The “hidden” culprit behind your health issues

We often talk about gut health and how it affects the whole body like it’s a new idea.

And while the National Institutes of Health (NIH) only just recently launched The Human Microbiome Project…

The belief system is nothing new.

In fact, the idea that the gut is the foundation of all health and disease dates back to Hippocrates.

Let’s talk about it…

When foreign substances invade your body

The gut contains the largest interface between a person and their external environment.

Think about it…

When it’s well taken care of, it quite literally keeps you going. It absorbs healthy nutrients and shields against harmful microbes, food antigens, toxins, and more.

But there are many factors that can disrupt your gut barrier. Things like infections, poor dietary choices, antibiotics, steroids, oral contraceptives, alcohol, pesticides, sleep deprivation, and stress, to name a few.

These things eventually weaken your gut barrier, giving bacteria and viruses a way IN.

Then, our immune system recognizes the foreign invaders and starts fighting.

As a result, we develop diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), celiac, or worse—systemic autoimmune illnesses like multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and metabolic diseases like obesity and Type 2 diabetes.

(Hmm… do these diseases sound familiar?)

Now, when the gut barrier gets disrupted, you’ll hear me refer to it as a “leaky gut.” It’s also known as intestinal permeability and gut dysbiosis.

Of course, modern medicine doesn’t think you can test for a leaky gut. But you certainly can… and should.

Recognize and heal

I test almost all of my patients for food sensitivities.

And honestly, if the foods you eat the most turn up on the test, it likely means you have a leaky gut. (That’s going off of my 30 years of clinical experience.)

The good news is, you can heal your gut. Interventions can be made.

(Naturally, conventional medicine would rather you come down with a devastating disease first and then diagnose you with something, like celiac disease. But you and I know better.)

In fact, healing your gut doesn’t have to be complicated. But the science is vast.

That’s why I wrote back-to-back features in March and April 2019 to help guide you into a complete gut makeover—allowing you to ultimately build the perfect gut microbiome.

(Subscribers can access those two newsletter issues by logging in with your credentials here and searching the archives on my website. Not yet a member? Scroll down to learn about becoming one.)

Here are a few of the bigger takeaways:

• Avoid sugar
• Fill up on a whole foods diet—like lean protein, healthy fats from sources like nuts, some seasonal fruit, and fiber-rich veggies
• Eat prebiotic-rich foods to nourish your friendly flora
• Take a high-quality probiotic supplement, one that also contains prebiotics and postbiotics, to help fill in any gaps

Of course, I outline a lot of additional tips in the aforementioned newsletter articles. So, I highly encourage you to take a look!

Source:

“The Steep Costs of Disrupting Gut-Barrier Harmony.” Medscape, 11/07/2023. (medscape.com/viewarticle/998125)