The Shocking Link Between Brain Injuries and Your Gut Problems

https://www.drhughwegwerth.com/post/the-shocking-link-between-brain-injuries-and-your-gut-problems-what-doctors-won-t-tell-you


In this episode, we dive into the hidden dangers of brain injuries and their surprising connection to chronic health issues like dysautonomia and gut problems. You’ll learn how even minor bumps to the head can have long-lasting effects on your body—and what you can do to recover and thrive.

Key Takeaways from the Episode:

• The Hidden Impact of Mild Brain Injuries
  Discover how small incidents like a fall, car accident, or repetitive sports impacts can trigger long-term neurological issues.
• Signs of Brain Inflammation
  Learn about symptoms like dizziness, nausea, light sensitivity, and unexplained fatigue—and how they might be linked to dysautonomia.
• The Brain-Gut Connection
  Understand how brain injuries can disrupt your autonomic nervous system, affecting digestion, immunity, and overall gut health.
• The Role of the Vagus Nerve
  Find out how this crucial nerve connects your brain to key organs and why inflammation can wreak havoc on your body.
• What Is Leaky Gut?
  Uncover how brain injuries can weaken your gut lining, leading to bacterial overgrowth, inflammation, and even autoimmune diseases.
• Common Conditions Linked to Dysautonomia
  Explore disorders like POTS, neurocardiogenic syncope, and fibromyalgia—and how they’re tied to autonomic dysfunction.

Steps to Heal and Recover:

• Identify Symptoms
  Be on the lookout for brain fog, digestive issues, or unexplained heart rate problems.
• Functional Testing
  Conventional tests might not catch the connection. Learn how specialized testing can uncover the root cause.
• Gut-Healing Strategies
  Focus on nutrient-rich foods, probiotics, and calming your vagus nerve to restore balance.
• Brain Exercises
  Discover practical techniques to reduce inflammation and improve brain function.

Why This Matters:

If you’ve ever experienced gut issues, light sensitivity, or mysterious health problems that doctors can’t explain, this episode is a must-listen. The connection between your brain and gut holds the key to unlocking better health.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to heal from dysautonomia and start living a healthier, happier life!

