51: Do You Have Leaky Gut? (And How to Heal It)

The term "leaky gut" is everywhere and I'm going to show you how to know if you have it, why it's a problem for your health and how you can heal your leaky gut naturally.

TOPICS DISCUSSED:

• What is leaky gut?
• Why do you have leaky gut?
• How you can heal leaky gut
• What caused your leaky gut?

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Transcript

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How do you know if you have leaky gut? I'm going to tell you right now, you do. You probably just do. Nearly 100% of the population has leaky gut. And you probably didn't know this because leaky gut is very, very misunderstood. And so instead of just asking today, do you have leaky gut? I'm actually going to show you what leaky gut is. I'm going to show you why you have leaky gut, as well as why this is such a problem. I'm going to show you how this contributes to inflammation and autoimmune disease, and of course, how you can heal and seal your gut to finally get healthy. Contrary to what your doctors told you, Crohn's and Colitis are reversible. Now I've helped hundreds of people reverse their bowel disease and I'm here to help you do it too, because inflammation always has a root cause. We just have to find it. This is the Reversing Crohn's and Colitis Naturally podcast. Now I do these live trainings in my Facebook group every single week and put the audios here for you to listen to. If you want to watch the video versions of these episodes, just click the link in the show notes to get access to our Facebook group and YouTube channel. And for weekly updates, information, tips and tricks, you can sign up for our email list by clicking the link in the show notes below. Now if you don't know me, my name is Josh Dech. I'm a Crohn's and Colitis Specialist and Physician's Consultant for Complex Gut Diseases, and I do these videos every day, or every week rather, so that you can learn how to heal your gut naturally because the world is wrong about gut disease, and you don't have to be stuck with it forever. And today's video is all about leaky gut. So the first thing I'm going to talk to you about today, I want you to know what leaky gut actually is. This is a very important question to ask. So if you picture a quilt, picture grandma's quilt. All these little squares of fabric are stitched together. These stitchings, we call them gap junctions. Now these are what's holding these cells together, keeping them in place. Now the problem is, when we have inflammation, we get a trigger of some kind, bacteria, gluten, alcohol, stress, pesticides, mold, environmental toxins, whatever it is, that is an inflammatory trigger. And it releases something called zonulin. This protein actually takes these gap junctions and breaks them down. This actually creates leaks in your gut. And so what we end up having here, instead of these nicely sealed and held together tight cells, we have leaks. So imagine you're going through the airport, and you want to go through border security, and they say, okay, do you have anything bad in your bag? You have stuff coming in from inside of your gut. And you go through this border security here, and they say, hey, before we get on the airplane, do you have anything bad? Do you have any drugs? Do you have any guns, any explosive devices? And you go, nope, I'm good. They check and balance and say, you're clear. Go through now into my bloodstream. You're safe. The problem is, when you have leaks in the gut, you get a bunch of these things that could mean harm to your body passing through without going through security properly. And then they're getting into the blood, they're traveling around the body, getting to the brain, getting to your organs, getting to everywhere, and they're wreaking havoc on your body. This is why they have security, to make sure everybody gets there safely. Now, here's what you got to keep in mind. You have two sets of intestines here. You have your large intestine and your small intestine. In your small intestine, this is primarily where leaky gut is taking place, but it's only one cell thick. In fact, the structure of your small intestine is really kind of interesting. All these little finger-like structures, it looks like this inside your intestines. And on top of these villi, they have microvilli, these little lumps, and they increase your surface area so you can produce enzymes and break down your food and absorb. But directly on the other side of this, you actually have these things coming through. You have blood vessels, little capillary beds, and lymphatic tissue that are actually inside these little fingers inside your intestines. And it's only one cell from here to crossing into your blood and your lymphatic system. One cell. That's like 1 50th of the width of a strand of hair. And so when you have inflammation creating leaks between those cells, bad guys get in, they get into your bloodstream, they circulate around your system. And that's really what leaky gut is. Now, the problem with leaky gut, of course, you get leaks, it sends inflammation around and it triggers your immune system. It says, hey, we got a problem everywhere. You start developing all these inflammatory conditions. Your big drivers are things like gluten, pathogens or pathogenic bacteria, your E. coli and bad overgrowth, SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Antibiotics