Is a pro-inflammatory environment in your body causing your immune system to go haywire, creating a leaky gut? A pro-inflammatory state increases the sensitivity of your immune system, triggering an abnormal response. That response begins a cascade of events inside your body, ultimately leading to chronic disease. Bottom line: leaky gut syndrome is a cause for many chronic medical problems.
If you’re suffering from a chronic medical condition … an autoimmune disorder, arthritis, hypothyroidism, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s Disease … chances are you have inflammation.
A variety of conditions contribute to a pro-inflammatory state. What does that mean exactly? It means your body is building up to full-blown inflammation. Its opposite is anti-inflammatory, a state that leads to the elimination of inflammation. Now here’s the important part: The body can rid itself of inflammation naturally when the gut is in balance. Yes, that’s right; inflammation is reduced and controlled when your gut is balanced.
How to Control Inflammation
How does one’s gut become compromised? Where does inflammation come from? Inflammation has many sources, including but not limited to hormonal changes – particularly a decrease in progesterone and estrogen. You may not be eating properly; you may be eating a diet of highly processed foods, gluten, pesticide-laden foods, fast foods, GMOs, overeating refined sugars, or drinking too much caffeine or alcohol.
Any of these types of foods influence the lining of your gut and can contribute to a leaky gut. Leaky gut syndrome is a result of damage and compromises to the intestinal lining, making your gut less able to protect itself and the rest of your body and process needed nutrients and other substances.
A whopping one in seven people in America has a wheat-related disorder. In some, eating wheat can cause symptoms like constipation, diarrhea, bloating, itchy skin, redness, eczema, joint pain, asthma, fatigue, and feeling weak; all signs of an inflamed gut lining. Experiencing any of these is reason enough to be tested for gut inflammation.
Complicating the health of your gut, digestive enzymes may become depleted and the foods you eat might be blocked from breaking down and absorbing properly, further contributing to leaky gut syndrome. Other factors like stress and environmental elements like pesticides and herbicides also contribute to the overall presence of leaky gut. So now you know. Leaky gut is a major contributor to inflammation and chronic disease.
Making the Connection
I hope you are beginning to understand and can make the connection between the gut and the major players that lead to chronic disease. The real lesson is in knowing what to avoid and what you can do on your own to improve your gut lining and ultimately prevent chronic disease.
As I mentioned, it’s the weakening of the gut lining that allows the passage of toxins into the bloodstream that creates leaky gut syndrome. Making matters worse, the gut lining is further compromised with the use of pain medications like over-the-counter NSAIDs, prescription pain medications, and antibiotics, when used over a long period.
This isn’t rocket science. We should all know this about our food, environment and certain medications and limit or eliminate them. And yet, leaky gut is at the root of what ails so many Americans. A known fact: eighty percent of our immune system originates in the gut!
Here’s how it starts. Most patients will visit their healthcare provider with GI (gastrointestinal) complaints. You may receive GI prescriptions like acid-reducing medications, which can do further damage to the gut lining.
It takes many years to develop leaky gut syndrome. But look out. Slowly, over time, damage builds, resulting in serious chronic diseases and autoimmune disorders. Unless the gut lining is repaired, your body cannot begin to fix the damage.
Repairing Your Gut
How to begin? The solution is to first repair the gut lining by removing the inflammation. Remove inflammatory triggers like alcohol, caffeinated beverages or processed foods … whatever it is that is causing your symptoms (I’ll be giving you some sources to find out.) Then replace enzymes that may be missing. Lastly, restore the normal balance in your gut with probiotics.
When all these remedies are applied, your gut will be in sync with the rest of your body. You will begin to improve gut absorption and greatly improve your chances of living a long, healthy, and happy life without chronic health problems. That’s got to be a heavy load off your mind, don’t you think?
Here are some tools to begin the process:
For a comprehensive analysis of your gut health, I recommend ordering Genova Diagnostic’s GI Effects test.
Learn if you have a true wheat allergy with testing from Vibrant Wellness. Order the Wheat Zoomer test by calling our office so we can authorize a test for you. To see more information about the Wheat Zoomer test you can go to this link for details.
It’s time to become gut healthy and get back to enjoying life.
Be Ageless
Dr. RozMD
