Leaky Guts and Multiple Sclerosis
Leaky Guts and 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.
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 what is leaky gut syndrome (or “leaky guts”)?
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.
Fortunately, leaky guts can be healed, and doing so will keep undigested food particles out of your blood stream. One part of healing your leaky gut syndrome is to not eat foods which contain proteins that are mimics of those in the CNS.
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 like ibuprofen, 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.
So, an important 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.
We don’t know definitively 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 a try.
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