Stress, which is very common in today’s world and has devastating effect on health. Irregular sleeping pattern, poor diet and lack of exercise when added to it brings metabolic havoc.
Many patients come with complaint of bloating, acid reflux, irregular bowel movement, food intolerance and signs of nutritional deficiency.
Leaky gut is a condition not typically diagnosed in today’s medical practice but is affecting the health of many people. A healthy gut ensures good health. It begins at the mouth and ends at anal passage and is responsible for food processing- digestion, absorption, and evacuation.
Our gut includes 4 thousand square feet of intestinal (epithelial) lining, controls what gets into our body. Intestine filters everything comes to it and let selective things only pass through it to reach the blood, so it is a shield which keeps larger and harmful element in gut and evacuate it through stool.Leaky gut is a condition where the unhealthy and damaged gut lining does not function optimally. The smaller holes of intestinal lining, which acts like a filter become large and allow harmful substances. Undigested food particles, toxic waste products and bacteria can now reach the blood and causes autoimmune response in the body, this can trigger inflammation and changes in gut bacteria, which leads to problems within digestive system and beyond. Unhealthy intestine doesn’t produce the sufficient enzymes needed for proper digestion. This over a period leads to nutritional deficiency, hormonal imbalance, and weak immune system.
Many inflammatory and allergic reactions such as irritable bowel, eczema, food allergy/intolerance and more are connected to damaged gut lining.
Migraine, brain fog, excessive and chronic fatigue are commonly found symptoms.
Hormonal imbalance such as, Impaired blood sugar, PCOD, persistent weight gain, hot flashes, infertility, mood swings, PMS etc. found with leaky gut.
Arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Psoriasis, Celiac disease, and Crohn’s Disease are few Auto-immune diseases and can be result of leaky gut.
Many patients with depression, anxiety, attention deficiency or attention deficit with hyperactivity show leaky gut symptoms.
The leaky gut syndrome is rapidly growing condition and the main reasons for this syndrome are:
Prolonged stress: weakens the immune system causing inflammation and leaky gut.
Toxin: exposure or overuse of antibiotics, pesticides, aspirin, steroids, acetaminophen etc.
Dysbiosis: Imbalance between healthy and unhealthy bacteria in the gut
Poor Diet: food rich in sugar, genetically modified food, in some cases- gluten, soy and dairy too leads to leaky gut.
How to heal:
Eliminate:It is advised to adjust the diet and avoid inflammatory foods. Change the diet and eliminate the food that aggravates your symptoms, such as alcohol, caffeine, refined sugar, gluten, soy, dairy products, meat, processed food, deep fried food, and spicy food. Your dietitian may ask you to maintain food diary to know about food which produce symptoms (usually referred as trigger food).
Treatment is focused on underlying conditions, as leaky gut can be secondary to other health condition, such as in celiac disease, gluten free diet is practiced. Though there are many patients notice improvement in symptoms after limiting gluten without celiac disease diagnosis.
Keeping lactose in limit helps in beginning to get some relief from existing symptoms.
Add:Add food that contains prebiotics and probiotics.
Vitamin A, Iron, calcium, Vitamin D, Zinc and B 12 is known to keep the gut healthy, make diet rich in these nutrients and in case of deficiency add talk to your health provider for right supplement.
Add healthy fat like fish oil, olive oil, coconut oil, or flax seed oil.
How to prevent:
Increase fiber intake gradually such as fruits, vegetables, dal with skin, whole pulses, or whole grains.
Avoid refine carbs like food products made of refined wheat flour (Maida) and sugar.
Limit processed food rich in preservatives, extra sugar, and salt.
Ask doctor before consuming aspirin, ibuprofen, and naproxen.
Consume curd or food rich in healthy bacteria regularly.
Manage stress and exercise. Stress is known to kill healthy bacteria in our gut.
Reduce alcohol intake and quit smoking.