Leaky gut is a medical condition that creates gaps/openings in the lining of the intestines. The intestines have an essential role in protecting the body from harmful bacteria and toxins. The gastrointestinal or GI tract is a tube of connected organs. They include:
Esophagus
Stomach
Small and large intestines
Enzymes in the stomach and small intestine digest and break down nutrients from the foods and drinks that the body uses for energy, growth, and repair. There are openings in the walls that allow water and nutrients to pass into the bloodstream while the toxic/harmful substances are kept inside. Theopenings begin to widen with a leaky gut and allow food particles, bacteria, and toxins to enter directly into the blood.
Microbiota
There is also a wide array of bacteria known as gut microbiota. These bacteria help with digestion, protect the walls, and support immune function. Research has found that imbalances in the gut microbiota can trigger an immune system response. The response causes inflammation and a higher probability of intestinal permeability or IP. Intestinal permeability looks at the ease of substances leaking out of the intestines and into the blood. Symptoms of leaky gut can include:
Diarrhea
Constipation
Gas
Bloating
Nutrition issues
Poor immune system
Headaches
Brain fog
Memory loss
Fatigue
Skin rashes
Microbiota Disruption
Various risk factors can disrupt the gut microbiota and contribute. Examples include:
Healing a leaky gut involves making dietary adjustments and removing the foods that the body sees as toxic. Lifestyle changes and support for a healthy gut:
The healthcare field realizes that leaky gut syndrome is interconnected to many other chronic health conditions. This issue can be tested for and corrected, aiding professionals to catch diseases early and slow the progression.
The previous article talked about how photobiomodulation or low laser therapy can help improve the gut microbiome. Today’s article gives an in-depth look at how photobiomics can provide the therapeutic potential to the gut. When it comes to the gut, an individual must take care of it. Supplying it with wholesome, nutritional food feeding the good bacteria will provide outstanding results like more energy throughout the day, the feeling of being full, weight loss, and healthy brain function. By eating these nutritional foods, the body can feel good; however, when harmful bacteria come into play and starts attacking the gut, it causes the gut microbiome to have all sorts of problems that can turn into chronic pain. Some of the ailments can be leaky gut, IBS, and inflammation, to name a few. When these harmful pathogens affect the gut, it can cause the body not to function correctly and dampen a person’s ability to go about their everyday life.
Photobiomodulation Works With The Gut
So how does photobiomodulation work with the gut microbiota? Research studies show that when photobiomics are being applied to the gut, the low laser wavelength can help rebalance what is happening to the gut and maintain diversity in the gut microbiota. It can sustain a healthy production of vital metabolites, and the diversity can help the gut from getting many harmful bacteria from causing too much trouble in the gut. Not only that, but photobiomodulation therapy affecting the gut, directly and indirectly, gives it a mimicry of the circadian clock from the brain. Since the brain and gut are connected with the brain giving signals to the gut microbiota to regulate and produce the bacterial metabolites.
The Brain-Gut Connection
The brain and gut connection is more of consistent bidirectional communication between the brain and gut. Studies show that the gut and brain connection ensures the proper maintenance of gastrointestinal homeostasis and has multiple effects on motivation and cognitive functions in the body. When inflammation comes to play in the gut; however, it can affect the gut to not work properly and disrupt the signals it is receiving from the brain and vice versa. When there is a disruption in the bacterial diversity in the gut, it can decrease the brain’s circadian rhythm. The disruption of the bacterial diversity of the gut can even reduce vitamin D absorption in the gastrointestinal tract, causing inflammation and heightening the effects of autoimmune properties that the body is experiencing.
Vitamin D and Photobiomics
Studies have shown that vitamin D plays an essential role in bone health and regulating gastrointestinal inflammation. This is huge since vitamin D has anti-inflammatory properties and can dampen the effects of Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and IBD or inflammatory bowel diseases. Vitamin D has many beneficial properties since it can help improve the body’s immune system and has anti-inflammatory properties. Anyone who takes vitamin D in supplement form or food form as part of their daily ritual will notice that they have more energy in their system and feel good overall. That is because vitamin D can modify the integrity of the epithelial cell in the gut and increase the composition and immune response to the gut microbiome. When vitamin D and photobiomics are combined, it can restore the vitamin D receptors in the gut and cause improvements to body immunity and bone health and dampen the inflammatory effects that were causing harm to the body.
