What is Leaky Gut ?
This area of research has exploded in the past 10 years. There are thousands of published articles on Pubmed connecting leak-gut to autoimmune disease, diabetes, autism, psoriasis and dementia.
In a healthy gut, the lining is a closed barrier that only allows certain nutrients and water to cross into the bloodstream. It keeps bacteria, viruses, food particles and toxins out.
When this intestinal barrier becomes damaged or permeable - it is now leaky- allowing unwanted particles to enter the bloodstream.
Conventional medicine does not currently recognize this as a diagnosis - even with the thousands of published papers in the National Library of Medicine - but in functional medicine, we commonly diagnose this through specialty lab testing.
So what are some of the causes of leaky gut?
- Medications - such as NSAIDS
- Food Sensitivities
- Stress
- Excessive alcohol
- Toxins
- Many more .....
A leaky gut leads to chronic inflammatory disease. In functional medicine we determine the root cause of leaky gut. We use a 5 R program - Remove, Replace, Reinoculate, Repair and Rebalance to heal leaky gut.
