with our gut, and the gut is actually the one screaming for help.

Right, Right.

But it could also be that your body is inflamed. If you take me, for example, I've always had neck and shoulder issues, and my body.The inflammation will immediately show in my neck, first and foremost. Now, who can think about neck? Oh, I probably ate something. You know what I mean?Like, you don't actually connect the two because what does the neck have to do with our gut? But that's how my body is actually reacting to things, and that's how my body is actually showing that it is inflamed. Okay.So, yes, there's definitely ways. And I'm sure you have a beautiful list to share with us, Megan.

I do. Well, not necessarily a list of symptoms, as we mentioned, because leaky gut can it. First of all, it can be like a cycle. Right.Something else has caused leaky gut, and therefore you have leaky gut, and it causes something else. So it's really one of those very hard things to pinpoint the starting point.But what I have here from the Cleveland Clinic are some of the possible disease associations that we have.So, for example, a lot of metabolic disorders can be either caused by leaky gut or exacerbated by leaky gut, but doesn't mean it's all of them are caused. And that is. That's the tricky part. Right.So, for example, arthritis specifically, a lot of times rheumatoid arthritis, which is an autoimmune disease. And autoimmune diseases are triggered by inflammation in the body in terms of how much they affect the person who has it.So a lot of people find release from arthritis and rheumatart arthritis from changing their diet and their gut microbiome to relieve and reduce that amount of inflammation. Same thing. Chronic fatigue syndrome, asthma, fibromyalgia.A lot of these Diseases can be, if not remedied or cured, supported by a better gut function. And conversely, if you have leaky gut, it might be more painful or more symptoms of those things. And that's really where it comes down to.It's really hard to know if you have leaky gut. It is. Bottom line.

Yeah.I mean, I think with conventional medicine, it is definitely harder because, as you said, you might get dismissed by just bringing it up, depending on how open your doctor is to these topics. With functional medicine, we do have certain tests that will point to that direction, and you can definitely run these tests.Talk to your functional medicine doctor, run some tests. Like the O test, for example, is just one of many tests that you can do. So O test is actually urine test.You can do some stool tests as well, which will then, of course, you can find out if you have, you know, severe dysbiosis, if you have severe absorption problem, meaning like you're taking your vitamin D every single day or even double the drops, or you're still very low on D, that's a huge sign that there's an absorption problem. And the absorption problem usually comes from leaky gut because it's directed to the wrong place. Right. Because it's leaking.But you can also often tell by. Via brain fog, for example, that we're talking about nowadays in functional medicine about a direct connection between leaky gut and leaky brain.Right. The brain is now inflamed. And so we're. We're struggling with depression, we're struggling with anxiety, we're struggling with. With brain fog.We're struggling with all of these things that a lot of people are talking about nowadays. And that is usually connected. I think, just wanting to take a step back.I think people do need to understand that there are things that will contribute to leaky gut, meaning it most often it doesn't just happen out of the blue. You're either consuming things that are contributing to the problem.There's, of course, genetics that come to play where you might have a great diet, but, you know, your mom gave you the most terrible gut health by default, and. And you're kind of stuck with it now, taking a lot of antibiotics and a lot of medications and acid blockers and steroids and.And all of these things. Those are huge contributors.Of course, sugar and processed foods and refined oils and pesticides and alcohol and stress is a huge one, which we've talked about so, so many times. Food poisoning can even lead to that because it's actually hurting our gut permeability. So there are so many things that could be triggers.And that's where I think the difference between functional medicine and conventional medicine is. With the functional medicine, we actually look at your history, your health history. So we're talking about from before you were born.We're talking about how your mom's pregnancy was and how you were born, if it was vaginal or C section, and how you were fed.No one's judging, but we know science is showing us that there's a huge difference in gut health with babies who were vaginal birth versus C section, babies who are breastfed versus exclusively bottle fed or formula fed. But of course, you need to feed your biob whichever way. You need to pop it out whichever way.And so, of course, no one's actually judging you for that.But you can actually notice that like a lot of kids, babies and kids who are very picky eaters, for example, we know that they have probably some sort of dysbiosis, some extremity of dysbiosis because they. Their bad gut bacteria is more pronounced. And it's asking for the. The white diet, as I call it, the, you know, the pasta with no

