What is it? What causes Leaky Gut? How do we fix it?
Leaky Gut, also known as ‘Intestinal Permeability’, is when the semi permeable lining of the gut becomes compromised with cracks and holes through the food we eat, letting viruses, bacteria and food particles pass through and into the Bloodstream. This causes a range of diseases in the digestive tract like IBS and SIBO, leaky gut affects the whole body, bringing a lifetime of inflammation ,discomfort and pain.
Most of the World population has a ‘Leaky Gut’ and they don’t even know it.
Looking at the gut from a different perspective.
If we imagine the gut is a tube of pasta in a sauce the we can see that the sauce easily enters the pasta at one end and can just as easily come out of the other end, we know the sauce is in the pasta, but isn’t inside the pasta itself, its passing through. This arrangement can describe our digestive tract, one end of the pasta is the opening at the mouth and the other end being the Anus. It’s an unbroken continuation of the skin we see on the outside of our bodies.
The section of the tube we know as the ‘Gut’, has a special layer that allows nutrients to be absorbed into the blood stream and onto the cells of our bodies whilst keeping pathogens out. This layer is made up of Three layers, the first layer is hair like structures known as the ‘Brush border’, this layer is where your good gut bacteria lives, the Mucosal layer which transports nutrients through into the blood stream and producing enzymes that digest the food that we eat.
Certain foods that we eat can stop this layer from being able to process the carbohydrates that we ingest, when this happens the carbohydrates pass further down the tube and feed the ‘Bad bacteria’, these bad guys such as pylori produce gas causing bloating, discomfort and inflammation.
The next layer is the muscularis mucosa, this is where the engine lives for the constant wave movement of the villi fingers.
The layer at the bottom of each finger is known as the ‘Tight Junction’s area, when the finger is compromised and the junction is open, the pathogens and food can get through and infect the body.
The image below shows a single finger of the gut lining, many of these are tightly packed together to form the actual lining, they move or wave in a synchronised manner, this keeps the food moving through the digestive tract.
How do we fix the gut lining then? I personally fixed my gut by first supplying the building blocks for the mucosal layer and as its made from Butyrate, I used the food that contains the most Butyrate, this happens to be ‘Ghee Butter’, so I fried with Ghee.
Then we need to repair and strengthen the whole thing with the best amino acid for the job, this is ‘Glutamine’ the highest known food source for glutamine is Beef, so I fried steak in Ghee.
I then rebuilt the microbiome back with Kefir, some Yoghurt, and Sauerkraut, plus some Kimchi.
This is what worked for me, so hopefully the same regime will work for all.
I’d love to hear what you experience if you try this diet, let me know in the comments.
