Despite the clashes in the opinions between medical practitioners and colon cleansing advocates, there is no denying that colon cleansing and detoxification are the new buzzwords of this generation. This is because of the claimed natural benefits like vitality, enhanced digestion, and absorption of food and clarity of skin. With colonic irrigation or colon hydrotherapy being inaccessible, oral cleansing therapy is more popular because it only involves taking of dietary fiber supplements, and a colon cleanse diet.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is expected to foster powerful immune system, delayed aging and overall health. Perhaps the doctors are right about colonic cleansing being necessary, but the fact remains that a healthy diet is good for the body and the colon. Colon cleansing demands discipline and it starts with cutting out the processed foods as well as foods high in sugar, fat, salt and preservatives. Fast foods and junk foods must similarly be avoided. Cutting down on caffeine, smoking and alcohol is necessary. A colon cleanse diet that is based on natural food instead of supplements and pills is a natural way to go about it. The effects are not as fast as pills but will happen naturally. What an unhealthy lifestyle and diet throughout life do to the body cannot be undone as fast.

The bulk of the healthy cleansing diet consists of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is indeed fortunate that feed on just fruits and vegetables is enough to supply human bodies with nearly all necessary nutrients. The absorption and assimilation of nutrients can be done more efficiently by juicing the fruits and vegetables for better nutritional value. One can start with juiced fresh fruits in the morning or when starting with cleansing. Eating raw vegetables are the best when it comes to colon cleansing. For lunch, a serving of raw vegetable and for dinner steamed or cooked veggies make ideal meals. Despite the diet, one must make that sure that carbohydrates, proteins, a little fat and lots of vitamins and minerals present in the diet plan. This will entail the inclusion of legumes, leafy veggies, grains, roots, tubers and multi-colored  fruits.

Let the colon-cleansing fanatics and medical practitioners debate continue their deliberation on colon cleansing and whether it is useful or not to the body. In the interim, focus on eating the right diet that will bolster the natural body defenses. They call it the colon cleanse diet.

Despite the clashes in the opinions between medical practitioners and colon cleansing advocates, there is no denying that colon cleansing and detoxification are the new buzzwords of this generation. This is because of the claimed natural benefits like vitality, enhanced digestion, and absorption of food and clarity of skin. With colonic irrigation or colon hydrotherapy being inaccessible, oral cleansing therapy is more popular because it only involves taking of dietary fiber supplements, and a colon cleanse diet.

Eating a healthy, balanced diet is expected to foster powerful immune system, delayed aging and overall health. Perhaps the doctors are right about colonic cleansing being necessary, but the fact remains that a healthy diet is good for the body and the colon. Colon cleansing demands discipline and it starts with cutting out the processed foods as well as foods high in sugar, fat, salt and preservatives. Fast foods and junk foods must similarly be avoided. Cutting down on caffeine, smoking and alcohol is necessary. A colon cleanse diet that is based on natural food instead of supplements and pills is a natural way to go about it. The effects are not as fast as pills but will happen naturally. What an unhealthy lifestyle and diet throughout life do to the body cannot be undone as fast.

The bulk of the healthy cleansing diet consists of fresh fruits and vegetables. It is indeed fortunate that feed on just fruits and vegetables is enough to supply human bodies with nearly all necessary nutrients. The absorption and assimilation of nutrients can be done more efficiently by juicing the fruits and vegetables for better nutritional value. One can start with juiced fresh fruits in the morning or when starting with cleansing. Eating raw vegetables are the best when it comes to colon cleansing. For lunch, a serving of raw vegetable and for dinner steamed or cooked veggies make ideal meals. Despite the diet, one must make that sure that carbohydrates, proteins, a little fat and lots of vitamins and minerals present in the diet plan. This will entail the inclusion of legumes, leafy veggies, grains, roots, tubers and multi-colored  fruits.

Let the colon-cleansing fanatics and medical practitioners debate continue their deliberation on colon cleansing and whether it is useful or not to the body. In the interim, focus on eating the right diet that will bolster the natural body defenses. They call it the colon cleanse diet.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome: What We Know

According to the NIH, Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is “a disorder that leads to abdominal pain and cramping, changes in bowel movements, and other symptoms.” Unfortunately, why certain people develop this uncomfortable disorder and others don’t is not well understood.