The Vagus Nerve
Another unique fact that photobiomodulation can help is that it can improve low vagus nerves in the brain. Since the brain and gut are connected, it shows that photobiomics can help the brain by decreasing the inflammation receptors that are disrupting the brain-gut connection and causing problems to the body. The vagus nerve is a part of this connection since it sends the information back and forth from the brain to the gut. Studies show that the vagus nerve is represented as the main component of the parasympathetic nervous system. This means that the vagus nerve can oversee many crucial bodily functions, including sending information between the brain and gut. Not only that, but the vagus nerve represents an essential link to neurological and inflammatory responses to the body. When inflammation affects the gut and the vagus nerves, it can disrupt the signals to the brain, causing the inflammation to become worse and hurting the body. Treatments like photobiomodulation can target the vagus nerve and help increase the vagal tone in the body and inhibit cytokine productions.
The 4 R’s
When the body is being affected by inflammation, treatments can help the body feel a bit better and start recovering. With photobiomodulation therapy and natural foods that are beneficial to the gut can bring the balance of a healthy lifestyle back to a person. For a better gut, doctors have recommended the 4’s for gut health.
The First R: Remove
REMOVE– Removing foods that a person has a food sensitivity or allergic reaction to can help dampen the effects of inflammation to the gut. These can be common foods like dairy and wheat or processed food containing high fats and added sugars.
The Second R: Replace
REPLACE– By replacing processed food with wholesome, nutritional food that is chalked up with the necessary vitamins and minerals can give the body more energy and put the person in a good mood. Thus, helping the gut produce more enzymes to digest the nutritional foods.
The Third R: Reinoculate
REINOCULATE– Adding prebiotics and probiotics into your recovery process can help improve the beneficial bacteria in the gut. Fermented food is a great way to get the necessary probiotics and prebiotics into the gut.
The Fourth R: Repair
REPAIR– Eating certain food that can help repair the gut lining in the gut microbiota ensures that inflammation won’t flare up due to gut stress. Adding fermented foods, butyric acid, L-glutamine, and aloe vera into a person’s diet is excellent in gut repair.
Conclusion
Overall, gut health is essential to the human body as it helps the body function properly. With the help of photobiomodulation, it can help the recovery process. Since photobiomics are still providing excellent results to treat patients with inflammation, it is necessary to combine whole, nutritional foods and the proper supplements into the everyday lifestyle so the body doesn’t have specific ailments like inflammation. This new combination has opened the doors to many new avenues of effective treatments for inflammation and improving overall body health and wellness.
References:
Breit, Sigrid, et al. “Vagus Nerve as Modulator of the Brain-Gut Axis in Psychiatric and Inflammatory Disorders.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, Frontiers Media S.A., 13 Mar. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5859128/.
Carabotti, Marilia, et al. “The Gut-Brain Axis: Interactions between Enteric Microbiota, Central and Enteric Nervous Systems.” Annals of Gastroenterology, Hellenic Society of Gastroenterology, 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/.
Silverman, Robert G. “Photobiomics: A Look to the Future of Combined Laser and Nutrition Therapy.” Chiropractic Economics, 5 Oct. 2021, www.chiroeco.com/photobiomics/.
Tabatabaeizadeh, Seyed-Amir, et al. “Vitamin D, the Gut Microbiome and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.” Journal of Research in Medical Sciences: The Official Journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Medknow Publications & Media Pvt Ltd, 23 Aug. 2018, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6116667/.
The body has a variety of functions that work simultaneously to make sure that it’s working correctly. From the musculoskeletal system all the way to the endocrine system, the body has good bacteria that cause each system to work as it should be. However, sometimes an injury or autoimmune factor comes to play when it affects the body, causing a person to feel pain or not function properly. Many remedies and treatments can help the body by dampening the harmful effects that trigger various problems like inflammation, IBS, leaky gut, and much more. One of the treatments that physicians have used to help patients is photobiomodulation or low laser therapy.