sauce, the rice with no sauce, the potatoes with no sauce. Yeah.With the kind of insurgents over the last 15, 20 years of functional medicine, integrative medicine, showing that when they go to the root of the cause and treat the body with food as medicine, both to remove food and to give food. So both ways. Now conventional medicine is going, okay, there is stuff here, there. We have to start looking at this.So according to the Cleveland Clinic, they are working on some tests, but at the moment there's no standard test because it's not a medical diagnosis.I'm using air quotes, but there are a few tests here I want to talk about that I thought were really interesting that I'm hoping for will become standard where you could go to your doctor and say, can you please test how my permeability of my intestines are? So the first one was a urine test. This one is interesting because they. You. You drink a solution of different kinds of sugars, different.With different molecules. Some of those molecules are digested and go through the right way, but some of those are not digested.And if they see them come through in your urine, which means they have passed through your intestinal tract in order to get to your kidneys in order to go out in your urine, then you have. They have actually, by proxy, measured the fact that your intestines are more permeable than they should be.So that's One test, I thought, that's interesting. Yeah, it seems pretty straightforward. And the next one is a blood test.So this one says it analyzes a sample of your blood for evidence of gut bacteria infiltration. So specific antibodies and endotoxins that they're looking for in your blood, some more invasive stuff like a tissue biopsy.And then of course, an endoscopy exam where they go through and actually look at the lining in high resolution and magnification. And then they do a contrast fluid injection.So it sounds like they've got this range of pee in a bottle all the way to drink some dye and let's see where the dye goes in your body and everything in between.So I'm hoping in the next couple of years that there will be more ability for doctors to give you a diagnosis, because what that means is that when you have a diagnosis like this, then insurance will pay for shit and you can actually get the help you need. Right?Because as we've been talking about this whole time, if it's elusive, if nobody can put a tack into it and say that's what it is, it makes it that much harder to treat. And as the person who has it much harder for them to understand what the hell they have to do in order to fix it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people are walking around going from doctor to doctor and being told it's all in their head and given antidepressants. And I was there.I was literally there. You know, I was at a place where I was being told that my problems were not real, they were all in my head, and they were not.And so it's, it's really important to understand, yes, if you have the financial ability to not wait for conventional medicine to catch up and to go to a functional medicine doctor and to do run some tests, they will have the ability to tell you, look, you do have leaky gut, there is dysbiosis, there is abcd. It could be a list of things, you know, and most often, the longer it's being undealt with. Is that a word? Am I making things up now?You know, the longer, the longer it takes, the more chance that there will be more problems piled on. If it's an autoimmune disease, if it's a thyroid problem, if it's a hormone problem, again, each body will react differently.Some people go into full blown celiac, others will have gluten sensitivity.There's a lot of foods that do contribute to that as well that we now know, and other foods that are Very random for some people, but because they, you know, I was actually sensitive to certain things that I was just eating a lot of. And so it makes sense because I was eating a lot of green beans, right?And everyone tells you, oh, my God, green beans are the most healthy thing ever. And I was obsessed with them. And I was sensitive to green beans, basically, just because I was having so many of them.And it went through the leaky gut and it. And then my body was like, no, no, no, no, no.

This is not.

This is the enemy.

Yeah. Okay, so we're now moving into the third part of the segment, which is what can you do about it? Right?And we already mentioned that it can be a cycle, right? Where, like, for example, you had a issue, maybe it was a temporary thing, increased impermeability into your gut, and now you have something else.So what some of the recommendations are, and Donna already mentioned this, is to treat the underlying condition that initially caused it. So that's one way you can approach it, especially if it's still going on, Right.If you're still eating stuff that's inflaming your gut and things like that or whatever it is that can help. That's really what functional medicine is looking for. They're looking for really what. What caused it.You know, as opposed to conventional medicine trying to treat the symptoms, functional medicine really tries to. To treat the root cause. But there are some things I think you could do even if you don't see a doctor, even if you're like, I don't know what it is.I just know that I don't feel good. I mean, there are some standard stuff like probiotics and prebiotics.If you're not taking some kind of probiotic and prebiotic, then you're doing yourself a disservice. There are tons of them out there. You can do your research. There's. I mean, all these different ways that you can get it.The point is to start getting your flora in your gut healthier. Right? So you. That's a pretty. It costs the money for prebiotic and probiotics if you take a supplement.But there are so many that are just normal foods that you can incorporate into your diet, like Jerusalem artichokes and all the cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli and anything that's green and gross. Garlic. Yeah, yeah, all of that stuff.