What we do know about IBS is that about 17% of the US population suffers from it, women get it about twice as often as men do, and that it typically begins to affect suffferers during early adulthood. We also know more people seek the help of a specialist because of IBS than because of any other intestinal complaint.

In other words, it’s a serious and prevalent problem and there are many, many people who need relief.

What Are the Symptoms?

The symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome can range from relatively mild (how it is for most people) to severe. If you have IBS, you may be experiencing the following:

• Bloating
• Gas
• A feeling of fullness
• Abdominal pain
• Cramps
• Alternating constipation and diarrhea

How To Tell

All of these symptoms may come and go, but pay attention to when this happens. If your symptoms seem to go away for a while after a bowel movement, that’s a sign in and of itself. There is no lab test that will tell you for sure that you have IBS, but your physician will probably run some tests just to be sure you don’t have something else, such as Crohn’s Disease, colon cancer, or Celiac Disease.

If your doctor eliminates other possible explanations for your symptoms, she will likely suggest that you have irritable bowel syndrome.

Another Explanation

Many alternative health care practitioners believe that IBS is one of several disorders that can result from Leaky Gut Syndrome. So what is that? LGS occurs when your intestinal lining becomes irritated or inflamed and becomes more permeable. This means that your intestine loses its ability to keep undigested food particles, bacteria, and toxins out of your bloodstream.

Once these foreign substances enter your bloodstream, they can cause a variety of symptoms, like food sensitivities and food allergies. This in turn causes you to experience the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

What You Can Do

Happily, leaky gut syndrome is something you can heal yourself from. If you want to learn more, read my free report “Leaky Gut Syndrome: 10 Things You Should Know”. You can get it with no cost or obligation just by signing up using the form at the top left-hand side of this page. In it you will learn:

• Which natural remedies can heal your leaky gut syndrome
• How to identify which foods aggravate your leaky gut syndrome
• Which foods will help you heal from leaky gut syndrome
• How to know if you suffer from Candida infection
• A step-by-step guide to regaining your health, vitality, and energy again!
• How to restore the natural balance of bacteria you need
• How to beat food sensitivities and allergies
• Why antibiotics can make you sick and what to do about it

This report is completely free, and it will help you learn what you need to know to cure your own LGS, and therefore your IBS. Check it out.

The Take Home

The take home message is that you are not alone: many others also suffer from irritable bowel syndrome. The good news is that since leaky gut syndrome is the probable cause of IBS, you can get the relief you need! Check out my free report (sign up at the top left of this page) to find out how you can get relief.

What Do Leaky Guts Have To Do With Multiple Sclerosis?

The cause of multiple sclerosis has not yet been definitively identified. There are many theories, nearly as many as there are doctors and scientists who investigate this debilitating and disheartening disease.

What Causes MS?

The prevailing theory is that the blood-brain barrier becomes compromised, possibly due to an infection, and allows immune cells to enter the cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid your brain and spine are bathed in). Once in this space, immune cells attack the myelin sheaths that protect and insulate nerve cells, which in turn causes the symptoms MS sufferers experience.

Others believe that blood vessels that allow spent blood to drain from the brain are partly or wholly blocked, which damages the brain and nervous system. This theory is not widely accepted, and has, in fact, been recently discredited.

The Role of Leaky Guts

However, many health care workers support the theory that leaky gut syndrome causes autoimmune diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), asthma, and multiple sclerosis (MS). So you’re probably wondering: what is leaky gut syndrome (or “leaky guts”)?

What Is Leaky Gut Syndrome>

Leaky gut syndrome (sometimes called increased intestinal permeability) is a condition in which undigested proteins are able to enter your blood stream via tiny gaps in your intestinal lining. These proteins are not meant to be in your blood stream, so your immune system reacts to them as invaders and mounts an attack. The way in which this may lead to diseases like MS and ALS is that the structure of these undigested proteins is similar to the proteins that form the structure of your central nervous system (CNS), specifically the insulative sheath known as myelin.

The Good News

Fortunately, leaky guts can be healed, and doing so will keep undigested food particles out of your blood stream. An important part of healing your leaky gut syndrome is to avoid foods which contain proteins that are mimics of those in the CNS.

Why Does It Matter?

As with many health disorders, some of us suffer from a predisposition to leaky guts. A number of factors can transform this predisposition into the full-blown syndrome, such as the consumption of alcohol, NSAIDs (ibuprofen, naproxin, etc), parasites, other infections, and an overgrowth of the yeast Candida. In sensitive individuals, any of these can cause irritation of the intestinal lining, thereby increasing its permeability and allowing undigested food particles into the blood stream.