Photobiomodulation Explained
Low laser therapy or photobiomodulation is when the body is exposed to a cold laser in the affected area. The laser wavelength targets the area through the skin to the mitochondrial. Studies have shown that photobiomodulation mechanics can help the body at the molecular, cellular, and tissue-based level causing therapeutic relief. When exposed through treatment, the laser wavelength can help give the injured area of the body relief that can last for hours to months with regular treatment.
Photobiomodulation Benefits
Another study found that photobiomodulation can heal and stimulate body tissue, thus relieving pain and inflammation, causing the microbiome to alter in the body. The study also mentions that photobiomics can indirectly affect the microbiome and cause harmful bacteria or inflammation to halt, causing the body to boot its immune system. One study has even found that even though photobiomodulation has been widely accepted to treat low-back pain, it can be highly effective when modulating the gut microbiome. This means that when photobiomodulation and nutritional therapy are combined, they can help treat gut issues, low vagal tone, and autoimmunity in the body.
The Gut System
The gut microbiome is one of the important biomes in the body that plays a huge role. The gut microbiota can help the body internally by regulating its metabolism and protecting itself from harmful pathogens; thus, a healthy gut flora is mainly responsible for an individual’s overall health. Studies have shown that the gut microbiota comprises two significant phyla, which are Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes. The study also mentions that a normal gut microbiome can help maintain the structural integrity of the gut mucosal barrier, immunomodulation, and metabolize xenobiotics.
The Microbiome of the Gut
Since the gut microbiome makes sure that the body is healthy, sometimes unwanted pathogens can affect the gut, disrupting the body. Studies show that the gut microbiota can ensure homeostasis while recognizing bacterial epitopes in intestinal epithelial and the mucosal immune cells. But when harmful bacterias invade the gut, either by food sensitivity or autoimmune factors, the gut takes a heavy toll, causing the body to feel unwell. These factors can cause body inflammation, leaky gut, or IBS, thus making the individual feel pain if it’s not treated, causing more problems.
Conclusion
Overall, doctors using photobiomodulation on the gut is beneficial in the overall wellness of the body. The photobiomics have proven extraordinary therapeutic effects by targeting the inflamed area and improving the area by raising the antibodies to combat the inflammation and reducing gastrointestinal wall damage. By utilizing photobiomodulation and natural food therapy together, the body can recover quickly and achieve overall wellness.
References:
Hamblin, Michael R. “Photobiomodulation or Low-Level Laser Therapy.” Journal of Biophotonics, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2016, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215795/.
Jandhyala, Sai Manasa, et al. “Role of the Normal Gut Microbiota.” World Journal of Gastroenterology, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 7 Aug. 2015, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26269668/.
Liebert, Ann, et al. “‘Photobiomics’: Can Light, Including Photobiomodulation, Alter the Microbiome?” Photobiomodulation, Photomedicine, and Laser Surgery, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., Publishers, Nov. 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6859693/.
Sekirov, Inna, et al. “Gut Microbiota in Health and Disease.” Physiological Reviews, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 9 July 2010, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20664075/.
Silverman, Robert G. “Photobiomics: A Look to the Future of Combined Laser and Nutrition Therapy.” Chiropractic Economics, 5 Oct. 2021, www.chiroeco.com/photobiomics/.
Many people with diabetes are extremely conscious about their health, for this reason, they are continuously looking for ways to handle their diabetes more efficiently. However,how can they make a difference if they do not even understand the disease they are currently suffering from? Some factors are thought to cause this and make it even worse.
Leaky gut is one of those ailments; some also theorize that without a leaky gut, you can’t actually have type 2 diabetes. Not only could it cause diabetes, but it may perpetually make it even worse.
What is Leaky Gut?
Leaky gut can be called “intestinal hyperpermeability”. In simpler terms, it means that toxins on your gut may pass through the intestines and also leak in your entire body. As can be anticipated, this causes lots of medical problems.