Those are prebiotics for sure. But I have to put. I have to put a. A warning sign where you touched now, which was probiotics.There are people who probiotics will actually make more harm than good at a certain point. Okay. And that's people, for example, who have SIBO or sifo or really bad dysbiosis or. Or histamine sensitivity.Histamine problems keep bringing it back to functional medicine. But when we work with functional medicine, we work on the 5R program, which is removed, replace, reinoculate, repair, and rebalance. Okay.And sometimes, sometimes when you have certain issues that go along with a leaky gut, which then turned into a bigger monster, you might actually suffer more. When you're having probiotics, you'll have to fix the issue before you actually go into probiotics, is what I'm trying to say.If you're taking probiotics, for example, if you started taking probiotics and taking.You've taken them for like two or three weeks, and you're still, you know, from the beginning, you started feeling more bloated and more gassy and maybe diarrhea or whatever, which is normal when you start off with. But it didn't get better after over a week or two of taking them. That's a sign that there's another problem.That's a sign that you need to stop the probiotics and you need to figure out what the issue is, and you need to heal the problem before you actually go back to taking probiotics. Probiotics are amazing for you. And prebiotics, for those who don't know are. Is basically the food for the probiotics. Right. So you're giving the. The.The gut bacteria that you're kind of like putting in your body. You're giving it the food that it needs to flourish. But sometimes because of. Of other issues, you need to wait it out. You need to heal.For example, if it's SIBO or histamine intolerance, you need to heal the gut first and then re. Inoculate the good guys so that the gut health is actually getting better, if that makes sense.

But with those. With those, they can be tested for, right? Sibo and what was the other one? You. Yeah.

So there's sibo, there's sifo, there's dysbiosis, there's tolerance. Yeah, all of those can definitely be tested.

Yeah. So the point is to test for these things. If you don't have those, then there's absolutely no problem with prebiotics and probiotics.I guess the next one is relevant for anybody is to reduce sugars. So these things also weigh heavy into the gut. In general, eating a good nutritious diet, which is, again, doesn't matter where.It doesn't matter where you put her. I think that's like, the point. And then this is interesting, and maybe you could talk a little bit about it.The Cleveland Clinic suggests also a low fodmap diet. So can you talk. Talk about fodmap?

What does that mean?

How does it relate to this topic? Sure.

So basically, without getting too technical with the terminology, because it's a lot of big, long words, fodmap is like the foods that basically ferment in our gut faster. They will create more gases, and they will actually be heavier or, like, harder to digest, basically.So things like onions and garlic and actually broccoli, for example, or even cauliflower.

So all the. All the farty foods.

Not necessarily all of them. That's the weird. That's the weird thing. Like cabbage should be okay, but. But a lot of people are sensitive to cabbage. But there are definitely foods.Yeah, lentils. Yeah, definitely.Like a lot of the farty foods, but also some surprising ones like mushrooms, avocado, you know, like very, very random ones like butternut squash, for example, is a high fodmap. A lot of dairy, of course, the wheat and some grains. So there are foods that basically will ferment in our gut quickly and will just wreak havoc.And you're just suffering without even knowing. And what happens that when we don't know that we're reacting to those foods, we most often will have a few of those during the day.

Right.

And so it's not even a problem of that one specific one.Maybe you're okay with avocados, but because you had avocados for breakfast and you had maybe some lentils for lunch, and maybe you had some whatever for dinner, even not. Not farty mushroom soup for dinner because it was piled on.So you can imagine it as a bucket, and the bucket is just now overflowing, so it's a bit too much.So what we do with the low FODMAP diet is that we focus on foods that are low fodmap, meaning they are lower in that fermentation in the gut in a way. Right.The foods that are low in fodmap and we leave out or cut down on the high FODMAP foods, we're basically giving our system a break until it calms down. So it's usually. You're not doing. Do not do the low FODMAP on your own, please.And with an expert, we usually don't do it for longer than Two to six weeks. Right. Because again, you don't want to form other problems now and. And not have enough variety of food. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. As you can tell, we are both extremely passionate about these topics.And as I'm sure you can tell, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, a lot of stuff is connected. It's connected people. Stress, lack of sleep, your diet, your. Your mental state. So don't discount anything.If you feel something, then there's probably something to it. So don't just ignore your body. This is the worst thing you can do for your health is to ignore how you feel. Donna, any. Any words of wisdom?Any closing thoughts?

I think this topic we could probably talk about for a million more hours, but hopefully you gained a lot of good knowledge. And if you have any questions, just don't forget to leave those in the comment section, either on our Facebook Live or on our podcast.

Yeah, excellent. So that with that, I think we're done.

Yay.

First live episode in the face.

Oh, we kind of killed it, too. Yeah, we did.

Excellent. All right, everybody, see you later. Bye.

Bye.