Your Diet

So, an invaluable part of healing from leaky guts is to adopt a diet for leaky gut syndrome that in large part consists of restricting your intake of foods to which you may be sensitive or allergic. You can undertake an elimination diet to identify which foods you are sensitive to, or you can get a test called an ELISA.

How It Can Help

We don’t know definitively know that leaky gut syndrome causes multiple sclerosis. What we do know is that many sufferers of MS have reported that by identifying and restricting which foods that they are sensitive to, they have experienced improvement in their symptoms. It is definitely worth your effort.

Why Not?

The simple truth is that digestive health and a nutritious, anti-inflammatory diet are the foundation of good health and are critical to your ability to fight and heal from disease. If you are suffering from MS, you certainly must be seeing a medical specialist, but healing your leaky guts could well provide the relief you’ve been looking for.

Autism can be both challenging and poorly understood. The good news is that there appears to be a link to leaky gut syndrome, which is fully treatable. Here is what the NIH says about autism:

A number of other possible causes have been suspected, but not proven. They involve:

 

• Diet

• Digestive tract changes

• Mercury poisoning

• The body’s inability to properly use vitamins and minerals

• Vaccine sensitivity

Children & Autism

Children who suffer from autism can benefit by excluding casein and gluten from their diets. One hypothesis as to why posits a link between behavioral issues and food allergies. We can define an allergy as as an exaggerated immune response by the immune system to a perceived invader. This response can produce a range of symptoms, such as loose stools, nausea and vomiting, raspy breath and wheezing, and dermatological responses like rashes and hives.

Difficulty with communication is common among children with autism. This can inhibit their ability to inform others when they experience pain, like gastrointestinal reflux and cramping. As a result, they may behave aggressively, throw fits, and scream because they can’t verbally express how they feel. In this way, autistic behaviors can be triggered by allergies.

Where LGS Comes In

­In addition, leaky gut syndrome (also known as hyperpermeability and increased intestinal permeability) may afflict autistic children. In this condition the intestinal lining becomes irritated and inflamed, and thereby sustains damage that makes it more permeable, or “leaky”. Antibiotics, Candida overgrowth, toxic substances, and infections may explain how this damage occurs. This upset to the intestinal tract can throw off the balance of healthy bacteria that normally reside in the intestine, as well as reduce the body’s ability to absorb some proteins such as casein and gluten.

Autoimmunity

Among other things, a healthy colon will act as a barrier between the digestive tract and the rest of the body, particularly the bloodstream . A leaky gut, on the other hand, will allow intestinal contents into the bloodstream such as bacteria, toxins, and undigested or partially digested protein. The body perceives these substances as invaders and mounts an immune response, which can cause food allergies since the body will now see some of what is eaten as foreign matter.

The Opioid Effect

Autism researchers have also characterized what is known as the “opioid effect”. This is a situation in which peptides (components of proteins) from casein and gluten gain access to the brain due to their presence in the bloodstream. These peptides can bind to the opioid receptors that the body’s natural endorphins bind to. Behavior, social skills, and speech may all be disrupted when this occurs. Moreover, children suffering from leaky gut syndrome and experiencing the opioid effect can become effectively addicted to to foods rich with casein and gluten, with all the problems that go along with addiction.

Peptides

Urinalysis conducted by some researchers has demonstrated the presence of these proteins in the urine of autistic children, suggesting the likelihood of increased intestinal permeability. In fact, one researcher concludes that the higher the levels of these peptides, the more severely impaired the autistic child. Some other researchers have denied this relationship, so it remains an open question.

LGS Treatment

Because it is not covered in medical school, many doctors either don’t know about leaky gut syndrome or do not accept that it is a real condition. But many health care professionals do acknowledge the existence and importance of LGS. Fortunately, there are natural treatments you can implement yourself.

What Does It Mean?

As to whether LGS underlies symptoms of autism, many (though not all) children who suffer from autism do have food allergies, which supports the hypothesis. The important point is that many parents have seen results from the simple step of putting their autistic child on an autism diet or a diet for leaky gut syndrome. So if your child is autistic, it could be well worth your time to explore natural treatments for leaky gut syndrome.