Basically, leaky gut occurs when your digestive tract is weak in the poor diet, among other factors. The intestines worn and are currently thinning down. The “good bacteria” which assist you in breaking down your food and eliminating toxins are not flourishing. Leaky gut allows toxins to reside in the body which should have been expelled quite quickly, causing symptoms such as these:
Inflammation (sometimes severe)
Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn and ulcerative colitis)
Irritable bowel syndrome
Food allergies
Chronic fatigue
Hepatitis
Pancreatitis
Arthritis
Diarrhea
Joint pain
Skin rash
Diabetes
AIDS
With such a lengthy list of conditions related to your leaky gut, you might begin to think it is a super-disease or something. Do not worry, it is not. Though it contributes to or causes some messed up stuff inside your body, it’s avoidable and even reversible. Some professionals even believe you could reverse severe and chronic disease (such as diabetes) by preventing that leaky gut.
You won’t discover much about leaky gut from mainstream physicians. Most doctors do not even test this yet. It is really somewhat of a mystery to most medical professionals. Linda A. Lee, MD, a gastroenterologist in John Hopkins Integrative Medicine and Digestive Center says “We do not understand a good deal, but we know that it exists.” She proceeds. “In the absence of evidence, we do not know… what treatments may directly address it.”
Other specialists, such as Donald Kirby, MD, refer to a leaky gut as a “very grey area”. Itself is a diagnosis of a disorder, it means that more research needs to be done, and an individualized diagnosis has to be made. What exactly does that mean? It usually means that the root of leaky gut can be any number of items, so you want to discover the cause. On this note, let’s take a look at some of these triggers.
What Causes Leaky Gut?
To reiterate, there isn’t any one conclusive cause due to the shortage of research done. However, there are a number of items upon this could give rise to your intestines getting weak, ineffective, and leaky agreed. These include:
Excessive alcohol usage (which can irritate the intestinal wall)
Enzyme deficiency (like having lactose-intolerance)
Toxic metals
Aspirin, ibuprofen, and other anti-inflammatory drugs
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy
Your gut has a great deal of difficult work to do. Not only does it need to digest and break it down into nutrients to nourish your body, in addition, it has to guard you from toxins which would otherwise put in your bloodstream and of the waste products. This heavy responsibility warrants that we take care of our bowels. Unfortunately, the greater bulk of people today don’t even give a second thought.
Your typical American diet is filled with sugary soft drinks, white flour, and otherwise high tech, low-fiber foods. This leads to an unhealthy gut in which germs are useless and weak while bacteria flourish and harm your intestines. The walls of your intestines begin to neglect when the damage is too severe. They become permeable and start to permit the toxins and waste, so which was intended to remain right into your bloodstream.
Some of those other items on the above list, such as alcohol and some prescription and over-the-counter medications, also have a negative effect on the internal flora of your intestines. You have a harder time fighting the things that pass through it and digesting your food if the good bacteria is killed off in your gut. Your gut can begin to leak and becomes unhealthy as the good bacteria make way for bacteria.
How Exactly is Leaky Gut Connected to Diabetes?
To provide you the most shocking news first: new study suggests that you can have each of the genetic predispositions to diabetes in the world, however you’ll never really contract diabetes unless you’ve got a leaky gut also. This means (if this study is correct) for those who have diabetes, then you already have a leaky gut.
The largest link between migraines, leaky gut and diabetes is inflammation. Inflammation is involved with developing type 2 diabetes. In fact, many disorders are associated with inflammation such as:
Periodontal disease
Stroke
Heart disease
Insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes
When toxins leak from your intestines and in your bloodstream, this causes an immune response from the human body. The modest cells that your body sends out do their best to remove toxins and the bacteria from inducing damage than inflammation could ever cause. Unfortunately, that’s just what happens. The war against germs waged by your immune system induces a whole lot of inflammation.
Continuous abnormal inflammation (like that caused by a leaky gut) changes your natural insulin levels and actions, contributing to diabetes. You eventually form, once your body starts to become insensitive to insulin. You are able to see the cycle here. The more inflammation. The more inflammation, the insulin resistance. If you add that on top of a continuously leaky gut isn’t far off.
Inflammation causing insulin resistance has been observed by Mario Kratz, Ph.D., in experiments involving mice also. Some of the mice were fat, which caused a constant inflammation. Insulin resistance was developed by the mice with this inflammation. This left the question: was it that the inflammation, or Was the fat causing the insulin resistance? To answer this question, scientists bred mice that lacked the ability to generate certain immune responses that cause inflammation. Then they proceeded to feed. What was the result? These mice didn’t have insulin resistance. What does this mean? It usually means that the insulin resistance came in the inflammation, not the fat cells themselves. This supports researcher’s claims that diabetes is contributed to by inflammation caused by a leaky gut.