Transcript

0:00

Hey, this is Doctor Hugh Comaneci, and today I have a webinar on leaky gut and concussions. And if you're out there thinking, hey, I've never had a concussion. We're not talking concussions where you're knocked out, we're just talking any kind of traumatic injury on your brain. So what would that look like? That could be a motor vehicle accident. So there's probably 100% chance that if you're watching this, you've been in a motor vehicle accident, and that motor vehicle accident could have been ten, 20, 30 years ago. And now today, you're suffering from some kind of traumatic brain injury that is causing we'll be talking about leaky gut. So we'll be talking about how your brain can cause leaky gut and just not concussions where you've been knocked out cold. But these would be mild traumatic injuries such as, like I say, a car accident could be that you played some kind of sport for a long period of time. Maybe you played soccer and just hitting the ball, playing soccer. Maybe when you're a kid, you were at the playground and you got thrown off the playground and bumped your head. Maybe you fell on some ice and hit your head really hard. And this is affecting you ten, 20, 30 years later right now, where it's affecting your gut. So some classic signs that you have some kind of brain inflammation or neuroinflammation would be you get dizziness, you get shaking, you get nauseated. You have some kind of weird neurological symptom that no one can explain. This is all brain based. Now, if this is happening to you, the research is very clear that this is also cause leaky gut. So if you're having brain fog, brain fatigue, balance problems, you're having some kind of neuroinflammation, and that will lead to a leaky gut. So what I really want to talk about here is if your gut is bad, your brain is bad. If your brain is bad, your gut is bad. Now, the research shows, is that you should be making 2 to 3 bowel movements every single day. No gas, no bloating, diarrhea. If you have something other than that, you can have a leaky gut and your leaky gut can actually be caused by your brain being inflamed. And that's really what we're going to be talking about. So if you're listening to this, anyone that has any kind of gut issues, anyone that has brain fog, brain fatigue, needs to listen to this so you can understand how important the really the connection between your brain and your gut is and your gut to your brain. So here what is a concussion. So you can really see the brain here. And then when you get flung forward there's going to be an impact to your brain. And this can cause a lot of neuroinflammation. The fancy word for this is called dysautonomia. So if you're out there watching this video you can take a picture of this QR code. And this will go right to my content on dysautonomia which is right here, or this is my website. You can just type in dysautonomia and I have lots and lots of content on dysautonomia, which is basically anything that any, any kind of neurological problems that no one has been able to explain is dysautonomia. What I'd like to do right now is just go over the clinical research about how your brain is connecting to your gut, and your gut is connected to your to brain. Um, so this is research. Now clinically, what I've seen is this correlation is 100% certain. If you have any brain issues, you're going to have a gut issue. So let's go over some of the research so you can understand what's happening here. So this is a research article in 2018. And it's a review of traumatic brain injury and gut microbiome insights into the novel mechanism novel right. They see novel meaning new but functional medicine. Doctors have known this for two decades. Novel mechanism of secondary brain injury and promising targets for neuroprotection. So let's go up here leveraging. Leveraging knowledge of the gut microbiome in a setting of a TBI which is traumatic brain injury. But again we're not talking somewhere you're knocked out. This could be a repetitive brain trauma. It could have been in 3 or 4 motor vehicle accidents. You were a variety of things can cause this. You do not need to be knocked unconscious. Uh, cold. Um, so a setting of a TBI holds the exciting potential to influence the treatment of the brain injury patient by enhancing quality of life for patients with TBI. So what is this really saying? So this is really saying that if you have any kind of dysautonomia, you got to fix your brain. Now one of the things I want to bring your attention to is this picture right in here, and I'm going to blow this up. So what you're looking at right here is this is a picture of your vagus nerve. So you can see your vagus nerve right here. Now vagus just means everywhere this nerve goes everywhere in your entire body. Now you see where it comes from. It comes from your brainstem way, way up here. So if you've had a concussion and that can affect your body's ability to heal and function when it comes your vagus nerve. Now look at this vagus nerve here. You see how it goes all the way down. It goes into your lungs. It goes into all your digestive organs, your heart, your liver, your pancreas, your spleen, your liver, your colon, your small intestine. Everything is here is controlled by your vagus nerve. So if you have have any kind of mild traumatic brain injury. It can affect your vagus nerve and will affect your digestive. Your digestive system and your digestive system will eventually affect your brain. So here's just another visual about your vagus nerve. You can see how it comes up here in your brain. And then it goes to all these organs. Now here's what it says. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in the human body and is made up of two bundles of nerves that contain over 200 individual fibers. So this is the biggest nerve in your entire body. And it's the nerve that has the most impact on all your different organs in your body as well. I want to spend some time on this article right here. So this is a June 2020. And this is the key thing repetitive right. So we're not talking so repetitive. Mild traumatic brain injury results in progressive white matter lesions which is where your brain is literally dying. Cognitive deterioration and transient gut microbiome Microbial dysbiosis. What does this mean? It means that your gut is messed up and you have small bacterial overgrowth. Now, what I want you to bring your attention to is this summary right here I'm going to read. This traumatic brain injury is often accompanied by GI issues and metabolic disruptions. These systemic manifestations suggest possible involvement of the gut microbiome in head injury outcomes. Although gut dysbiosis, which just means you have a bad gut after a single severe TBI has been documented. Here's the thing the majority of head injuries are mild. So we're not talking when someone gets knocked out mild, such as those that occur in athletics. Military personnel exposed to repetitive head impacts. Therefore, it is important to determine if repetitive mild TBI repetitive mild TBI also disrupts the microbiome and with 100% certainty, it does. So. One thing I always ask people is about brain injuries, right? Have you ever gone skiing and, you know, got messed up skiing? Have you ever gone surfing? Have you ever gone done any of these things that might have caused any kind of injury to your brain? And it doesn't take, like, something to be completely knocked out for your brain not to be. Well, here's another research. It says traumatic brain injury can lead to severe physiological physiological complications, including GI dysfunction. Specifically, traumatic brain injuries can induce an increase in intestinal permeability. So if you're brain brain is injured, your gut's going to get worse. Check this out, which may lead to bacterial translocation, which means the bad guys in your gut will cross over into your bloodstream and then get into your brain, which is bad cause sepsis and even mild and even multiple system organ failure. All right, this is all through the gut. So if you want more information about the gut, you can go to my website and just click gut I have all this content in here. Or you can take a picture of this QR code and we'll send you to this content. Okay. What I want to show you right now is what your gut actually looks like under a microscope. So when we talk about your gut, we're talking your your small intestine. Your small intestine is basically 36ft and it's only one cell thick. So imagine that between the outside and the inside, it's only one cell thick. Now if you cut your finger, you have to go through like 10,000 skin cells before you hit blood. That's not how it works in the gut. So you can see right in here. This is the blood flow right here. This is your blood stream. Right. And then here we have your gut. Now right in here we have it's one cell thick. So you can see in here this is basically it's one cell thick right. And then on top of this look at what we have right here. This is what we call the mucus layer. This is very very critical. It's like your tongue if you ever had uh if you've ever if you've ever had not enough saliva on your tongue, it's very, very comfortable. So in a normal, healthy gut, what there is is there's mucus. There's saliva on top of these things right here, which are called your microvilli. And then between that you can see this right here. I'm actually going to blow this up. Okay. This is better. You can see in here you see these these things are the tight junctions right here. And then you can see the mucus right in here. And then you can see the food particles. So this is a normal healthy gut. Now when you have brain dysfunction, when you've had some kind of mild cognitive impairment, all the things that we just discussed look at this. Look at have the saliva. What's happening to the saliva. It's literally gone. So it's like your tongue with no saliva on it. This is what's happening in your gut. And when this happens this breaks down the basically the gut barrier. And when this breaks down, guess what. Here we say viruses right here viruses start to move in. Viruses will start to move into your your digestive system. Right in here. These particles a bunch of nasty things will start to happen. Toxins start to move in. You see. That's toxins that start to move in. And then what happens is then what happens? You see what's happening. You see this has this is a nice round microphylla. It's solid. When your gut gets so bad what happens over in here. You see how it splits in half. It's called transcellular. You're actually cells actually start to literally split in half. And then all this bad stuff can get in your bloodstream and cause a bunch of harm in your body. Now this right here, this is my final slide. I want to show you this right here. All right. So what you're looking at here is this is actually rats or mice. Okay. Now, what they've done with the mice is what they've done initially is they force these mice to actually have like, concussions. Right. So in here you see this is good. Nice healthy healthy Microvelia nice and thick. Now you can see a right here is normal right. So these are mice that didn't have any concussions. And then what they've done this is the microbiome. So this is the same picture as you're looking at, right. Right in here. Right. Then six hours post concussion. Look at what happened to the microvilli. What's happening is it's severely damaged right here. Damaged damaged, damaged. You can see the difference right here. You can see how this looks very similar to what we have going right in here. And this the normal healthy without any concussions looks exactly like this. So really, what I want you to take away from this webinar is that if you have any traumatic brain injury, this is a significant condition and this can be contributing to your problems. Now, if you've never had, uh, like a proper functional medicine workup, if you've never had if you never had a proper functional neurological workup, then you need to reach out and get some help, because you do not need to continue to suffer with your condition. You just need the right skill set from a professional, from a provider that knows what they're doing. So if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Take care. This is Doctor Hugh.