The Allopathic View

Among the potential causes of Leaky Gut Syndrome is the fact that antibiotics can create an unfavorable balance between “good” bacteria and “bad” bacteria in your colon. This can lead to increased permeability of the intestinal lining, allowing harmful substances from your intestine into your bloodstream. This is the allopathic (Western Medicine) explanation.

Traditional Chinese Medicine

However, practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) have another explanation. TCM describes the healthy function of your body’s systems in terms of qi (pronounced “chee”), or life energy, and yin and yang, which refer to balance. Heat and cold must be in proper balance, and when they aren’t, problems can occur. So, part of the objective of TCM is to restore this balance when it is disrupted.

Cold Influence

In the view of TCM, antibiotics impose a cold influence on your digestive system, This has the effect of depleting yang from the spleen and disrupting stomach-spleen harmony, which in turn disrupts your digestion and ability to properly absorb liquids and the food you eat. Moreover, qi is depleted and your body’s ability to sustain the small intestine’s integrity is disrupted.

The Spleen

Your spleen controls your small intestine, which is also the site of the distribution and absorption of qi. Hence when qi is depleted, fluid accumulates in your small intestine. In other words, your small intestine’s integrity is compromised by interruption of the spleen’s ability to properly regulate the small intestine.

Liver Insult

Practitioners of TCM describe this phenomenon in terms of an “insult” to the liver by the spleen. This insult moves the liver into “excess”, which causes blood and qi to stagnate. The liver thereby becomes unable to do its job of cleansing and distributing blood. Therefore, a TCM expert will employ “Zang-FU” therapy to address this imbalance and impairment of liver function.

Wu Xing

Another TCM theory called “Wu Xing” posits that depletion of your spleen will also move your kidney into excess in an attempt to compensate for your spleen’s depletion of yang with excess yang from another source. As a result, you will experience insomnia, stress, and anxiety. Eventually, however, depletion of both the yin and yang of your kidneys will diminish. This results in a depletion of your reserves (yuan-jing). Hence, the flow through your energy channels of ying qi will also diminish, which reduces your ability to respond properly to pathogens.

Wei Qi Depletion

In the view of TCM, your digestive tract lies outside your body (similarly to allopathic medicine’s view), and when your wei qi is depleted as has been described above, toxins and pathogens enter the body proper and drain its energy reserves and leading to the symptoms of leaky gut.

Treatment

TCM treatment of leaky gut syndrome therefore requires that normal levels of wei and ying be restored – in other words, that balance be restored. To do so requires regulating your kidneys and your spleen, which will lead to repair of the intestinal lining. In part liver congestion and blockage must be “dredged” (relieved).

Western Diet

Much of what contributes to this overall condition is the fact that how we tend to eat in modern society depletes your overall qi and results in damage to your spleen (which supports what we know about the importance of a proper diet for leaky gut) . In addition, your kidneys’ qi is sapped by the stress commonly experienced in modern life.

Acupuncture

To treat this, acupuncture will typically be employed by a skilled practitioner of TCM. Acupuncture is an ancient TCM technique that enables the restoration of qi flow where it is deficient and helps to restore the body’s balance, or yin/yang. Even practitioners of modern Western Medicine have acknowledged the value of acupuncture for treating pain and anxiety, so even if you are skeptical about TCM, you should consider acupuncture as part of your tool set for recovering from leaky gut syndrome.

Candida Infection?

There are many symptoms leaky gut syndrome can have, and often a Candida infection is one of them. In leaky gut syndrome irritation and inflammation cause the lining of the intestine to become more permeable (leaky), which enables toxins, undigested food particles, and bacteria into the blood stream. These substances do not belong in your blood stream and therefore cause your immune system to become overactive in its efforts to fight their effects. This over-activity taxes your immune system and makes you more susceptible to infections with organisms like Candida.

What Else?

Unfortunately, doctors do not learn about leaky gut syndrome in medical school and sometimes do not recognize or even admit that it is a legitimate medical condition. The good news is that many health workers are aware of and understand leaky gut syndrome and that it is responsible for an array of symptoms. As mentioned, Candida infection can be one of these symptoms, along with sensitivities and allergies to certain foods, acne, muscular cramps, and gluten intolerance, not to mention that it can contribute to fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, and even cancer.