create leaky gut. Medications, ibuprofen, all those NSAIDs create leaky gut. You can get it from stress, environmental toxins, so pesticides, pharmaceuticals in the water, mold, whatever it is. They can trigger these leaks. But leaky gut isn't actually all bad. This is a common misconception. Did you know that leaky gut is actually a defense mechanism? So the question we're going to ask is, why do you have leaky gut? Well, if you think about it, if you have something on your driveway that's kind of bad, your body says, we should get rid of it, right? That's pretty simple. Let's get rid of this bad thing. And so what do you do? You take a hose, you turn on the water and you put your thumb over the hose and it just sprays out all this water to try to wash this nasty stuff off the driveway. That makes sense. What happens when you have something in your intestines and your body senses this thing inside your intestines and says, wait a minute, these are bad guys. We don't want them breaking down, digesting or absorbing because they're toxic to us. What does it do? Your body actually creates leaks in the gut on purpose to draw water into your intestines so that it can actually create diarrhea and wash this thing out. So it increases it. When was the last time you ate something, you're like, oh, like diarrhea within 10 minutes or five minutes or you had a cup of coffee. It triggers that water response. Water comes in to wash it out before it breaks down, digests and absorbs and gets into the rest of your body through your blood. It's a defense mechanism. The problem is so many of us were so inflamed on a chronic basis that what ends up happening is you have these leaks in the gut where your body draws water into the intestines or into the bowel to try to flush things out. The problem is as these leaks go on and they get wider and they get bigger, you now have stuff leaking in and you have toxins leaking out and they're circulating through your blood. This is the problem with leaky gut. It goes from being an acute short-term defense mechanism to a long-term problem which leads to chronic inflammation and a bi-directional flow of water in and toxins out. That's where leaky gut becomes a problem. So you're getting it because of chronic exposure to chemicals, pesticides. We get over a billion pounds of pesticides on our products and our food every single year. Pharmaceuticals in the water, chemicals in the air, preservatives, emulsifiers, high stress, social media, politics. Just stress everybody to the nines. This is why you've got leaky gut. And so I want to talk about leaky gut, why it's a problem, not only why is it creating or the root cause of every single disease in your body. I just did a video recently on how all diseases are connected to the leaky gut so we're not going to dive into huge detail but I want you to understand how this impacts you and autoimmune disease especially for someone with an autoimmune condition or a disease like Crohn's colitis or even IBS. Here's the thing. Leaky gut is a problem. We know this when it's sustained. It's a safety thing but it's a problem in long term. But what happens, one of the main drivers of leaky gut is what's called dysbiosis. Now dysbiosis just means imbalance of gut bacteria. So instead of the good guys in the gut, what ends up happening we have an abundance of bad guys. And these are all overgrown because they love the inflamed environment, they love the chemicals, love the toxins, love the stress. Well these bad guys produce a toxin called LPS. This stands for lipopolysaccharide. Another easy to remember term is endotoxins. This just means endo is inside and toxin so they're inside your body or inside your gut. So this LPS or endotoxins are being produced by all these bacteria. And what do they do? They get out and they circulate again that bi-directional flow. They circulate around your body and they cause inflammatory responses. They make you very very sick. Leaky gut and gut dysbiosis, this LPS they produce, these toxins have been directly linked to things like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Why? Because these LPS circulate around your body. They get through your blood and your body picks it up and whoa that's a bad guy. Let's put a red flag on that one. What happens when the red flag hits? Your body as a defense mechanism actually produces extra cholesterol and it says I want you to take that cholesterol and bind to that toxin because it's going to extinguish it like an extinguisher on a flame. It's going to neutralize it. What happens when you don't brush your teeth? You get all this plaque buildup and then it turns and hardens into tartar. It has to be scraped off because it hardens. Well your cholesterol over time also will build up and build up and build up and harden into plaque. If that's in your brain you're going to get Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. If it's in your heart you get hypertension or atherosclerosis because now you have these blood vessels and you have plaque starting to build up and then it hardens and thickens the walls and then your blood vessels stiffen. They can't expand and contract. Now you've got blood pressure issues, cardiac issues, and other diseases. These toxins are connected to heart disease, anxiety, diabetes, depression, arthritis, skin issues, asthma, eczema, hormonal and reproductive issues such as PCOS, fibromyalgia. They're