Another experiment conducted on mice in 2012 took a different approach. The mice were given a drug called Tamoxifen to simulate bad gut feature, ruin their inner ecology and kill healthy bacteria. The researchers found similarities between the bowels of mice with mice and diabetes whose guts were ruined with Tamoxifen. The two groups of mice enhanced, when given insulin. To the scientists, this demonstrated that diabetes is strongly associated with gut health.
To outline, scientists do not know everything about leaky gut and how it results in diabetes, but they are starting to learn more. There is certainly more research but it is apparent that an unhealthy gut doesn’t only have an effect on digestion, but can have side effects for the health of the body.
How Would I Know if I Have a Leaky Gut?
The very first thing you might do is refer back to the indicators of a leaky gut which we already laid out for you (things such as skin rashes, joint pain, nausea, chronic fatigue, and IBS), but that might not help you as much as you’d believe. The potential symptoms includes side effects of another list of distinct ailments that have nothing to do with a leaky gut.
Some other things you can look at would be things such as:
Food Sensitivity
When radicals are continuously leaking into your blood due to a leaky gut, your body is overproducing trigger-happy antibodies, and those antibodies start to attack things which they would not normally. This causes food sensitivity, particularly to milk and gluten.
Malabsorption
As you can imagine, people with a degenerative digestive tract that’s leaking, also have difficulty absorbing nutrients. This can become evident through side-effects like fatigue.
Thyroid Issues
Leaky gut can directly contribute to chronic thyroiditis. This also leads to slow metabolism, constipation, chronic fatigue, and depression.
Tests To Identify & Diagnose Leaky Gut
It is difficult to link some other symptom straight with leaky gut due to the fact that the symptoms might be the result of almost anything else. There are a few tests that you could do in order to see whether you’ve got it. Here are some tests which could be done to identify leaky gut:
Lactulose/Mannitol test
This test involves drinking a sugary solution. A urine sample tested and is removed. If lactulose and mannitol are present, it could suggest a leaky gut.
Stool Evaluation
An expensive test that assesses for bacteria and yeast to see if your gut is infected. This evaluation isn’t likely to be covered by your insurance.
What Can I do to Prevent or Cure Leaky Gut?
We have to keep in mind the germs that reside inside your body make up a very important ecosystem that keeps your digestive tract healthy. So let us start thinking about how we could make that job easier, or at least enjoyable your intestines have a job.
Since we have mentioned several times by now, leaky gut has a lot to do with your internal germs or intestine flora. Minimize bacteria and you want to maximize the amount of bacteria that are good. This may be done through diet and exercise. It sounds simple, but there is more to it in this circumstance.
What sort of diet do you really require?
When it comes to diet, it takes more than a simple “eat healthier!” Recommendation to fight an already leaky gut. You have to imagine that your bacteria is entirely dead. To counteract your useless gut flora, you ought to think about “re-seeding” it using healthy bacteria from your diet plan. You can accomplish so by eating probiotic foods like “lassi” (a noodle drink), fermented vegetables like kimchi, or other probiotic foods such as sauerkraut, miso, or kombucha (locate a listing of probiotic foods here).
One more thing you can do is eat naturally anti-inflammatory foods to counteract the side-effects of leaky gut. Some of those foods are things like avocados, walnuts, healthy fats (such as omega-3 fatty acids), and olive oil (find out more about anti-inflammatory foods here).
Once you get started ingesting foods which will combat a leaky gut such as those mentioned previously, it is time to stop eating foods that give rise to inflammation. These foods are things such as red meat, fried foods (such as french fries — sorry!) , refined carbs (think white bread), margarine, cheese (as well as other calcium-rich dairies). These foods aren’t easy in your gut flora and tend to increase inflammation in the body.
It would also be a good idea to avoid any trans fats, and sugary foods altogether. Refined sugar contributes. In light of diabetes, anything to help improve insulin levels and a leaky gut ought to be considered.