Natural Balance

Nearly all of us have a little of the fungus Candida residing in our bodies, but these small amounts rarely cause infection. However, a healthy colon requires a stable balance of harmful and beneficial microbes, and this balance can be disrupted by leaky gut syndrome. Once this disruption occurs, Candida has the opportunity to undergo excessive growth and effectively overrun particular regions of your intestines.

Antibiotics

Antibiotics are useful for killing infections of harmful bacteria, but they can also kill beneficial bacteria and cause a disruption of the balance of harmful and beneficial microbes in your colon. This enables microbes such as Candida, antibiotic resistant bacteria, viruses, and parasites to grow to larger numbers than they should, a process that is normally prevented by the natural balance mentioned above. The overgrowth of these harmful microbes can result in the lining of your intestines becoming more inflamed and permit the onset of disease.

How Does Candida Hurt You?

Root-like parts of the Candida fungus known as rhizoids sink into the lining of the intestinal tract and cause damage to tiny, finger-like projections called villi. Because of this damage substances such as bacteria and small bits of undigested food can reach your blood stream, which compromises your immune system, throws your hormone balance out of whack, and can inhibit brain function.

How You Can Tell

There is a variety of symptoms that can help you determine if you have an infection of Candida. To begin with, you may be experiencing issues with your digestive system that include feeling bloated, having excess gas, being constipated, or even having diarrhea. In addition you may suffer from mood swings, a feeling of mental fogginess, an inability to get proper sleep, feeling depressed, or anxiety. You may also experience hypoglycemia, PMS, ringing in the ears, repeated bladder infections, or recurrent vaginal infections.

The Good News

Sadly, a Candida infection is hard to diagnose since all of these symptoms can arise from a number of other causes as well. As a result, this infection may go unidentified for quite some time. Since leaky gut syndrome and Candida infection frequently occur together, and both are difficult to diagnose, you may not get the treatment you need. This can lead to larger problems, such as chronic disease. The good news is that now you are armed with knowledge and can begin to determine if you suffer from leaky gut syndrome and Candida infection, and more importantly, take steps to help your body heal.

The Effect of Antobodies

Leaky gut syndrome is a situation in which your intestinal lining sustains damage that allows fungi, bacteria, and particles of food directly into your bloodstream. Your body responds by building antibodies against these toxic invaders, which induces food sensitivities or allergies that cause your body to react as though these foods were a danger. So what constitutes the best diet for leaky gut?

What Does This Diet Look Like?

Typically, this diet consists of recommendations for which foods to eat and which to avoid. The basic idea is that you should avoid certain foods for 30 days to give your body a chance to heal from the effects of foods that have become harmful to you.

To begin the healing process, establish an eating pattern that does not include particular fruits and vegetables:

• especially citrus
• kiwis
• papayas
• bananas
• corn
• strawberries.

In addition, you should avoid nightshade fruits and vegetables like:

• potatoes
• peppers
• tomatoes
• eggplant

It is also recommended that you do not eat:

• eggs
• dairy
• soy products
• foods that contain yeast.

Finally, avoid:

• legumes
• stimulants like caffeine and chocolate
• peanuts (which are often allergens)
• simple sugars such as honey and sucrose
• mushrooms, and vinegar.

But There’s A Lot You Can Eat

But have heart! There are many tasty foods that you can and should eat, as well. The question is, which ones? During the first thirty days of your elimination diet, you can enjoy:

• pumpkin seeds
• wild rice
• brown rice
• alfafa sprouts
• bokchoy
• sunflower seeds
• cilantro
• pine nuts
• parsnips
• lettuce
• peaches
• onions
• beets
• apricots
• avocados
• Brussels Sprouts
• pears
• figs
• apricots
• plums
• carrots
• berries other than strawberries.

You can see that there’s plenty of flavor to be enjoyed!

The Next 30 Days

Then, following the first 30 days, you can include poultry and fish among the things you eat, added in one at a time to see how your body reacts. Observe a three-day waiting period between introducing each new food item, and stop eating anything that causes your body to react negatively.

The Next Step

The next step is to use this same process of carefully introducing foods you previously eliminated, one at a time, to test your reaction to each. Take note of how your body responds and simply do not eat ones that induce a negative reaction. It’s best to follow the same order that you eliminated foods in when you are reintroducing them.

