How Does Leaky Gut Impact Your Health?

In the last article you know that having a hyperpermeable gut during stress is pure physiology, so it makes sense that leaky gut is present in everyone to some degree. (Who doesn’t have stress these days?) It’s only a problem when your intestines stay “leaky” for too long and start to let out the wrong types of molecules and microbes. It’s the chronic factor that creates inflammation and contributes to many different health issues. The image below shows how your intestines are connected to your different organs and what diseases can arise. Everything in your mind and body is connected.

Leaky Gut causes Food Sensitivities & Allergies and vice versa

When you eat, the protein should be fully broken down. The hydrochloric acid in your stomach breaks proteins down into individual amino acids. Those small amino acids pass through to the small intestine. There they are absorbed and used throughout the body. Every tissue and organ is made of amino acids.

However, many people have low stomach acid, which causes larger amino acid peptides to reach the small intestine. And in a gut with increased permeabilty, they can leak through the barrier into the bloodstream. There, your immune system does not recognize it and mounts a response. That’s how you can develop (food) sensitivities and allergies. You develop antibodies to amino acid peptides. The most common allergens are eggs, chicken, milk, wheat, soy, peanuts and shellfish, but your immune system could react to protein components of any food.

The antigens, pathogens and pro-inflammatory cytokines cause a heightened immune response, increase inflammation and cause more intestinal permeability. This also happens with ingesting things like gluten that have a hard time breaking down. The fire increases – weakening the barrier more and more. A self-perpetuating cycle is created – as shown in the image below.

It’s not just a hyperpermeable gut barrier that can cause food allergies, you can get sensitized to allergens through all barriers. The image below shows how an impaired skin barrier can directly cause food sensitivities and -allergies.

Your mouth has an important barrier function as well. Pathogenic microbes in your mouth can leak through the barrier into your bloodstream and this is associated with several diseases, such as cardiovascular disease.

Barrier dysfunction is a universal mechanism leading to disease.

This goes for all the (mucosal) barriers, such as in the skin, mouth, nose, bronchus and gut. If you want optimal health, it’s important to optimize these barriers.

Systemic low-grade inflammation

Leaky gut has major consequences for the rest of your body. The inflammation that is caused by leaky gut, does not stay local. Systemic inflammation can be triggered when the endotoxin LPS (lipopolysaccharide) leaches into the blood stream (this is called endotoxemia). LPS is the major component of the membrane in gram-negative bacteria. When these turn over in the intestinal tract (as bacteria do – they have a short lifespan), they dump LPS into the intestinal tract. If you have dysbiosis (imbalanced gut bacteria) and too many gram negative bacteria to begin with, LPS alone can drive leaky gut. Normally, LPS is dealt with within the intestinal lumen and some is directed to the liver, where the liver processes it out of the body. When LPS leaks over into the blood stream at high numbers, this will cause systemic low-grade inflammation (LGI).

Low-grade inflammation is another universal mechanism leading to disease. It has been estimated that LGI is involved in 95% of all diseases. The image below shows how genetic variations and nutritional factors can lead to dysbiosis in the gut, causing a hyperpermeable gut and endotoxemia, and when this goes on long enough it’s your bodies only option to create a LGI. This is one of the possible mechanisms behind insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes.