05 Jan 2018
Leaky gut happens when your gut lining breaks down. This can be caused by any number of things, including stress, too many antibiotics or anti-imflammatory drugs (like aspirins or advil); using steroids to treat symptoms; intestinal infections; consuming a low fiber; high sugar diet and too much alcohol and more.
When the gut lining breaks down, your immune system is exposed to foreign particles from food and bacteria and other microbes. This triggers and activates an immune response, irritating your gut and creating havoc, which leads to an irritable bowel, an irritable brain and other system-wide problems (including allergies arthritis, autoimmunity, mood disorders).
Basically the microbial ecosystem in the gut has to be healthy for you to be healthy. When your gut are out of balance, it makes you sick. Among all the gut bacteria, there good and bad and very bad guys. When you have too many bad guys, and not too good guys, there is a problem. That's where probiotics come in.
Along with the gut healing nutrients come the low glycermic, whole food diet filled with healthy proteins, fats and fiber, and probiotics can improve the health of your guts significantly. Why? Because probiotics help to populate your gut with good bacteria. Look for at least 25 to 50 billion live CFU's from a variety of strains. Start slowly and observe how the probiotics affect your gut. When you first start taking probiotics, you might notice some uncomfortable symptoms like gas and bloating, but if the symptoms persist for more than a few days, you need to delay probiotics until the gut is more intact. For example if you are dealing with small intestinal bacteria overgrowth (SIBO) you might not be able to tolerate probiotics until your gut is in a better place.
The best way to determine if probiotics work for you and which ones to choose is to work with a Functional Medicine practitioner. Everyone is different, and for some people, deeper gut healing might be required before you start taking probiotics. To tend to your inner garden, you might need to do some weeding, seeding and feeding - a process that Functional Medicine Practitioner follows: first you need to weed to get rid of the bad guys using herbs or medications; and then you seed the gut lining with good bugs, and then you feed the good bugs with prebiotics foods and fibers to keep everything os. od healthy.
1) Eat a Whole Foods Diet
Your diet should be rich in nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables, all of which feed good bug.
2) Avoid the use of antibiotics, acid blockers and anti-imflammatories
3) Take probiotics daily - not only good beneficial for obvious gut dysfunction but also have been shown to help with depression, skin issues, autoimmune conditions and more. Probiotics are naturally occurring good bacteria that line up our digestive tracts. Suppplementing with probiotics helps to re-establish a healthy balance of good to bad bacteria which helps to modulate the immune system. Because of this, we are seeing numerous studies showing clinical benefits of probiotics in the treatment and prevention of eczema.
4) Incorporate Prebiotics
Prebiotics are a form of soluble fiber that help the good bugs in your gut. Prebiotics include foods like anions, garlic, resistant starch, sweet potatoes, dandelion, greens and jicama. So eat plenty of these beneficial prebiotics. Prebiotics are made up of carbohydrates that your body can't digest. They exist as food for the probiotics bacteria that you are putting into your body. The use of probiotics and prebiotics together is called microbiome therapy. You don't need to take a prebiotic for probiotics to work but taking them might make your probiotics more effective. Prebiotics don't actually contain bacteria. They are fuel to help bacteria grow. All prebiotics are a type of dietary fiber. The fiber inulin which is found in chicory root, bananas, and asparagus, is a prebiotic that can be used as food for gut bacteria.
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