The Healing Begins

By observing a diet for leaky gut syndrome specifically, you will enable your body to heal itself from the damage that foods which induce a reaction have caused. You can finally free yourself from the uncomfortable gastrointestinal symptoms that accompany this under-diagnosed condition, such as cramps and bloating. In addition, the process of slowly reintroducing foods, one at a time, will enable you to identify which ones are problematic for you, which are not, and will allow your body to adjust to those that might otherwise cause you problems. Since it can be difficult to know which foods aggravate your condition and which do not, following this process will allow you to begin to recover at last.

Leaky gut syndrome can be a challenge for professional health care providers to identify because there are many ways it can affect those who suffer from it, and these can seem unrelated. Often practitioners treat the individual symptoms without recognizing that they result from the same root cause. This may provide temporary relief from the symptoms of leaky gut, but you must treat the root cause if you want permanent relief.

Another name for what causes the symptoms of leaky gut is “increased intestinal permeability”, which is more commonly called leaky gut syndrome. This condition results from damage to the lining of the intestine caused by irritation and inflammation that leads to increased permeability of this lining (it becomes “leaky”).

Why is this a problem?

Increased intestinal permeability allows substances from the intestine to make their way into the bloodstream, including microbes, toxins, and tiny pieces of undigested food. As these substances do not typically enter the bloodstream, the body mounts an immune response to fight off what it deems are invaders. Numerous issues with your digestive system, like cramps, gas, and bloating can occur as a result of this immune response. You may also experience heartburn, bowel irregularity, and difficulty with digestion.

Toxins & Inflammation

Being present in the bloodstream enables these toxic substances to access virtually any tissue or organ in your body. This in turn causes the organ or tissue to inflame and can also cause it to begin degenerating. A broad spectrum of symptoms of leaky gut can arise from this problem, including acne, infection with Candida, food sensitivities or allergies, MS, and more.

Taxing Your Liver

Moreover, whenever toxins are at play, the liver is at risk. The liver’s primary function is to detoxify toxic substances, so leaky gut syndrome can hit your liver hard. Just as overtaxing the liver by excessive alcohol consumption can lead to cirrhosis, foreign material in your blood stream as the result of leaky gut syndrome can overwork your liver and cause damage. This allows toxins to remain in your blood supply, do further damage to your body, and overwork your immune system. An exhausted, overworked immune system leaves you vulnerable to what are called opportunistic infections.

Adrenal Fatigue

Other important structures that can be damaged as one of the symptoms of leaky gut syndrome are your adrenal glands. These glands are in close proximity to your kidneys and play a crucial role in fighting off infections. When leaky gut syndrome goes untreated for an extended period of time, adrenal fatigue can result from damage to the adrenal glands. This is why the symptoms of leaky gut can include feeling exhausted, being unable to get proper, rejuvenating sleep, finding yourself unable to deal with stress, trouble with concentration, and indigestion.

What You Can Do

Whether or not you suffer from the symptoms of leaky gut syndrome, it will benefit you to be aware of what your body may be trying to tell you. If you do suffer from leaky gut syndrome, “listening to your body” will give you the opportunity to understand this, and more importantly to address the underlying cause of what ails you rather than merely treating symptoms, or worse yet simply living with them. With perseverance and knowledge you can take the necessary steps to rid yourself once and for all of the symptoms of leaky gut.

Our Unhealthy Diet

In The United States, the diet of heavily processed, unhealthy food that most of us eat can lead to bowel problems. Certain bacteria that reside in our digestive tract are beneficial and and assist in the proper digestion of food, but the typical American diet can weaken or eradicate these populations of beneficial bacteria. This results from the way that food is now processed, which among other things can cause leaky bowels.

How does this happen?

Let’s look at how the digestive process works. Our bodies begin digesting the food that we consume when it is chewed it up (mastication), and by the action of a digestive enzyme called salivary amylase that is in our saliva. In the stomach, other enzymes and HCl break the food down a bit further. From there it moves into the small intestine for another stage of digestion, and this is where the nutrients we need are absorbed. The next stage of the digestive process takes place in the large intestine (also called the colon or bowels), which reabsorbs excess water.

Harmful Bacteria

Normally, a mix of beneficial and harmful bacteria reside in the large intestine, and to remain healthy, your body must maintain the proper balance between these populations. The beneficial bacteria provide us with certain nutrients, help to keep the harmful bacteria in check, and assist in the digestion process. When this balance is upset by the presence of an excessive number of harmful bacteria, various health problems can result.