As a review, you should replace as many processed foods as possible with organic possibilities, re-seed your gut with good bacteria by eating fermented foods, and avoid foods that give rise to inflammation or insulin resistance.
What about supplements and medications?
There are particular things that may be taken orally that affect your gut flora at a positive or a negative manner that isn’t necessarily considered a portion of your diet. So let’s talk about drugs and nutritional supplements.
You will find nutritional supplements you may take in the kind of probiotics. This certainly can help improve your digestive tract function by maintaining a healthy gut flora. Probiotics give a large dose of one type of bacteria to you for your intestines that promote good digestion, absorption, and inflammation.
On the other hand, there are lots of drugs that harm your gut flora. Taking antibiotics may be necessary when you’re sick, but don’t overuse them in pill form or perhaps in antibacterial soap. Over just bacteria are killed by antibiotics, they kill the bacteria that are good as well.
Other substances you might encounter that you may not think about are things like chlorinated water, agricultural chemicals located on non-toxic vegetables and fruits, and traces of antibiotics located in factory-farmed meat might also harm your internal flora.
In Overview: Key Takeaway
Leaky gut definitely results in, and potentially causes diabetes alongside any number of different illnesses. Thankfully, it is avoidable and curable; thus look after your intestines. If you eat healthy, exercise, and maintain your inner flora, you will be thanked by your gut personally, and you can potentially get an upper hand or even avoid it altogether.
The scope of our information is limited to chiropractic and spinal injuries and conditions. To discuss options on the subject matter, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .�
By Dr. Alex Jimenez
Additional Topics: Wellness
Overall health and wellness are essential towards maintaining the proper mental and physical balance in the body. From eating a balanced nutrition as well as exercising and participating in physical activities, to sleeping a healthy amount of time on a regular basis, following the best health and wellness tips can ultimately help maintain overall well-being. Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables can go a long way towards helping people become healthy.
Intense physiological stress can change the composition of our gut microbiota
Imbalances in the gut arelinked to diabetes, obesity and some cancers
Findings raise concerns for endurance athletes and military personnel
The study is the first to investigate gut bateria during military training
Long periods of intense exercise can change the composition of your gut bacteria, a new study has found.
The research looked at soldiers taking part in an intensive training programme and found that pro-longed exercise caused the protective barrier in their guts to become permeable.
In other words, the prolonged exertion triggered �leaky guy syndrome� � a condition that could let harmful substances leak into the bloodstream.
With our gut health and overall health believed to be strongly linked, intense physiological stress could therefore raise the risks of many types of illnesses.
The new research is the first to investigate the response of gut microbiome � the term for the population of microbes in the intestine � during military training.
It provides a stark warning for endurance athletes and military personnel.
The study suggests physical stress can increase intestinal permeability, which can raise the risk of inflammation and illness
Most of us are aware that the bacteria in our gut play an important role in digestion. Furthermore, they are known to aid the production of certain vitamins � such as vitamins B and K � and play a key role in immune function.
But increasingly, research is emerging showing how poor gut health is linked to conditions ranging from irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, obesity, childhood asthma, to colitis and colon cancer.
The study is the first to investigate the response of gut microbiome � the term for the population of microbes in the intestine � during military training.
It looked at a group of 73 Norwegian Army soldiers taking part in a military-style cross country skiing training programme.
Recent research suggests our gut bacteria holds the key to improving our health � and may be the key to tackling obesity
The group skied 31 miles (51 km) while carrying 99-pound (45 kg) packs, across four days.
Before and after the training exercise, researchers collected blood and stool samples from the soldiers.
It was found that the microbiome and metabolites � the substance formed in or necessary for metabolism � in the soldiers� blood and stool altered �significantly� by the end of the aggressive training period.
Furthermore, sucralose excretion in their urine samples rose considerably, indicating an increase in intestinal permeability (IP).
Scientists know that healthy intestines have a semi-permeable barrier, which acts as a defense to keep bacteria and other harmful substances out, while allowing healthy nutrients into the bloodstream.
It is thought that physical stress can increase IP, increasing the risk of inflammation, illness and symptoms such as diarrhoea.
The findings may spell bad news for endurance athletes and military personnel
The researchers wrote: �Intestinal microbiota appear to be one influencing factor in the gut�s response to physical stress.