connected to autoimmune diseases and all kinds of stuff. It all comes back to the leaky gut. Dr. Alessio Fasano published a paper that's called All Diseases Begin in the Leaky Gut, talking about this zonulin and the leaks that it drives. So the question we have to be answering now, how can you heal and seal your gut? So you've got leaks. We've established that. Especially if you're here watching on a gut health channel. You've got inflammation. You've got leaks. How can you heal and seal the gut? You're going to be hearing me talk about supplements and your brain's going to go, okay I'll buy these supplements and I'll heal and seal my gut. That is not the case. You cannot heal in an environment that is actively making you sick. Supplements are the easy way out, but they're not very effective. It's kind of like saying, Josh, my house is currently on fire. How do I put it out? And I'm saying, well supplements can help. Supplements are lumber. You're going, great. I'm going to continue to build my house faster than it burns down. That's not how you heal and seal a gut. You have to turn off the gas leak and extinguish the flame. So what we're talking about with you is your root cause. Now here's an interesting conversation. Kali Means, who's a huge anti-pharma advocate, used to be a big push man for them. He actually made a post recently and it was talking about a colleague of his who has a network of over a thousand different doctors and they are complaining. The biggest point is frustration. They are pissed that people are asking about root cause. What is causing my condition? Is there a natural way to get it? Five years ago, nearly nobody was asking about it. Today it's almost 80 percent. They're asking about root causes and doctors are pissed, which is incredible. You have the control. You have to get to your root cause. Your doctor will disagree. Get a second opinion from somebody who's interested in root cause. So your house is on fire. We're trying to tell you, hey, turn off the gas leak. We'll extinguish the flame. Then we'll build. Supplements are just rebuilding materials. So that's a very important part of this. You have to identify. There are three things that are making you sick right now. Only three. And I have another video on this you can check out. Number one is toxins. The second is going to be microbes. The last is deficiencies. Toxins are going to be mold, chronically high stress, chronically high blood sugar, emulsifiers, preservatives, and junk that's in your food, which again create inflammation. They're toxins, alcohol, pesticides, emulsifiers, mold, heavy metals. These are all toxins. There's countless, there's hundreds of thousands of them out there, I'm sure. The next is microbes. There's really four we got to watch out for. You're going to have bacteria, viruses, fungus, and parasites. When these are imbalanced or you have infections, those microbes cause problems. The last is going to be deficiencies. Vitamins, minerals, amino acids, a deficiency of relaxation, a deficient gut-brain connection. If you're deficient in exercise, fresh air, sunlight, clean water, all these things are to contribute to illness. These are really the only three reasons why human beings get sick. So we have to figure out what this looks like for you. What your combination of toxins, microbes, deficiencies is that's contributing to your illness and leaky gut. Then we manage that, and then we can add supplements. I'm going to give you a quick list here of things to consider. But again, it's only lumber on a burning house unless you get those root causes of toxins, microbes, deficiencies. So there are things that can help heal and seal by buffering out the mucus layer. It's like wearing a sock inside of a shoe. There are things that can heal and seal by cooling down and modulating immune responses. A quick list might look like curcumin, slippery elm. It might look like aloe vera, something called DGL, which is deglycerinated licorice root. Tadka, RALA, maybe looking at probiotics. L-glutamine or other amino acids and amino acid complexes. You can look at zinc carnosine, certain probiotics, or even one called Saccharomyces boulardii. You can look at berberine, colostrum, or IgGs and bovine colostrum. You can look at omegas or omega-369 blends, vitamins, minerals, foods that are rich in protein or fats, all kinds of good stuff. But these are all nutrients we get from a healthy whole diet. We get them there anyways. We're just supplementing. Look, if you need a certain amount of water to run your household, do your dishes, shower, bathe, you're good. But if your house is on fire, you need extra water. This is where supplements come in. They are the extra water we need right now in this acute inflammatory condition. But if you have IBS, Crohn's, colitis, I'm telling you with 100% certainty, you have leaky gut. And it's contributing to your problem. It's flagging your immune system, making things much, much worse. And you need to identify the root cause if you want to get better. Which brings us to our next question. How do you identify your root cause? We know it's toxins, microbes, deficiencies. So how do you understand what yours is? This is where history comes in. It's something your doctor will never do, but you can do by yourself. You can call me. We'll do it together. When I have a client come in, we do a 30-minute call. First call is always free. My job is to