Proper Balance

Unfortunately, the proper balance between harmful and beneficial bacteria can be thrown out of whack fairly easily. Stress, alcohol, processed sugar, conventionally processed foods, and drugs can all kill or inhibit the growth of beneficial bacteria. Moreover, substances that are added to modern food as preservatives or coloring can interfere with the growth of beneficial bacteria and upset the natural balance in your colon.

Antibiotics

You can probably guess that since we take antibiotics to treat or prevent bacterial infections, they can also disturb the balance of beneficial and harmful bacteria in the colon. Antibiotics can kill both the harmful and beneficial bacteria, which sometimes leads to an imbalance of the two that favors the harmful ones. This can lead to inflammation or irritation that in turn can cause or aggravate leaky gut syndrome.

Leaky Bowels

This inflammation of the intestinal lining can interfere with the colon’s ability to perform its function properly, allowing the lining to ‘leak’ undigested food residue, toxins, and other substances into the blood stream. The body responds to these leaked substances as invaders, and the bacteria now in the blood can reach any organ in the body. Many uncomfortable symptoms can result from leaky bowels, including cramps, gas, constipation, indigestion, heartburn, and pain.

The Good News

The good news is that the natural balance of harmful and beneficial bacteria can be restored. You’ve probably heard of probiotics supplements, and these are nothing more than healthy bacteria that your body needs. Taking probiotics can therefore bolster the population of beneficial bacteria and crowd out the excess harmful bacteria, restoring the proper equilibrium between the two. Since a healthy colon depends upon the proper balance of bacteria in your digestive tract, restoring this balance can arrest the damage and give your body a chance to heal itself.

Overview of Leaky Gut Syndrome

It is surprising to discover that very few doctors are aware of leaky gut syndrome. Even the ones who have heard of it did not learn about it in medical school, so they are sometimes unwilling to acknowledge that leaky gut syndrome is a genuine health issue. Fortunately, leaky gut syndrome is recognized by many health care professionals who understand that many otherwise puzzling symptoms result from it.

Increased Intestinal Permeability

Increased intestinal permeability is the official term for leaky gut syndrome. This condition results from inflammation and irritation of the intestinal lining, which damages the intestinal walls and makes them more porous. The colon normally serves as a barrier, but when it is damaged like this, it allows undigested food particles, bacteria, toxins, and waste into the blood stream. This in turn causes an immune response in your body, making you more sensitive or even allergic to certain foods.

Immune System Effects

The immune system has a “memory”, which means that your body stores information about previous invaders it has fought off (this is why vaccines work). Because leaky gut syndrome permits substances that shouldn’t be there into your blood stream, your body comes to “view” certain foods as invaders and to respond accordingly the next time you eat them. This is how food sensitivities and allergies can arise.

It is worth noting that 70% of the immune system is situated near and in the digestive system. These “gut-associated lymphatic tissues” (GALT) are in intestinal mucous and the digestive tract’s lining, which shows how important a healthy digestive system is. Unfortunately, when you suffer from food sensitivities or allergies, your immune system ends up being overactive and can end up exhausting itself.

Some of the symptoms of leaky gut syndrome can result from this overactivity and exhaustion of your immune system. These symptoms include feeling bloated, having excessive gas, and cramping. The exhaustion of your immune system leads to other problems as well, such as not feeling refreshed from sleep, poor ability to handle stress, trouble with concentration, and inadequate digestion.

Other Effects

Trouble with your digestive system is not the only effect of leaky gut syndrome. Chronic bladder infections, a weakened immune response, vaginal infections, recurrent muscle and joint pain, and rashes can all afflict someone suffering from leaky gut syndrome. It can even lead to other ailments, including acne, pancreatitis, blood poisoning, skin inflammation, gluten intolerance, cancer, and multiple sclerosis.
But there is hope.

Knowledge Is The Key

Armed with the knowledge that you are afflicted by leaky gut syndrome, you can overcome it by taking certain steps. One of the simplest things you can do is to be more selective about what you eat. You can identify which foods your body reacts badly to through an elimination diet, in which you eliminate foods that are commonly responsible for stomach issues from your diet, then reintroduce them one by one to see how your body reacts. An elimination diet will enable your body’s immune system to “relax” and give your colon a chance to heal, as well as enable you to learn which foods you can safely eat. In many cases, foods that initially give you trouble can be reintroduced over time, and meanwhile you’ve used a simple, natural method to treat your leaky gut syndrome.