�Our findings suggest that the intestinal microbiota may be one mediator of IP responses to severe physiologic stress, and that targeting the microbiota before stress exposure may be one strategy for maintaining IP.�
The study was published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology � Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology.
MICROBIOME: DOES IT CONTROL EVERYTHING?
Researchers now estimate that a typical human body is made up of about 30 trillion human cells and 39 trillion bacteria.
These are key in harvesting energy from our food, regulating our immune function, and keeping the lining of our gut healthy.
Interest in, and knowledge about, the microbiota has recently exploded as we now recognise just how essential they are to our health.
A healthy, balanced microbiome helps us break down foods, protects us from infection, trains our immune system and manufactures vitamins, such as K and B12.
It also sends signals to our brain that can affect mood, anxiety and appetite.
Imbalances in the gut are increasingly being linked to a range of conditions. Last year, scientists at California Institute of Technology found the first ever link between the gut and Parkinson�s symptoms.
The composition of our gut microbiota is partly determined by our genes but can also be influenced by lifestyle factors such as our diet, alcohol intake and exercise, as well as medications.
Leg discomfort might slip up quietly or may hit abruptly. Regardless of how it is got by one pain may become worse fairly rapidly. No further nowadays a disease that inflicts just the aged, leg discomfort is becoming typical for individuals of ages. Several natural home remedies have been outlined by us for knee-joint pain that may give respite from the discomfort to you. #HomeRemedies
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins—the “bricks” that build your entire body: organs, bones, hormones, skin, hair, nails, etc. If you imagine yourself as a brick house, the busier you are (i.e., long work days, exercise, late nights, etc.), the more bricks you wear out and thus the more you need to replace.
Your body can make most of the 20 amino acids from its own internal machinery, except for the essential amino acids, which must be obtained from the food you eat. However, the rules of the game change under one particular circumstance… stress!
There is a group of amino acids called conditionally essential; under times of stress, they become essential. You’re probably wondering what qualifies as “times of stress”? In today’s 24/7 society of constant connectivity, fewer hours sleep, and nutrient-poor, calorically-dense Western diet, you could make a strong argument that we’re constantly in this state and thus would benefit from taking in more conditionally essential amino acids, especially one in particular called glutamine.
What Is Glutamine?
Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body. It is considered conditionally essential, meaning your body can make it from its own internal machinery, but under times of stress (i.e., if you’re training for a marathon, working long hours, struggling with cold or flu), it’s required in much greater amounts.
Your body needs glutamine in times of stress. In this day and age, it you could be in this state fairly often!
Glutamine is also a primary fuel for your gut and immune system, and it supports healthy brain function (one of the few amino acids that can cross the blood-brain barrier), helps to clear waste products like ammonia from the body, and accelerates healing from trauma or intense exercise.
7 Glutamine Benefits
1. Promotes Weight Loss
If you’re stuck on a weight loss plateau, amino acids like glutamine can be very supportive for weight loss because they can be converted to glucose in the kidneys and used as a fuel source for the body, without the blood sugar and insulin spike typically caused by processed carbs and simple sugars. (1)
Glutamine can help you lose weight by converting stored glucose to an immediate fuel source.
2. Fights Leaky Gut
Sugar consumption is ubiquitous in our environment today, and, combined with stress and lack of sleep, can easily lead to dysbiosis or too much “bad” bacteria in the gut. This is very common today and when it persists, it can lead to chronic inflammation and damage to the lining of your intestinal tract. This damage can result in a leaky gut, where food particles are able to pass through your gut wall (when normally they shouldn’t be able to), which in turn leads to food allergies and increased risk of autoimmune reactions. (2) Glutamine is one of the primary fuels for your gut cells, thus helping to maintain the integrity of the gut wall and prevent leaky gut.
3. Improves Skin Tone
Keeping your glutamine intake sufficient is crucial for keeping your skin firm and supple. If you don’t eat enough protein, your body breaks down muscle to tap into your body stores, leading to the loss of protein, thinning muscles and skin potentially sagging more easily. (3) Animal protein is the best source of essential and conditionally essential amino acids, making the Paleo diet a great platform for meeting your requirements.