comb through your entire history. We gotta know in your history, where did things come from? When was the first start of your symptoms of any kind? Not just your gut symptoms or the current thing you're dealing with. When was any kind of symptoms? Someone comes in with a GI map that's a bacterial sample of the gut and says, look how messy my bacteria is. This is what's causing my issues. That's a self-sustained ecosystem. It regulates itself. So what happened upstream to cause inflammation downstream that caused your bacteria to go out? I don't have my clients do GI maps right out of the gate in 99% of cases because there's an upstream problem we still have to address. You're looking at your house going, look, it's on fire. That's why it's so hot in here. Well, yes, but what caused the fire? Same concept. And so what we need to do is go to the upstream right back to the beginning. Here's a great example. I had a client of mine I brought in recently and we look back at the early childhood. They started with tonsillitis and ear infections. Well, where did those come from? Well, it turns out we dug in, looked at their parents, went through the old sale records. Turns out there was mold in the home and mold in the attic, which was getting through everywhere else. So they had mold, which led to tonsillitis and ear infections as a child, which led to the use of early antibiotics. Combine that with poor diet, school lunches, dunkaroos, and all the good stuff. And then we deal with stress and there was some trauma early on, which triggered the immune system. It triggers stress responses, which breaks down the gut. And then this progressively wears and tears. It's like now you're wearing a pair of shoes. They're too small for your feet. The shoe is wet. There's rocks and sand and glass in it. You got no socks on. You're going for a walk. Guess what? Your foot's gonna wear and tear until it blisters and bleeds. And so he started with And then he went to the doctor, went, I'm bleeding. What do I do? They said, oh, you have Crohn's. You just have it. Ignoring this entire history. And so they gave the medication, said this will suppress your immune system. That's like taking this bloody stump of a foot and putting numbing cream on it. It's not getting to the root cause. These are things your doctors never do. They never do a history. They say, what are your symptoms? Check, check, check. You fit in this box. Here's your medication. They're not going to the root cause and they're pissed that you are. We have to go through your history as early as childhood. I don't care if you're 20 years old or 70 years old or whatever in between. There's a history and a root of how things came to be. This progressive wear and tear on your system that eventually led to the condition you're experiencing now. If you want to go through that process with me, I'd be happy to do it. If you want to look at getting help in one of our programs, my first call is free and I walk you through this. It takes about 30 minutes. We're going to figure out where it came from, what it is, what your primary drivers are. If you don't want to do that, listen to the podcast, jump on my YouTube channel, follow me on social. I put the stuff out there for free every time. But for those of you who want to get help, here's how you can do it. If you're watching on YouTube or you're listening on the podcast, all you got to do is click the link below and I'm going to dive into this conversation. It's a free 30 minute call. We're going to jump in and figure out what's driving your issue. What is the root cause of this? How do we get to it? Where did yours come from? How did the story build where that cup finally filled up to overflow and now you have disease diagnosis or condition that you have today? Your doctor is not asking for your roots. They're just putting a band-aid on it. They're putting numbing cream on that bloody foot. But they're not getting to your history. They're not getting your roots and that's what we want to do with you. So this is an easy way to do it. It's a free conversation. There's no obligation to it. We just want to jump in that, have the call and say, hey, can I help you? If so, here's what I can do. Are you interested in getting that help or not? And you can say yes or no. But the only way you're going to know what that is and where this came from is by commenting the word solution. Then checking your DMs. Not leaving me on read because I'm here to help if you're serious about getting help. I'll see you guys next time. Thanks so much for being here. One of my favorite things to hear as an IBD specialist is something along the lines of, I learned more from you in 15 minutes than from my doctor in 15 years. And if this for the first time is really starting to click and it's starting to make sense, you're going, wait a minute, this might be reversible. I think there's more that I can do. This condition came out of nowhere. It happened to me out of the blue. I was healthy for 10, 20, 30, 40 years and suddenly I wasn't? And you're telling me there's no cause. If you're understanding finally that there is a cause, that something is driving this, I want to invite you to check the link in the show notes below. Send me an email. Ask a question. See if a program is the right fit for you. Because I promise you, this doesn't have to be a lifelong sentence. You're not doomed to this. And IBD can be reversed.