Leaky Gut

The term LEAKY GUT refers to a damaged (or a porous) gut wall, that has holes created by pathogenic bacteria and toxins, and through those holes, all the poisonous chemicals from processed food, in addition to toxins and pathogens, cross the gut wall and make their way into the blood.

Now, you are probably wondering how this happens. That’s what this article is all about. 

Let me start by the Microbiome. Nothing inside our human body is sterile. There are microbes in all our organs. The biggest microbial community lives in the  Digestive System, and it is called Gut Flora or Microbiome.   It is a very complex community of good and bad microbes, which,  in the best case scenario, should live in harmony.  Both the good and bad microorganisms have a role inside our body, but the most important thing, is that the good microorganisms should keep the pathogenic ones under control.

The gut wall is made of cells that are very close to each other.  There is almost no space nor holes in between them. In the perfect case scenario, food is supposed to be digested really well.  The well digested food, (so all the nutrients) can pass through the tight junctions that hold the gut cells together,  and make their way into the blood. Then the blood transports them to all the organs in the body, to nourish them. It is like having water going through a sponge.

When there is an imbalance in the gut flora, and good bacteria cannot control the pathogenic microbes, those microbes start to overgrow and digest the food that we eat, converting it into poisonous toxins. Both pathogens and their toxins damage the integrity of the gut wall, and make holes in it, making it porous. Then the gut wall turns “leaky”, which means, it looks like a sieve that lets bigger particles go through. That is where the term LEAKY GUT comes from.

Now, what happens when people have a LEAKY GUT?  Because the gut wall is porous, the food does not have the time to get digested properly before it goes through and get into the blood stream. This might start the multiple FOOD ALLERGIES and FOOD INTOLERANCES that people get, because when your immune system finds these undigested food particles, toxins and pathogens in your blood stream, it starts fighting with them, because they look as invaders, and it reacts to them.

This response from the immune system leads to INFLAMMATION, the process by which your body’s white blood cells protect you from infection from outside invaders, such as bacteria and viruses, and it manifests in many different ways and reactions: for example, skin rashes, pain in the joints, panic attacks, drop in energy, drop in blood sugar levels,  psychotic attack, etc., just to mention a few.

The pathogens and the toxins they generate are transported through the blood to all the different organs in the body and may attach to the proteins in some organs (protein is the main component of the body organs), contaminating and changing the chemical structure of those proteins.

When this happens, the immune system finds these proteins and tries to clean them up, first with more inflammation, and then with some other reactions to clean them up. Those reactions always bring uncomfortable and unpleasant symptoms: swelling, pain, limitation of function, heat and redness.

If this situation of contamination continues long enough and the Immune System cannot clean those proteins and save them, then the Immune System might start developing specific antibodies against these contaminated proteins, and will have to destroy and remove them.  This  process is what is called as AUTOIMMUNITY.