Most people donโt think much about their guts. Hereโs some food for thought: over the last decade, weโve found that the nearly 30-foot-long apparatus is teeming with 40,000 species of microbes, which not only fluctuate in response to what we send down the hatch, but also affect our mental and physical health.
The concept of โleaky gut syndromeโ emerged about 30 years ago, and for most of those years it was dismissed as medical woo embraced only by alternative medicine circles. But the importance of a healthy gut is becoming more accepted, especially with a burgeoning supply of scientific evidence.
โWithin integrative medicine itโs definitely one of the things we look at and treat as an underlying mechanism behind a lot of diseases,โ says Dr. Akil Palanisamy, a Harvard-trained physician who also studied Ayurvedic medicine in India at the Arya Vaidya Ayurvedic Institute. โThere is a lot of research behind it nowโI think several thousand research papers have been published. Theyโve studied probably about 35 different autoimmune diseases, and every time that theyโve checked, they have found that leaky gut is involved.โ
In addition to 100 different kinds of autoimmune diseases, including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, Palanisamy, currently an M.D. at the Institute for Health and Healing in San Francisco, says he believes that all diseases begin in the gutโa fundamental premise of Ayurveda, even thousands of years before the microbiome was discovered.
In leaky gut syndrome, increased gut permeability allows microbes and undigested food to leak into the bloodstream, flaring up the immune system. Doctors who recognize leaky gut syndrome believe this inflamed immune response to be the cause of many chronic diseases, with food allergies and autoimmune diseases leading the way as far as scientific evidence goes. Some doctorsโlike Dr. Sandy Newmark, who heads the Pediatric Integrative Neurodevelopment Program at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicineโreport that a significant percentage of children with autism also have leaky gut syndrome.
โWhat people often donโt understand is that food sensitivity is both the result of a leaky gut, and it also drives it forward or perpetuates it,โ says Dr. Dawn Motyka of KSCOโs Ask Dr Dawn. โOnce you have food sensitivities, then you eat those foods and theyโre irritating. The irritation makes your gut more leaky, and then you develop potentially additional food sensitivities because the big molecules leak across the gut. And this is a big thing. It can be definitely validated.โ
But while conventional Western medicine recognizes that the intestinal lining is porousโthatโs how vital nutrients squeeze out into the bloodstream during digestionโit has yet to recognize leaky gut syndrome, at least not officially.
โThe main reason you havenโt heard about it in regular medical circles is no oneโs got a drug,โ says Motyka.
A drug, of course, would be irrelevant: the cure is in the diet, says Palanisamy.
โThe cause of gut permeability is usually not just one factor but a combination of factors that break down the lining over time,โ says Palanisamy. He lists the common culprits: food sensitivities, including dairy and gluten which can lead to the overgrowth of pathogenic bacterias and fungus; parasites; environmental toxins; and certain medications, including antibiotics and the long-term use of Advil or aspirin.
โAnd then finally, stress also is a big factor that affects the gut permeability, so the mind-body connection is really huge,โ says Palanisamy.
Early symptoms include bloating and bowel changes, says Palanisamy, progressing to more serious signs of inflammation, including fatigue, malaise, joint pain, and skin changes.
To heal and strengthen the gut, Palanisamy recommends a โpaleovedicโ diet, which is akin to a plant-rich version of the paleo diet, customized to fit each patientโs dosha, or body type. He emphasizes the importance of a plant-basedโrather than meat-basedโdiet in his book The Paleovedic Diet: A Complete Program to Burn Fat, Increase Energy, and Reverse Disease.
Gut-healing foods include bone broth and fermented foods, as well as spicesโincluding turmeric, ginger, fenugreek, and cinnamon, to name a fewโwhich help with assimilation of nutrients and strengthening the digestive tract, says Palanisamy. And then, of course, there is the golden cure: ghee, or clarified butter, an Ayurvedic remedy that has long been proven to contain butyric acid, which a healthy gut naturally produces.
โGhee balances โAgni,โ digestive fire, especially in the gut for healthy digestion and assimilation, which is key to health and longevity,โ says Manish Chandra of Santa Cruz Ayurveda, who hosts a monthly talk series in town. โA well-lubricated intestinal lining of the gut wall supports immunity and protects its integrity, thereby populating healthy microbes. In Ayurveda, we treat the gut to treat the brain, because healthy bacteria in the gut produces mood-regulating neurotransmitters.โ
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