4. Boosts Brain Function
If you’re run down, not sleeping well or generally exhausted from too many late nights, you’re likely experiencing some brain fog. When your brain has a deficiency in glutamic acid (precursor for glutamine), you cannot produce adequate amounts of GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid), the body’s natural “relax” neurotransmitter. This can lead to increased tension, brain fog, anxiety, or sleep disorders. (4) By topping up your glutamine intake, you provide your body the building blocks for GABA and better brain function.
5. Helps Post-Workout Recovery
Exercise is a stressor, so you would think that the addition of conditionally essential amino acids like glutamine would enhance athletic performance. While many websites will cite studies that claim there is a benefit from glutamine supplementation and performance, the overall data don’t support this claim.
Try supplementing with glutamine right after a workout to help you bounce back quicker.
However, there is some good evidence that added glutamine increases glycogen resynthesis after exhaustive exercise, which means adding it would be a nice addition to your post-training shake if you’re following a keto or low-carb diet. (5)
6. Boosts Immunity
Glutamine does indeed support improved immunity during times of stress, but the therapeutic dose you need to consume is quite high: 20g per day for a sustained period of time (i.e., weeks). (6) This could be divided up into 5g doses throughout the day. Before jumping into a plan like this, talk to your doctor or naturopath.
7. Supports Cancer Therapy
Cancer therapy, while essential for eliminating cancerous cells in the body, is intense and takes its toll on the patient’s overall health. Supplemental glutamine has been shown to be an effective adjunct treatment, supporting the patient’s metabolism while not increasing tumor growth. (7) It can therefore be considered, with the agreement of your doctor, as a support for patients going through radiation or chemo.
How Can You Get Enough Glutamine?
Glutamine is naturally found in abundance in animal protein. Paleo diet staples like grass-fed beef, wild game, pastured eggs and poultry, wild fish, seafood, and organ meats are all phenomenal sources of glutamine.
Leafy greens, such as spinach, cabbage, parsley, kale, beets, are also a nice source of glutamine. The tricky part is you’ll maximize your intake by eating these vegetables raw, so including these veggies in salads, juicing, or adding into smoothies is your best bet.
Natural Sources of Glutamine
Grass-fed beef
Wild game
Pastured eggs and poultry
Wild fish
Organ meats
Leafy greens, i.e., spinach, cabbage, kale
You can also supplement with glutamine to increase your daily intake. While it’s important to remember that glutamine is made inside your body, if you’re under stress (i.e., really busy, training hard, not sleeping well, sick, etc.), glutamine becomes essential, so adding more into your diet can be highly beneficial. All of the benefits listed above are the result of supplementing with the natural form of the amino acid (called L-glutamine).
Glutamine Powder
Supplemental glutamine is relatively inexpensive and tasteless, which means it’s quite easy to add into your nutrition arsenal. I typically suggest that my clients add 5g daily in their breakfast smoothie, mixed into water while they eat breakfast, or added into afternoon tea or before bed.
Add glutamine powder into your breakfast smoothie or add it to your tea before bed.
If you have a more long-standing complaint of low immunity, digestive problems, inability to recover from exercise, then it’s possible to increase your daily dose to 0.2 grams per kilogram body weight. However, I suggest you work with a functional doctor or naturopath in your area to discuss this in greater depth.
Bottom Line
If you feel like you’re constantly sick, struggling with chronic gut problems or just feel rundown, then getting the right amount of amino acids—the building blocks of your body—is critical to getting your health on track. Today, if you’re like most people, you’re busy and constantly on the run, making amino acids like glutamine really important to keep your immune system strong, digestive system healthy and overall resiliency robust. For many, it’s a great addition in the winter months to increase your resiliency so you can keep up with the pace at work and play.
If you are concerned that you may have, or could develop, a leaky gut, then changing your diet to one that protects the gut is a natural next step for you.� If you are already battling health conditions related to having a leaky gut, then you will have to be more strict with your dietary choices and also address other lifestyle factors like getting good quality sleep, managing stress, finding time for low-strain exercise, and getting outside.
The first and most important thing to do to heal a leaky gut is to stop eating foods that damage and inflame the gut lining!� It can take six months or more for the gut to fully heal depending on the extent of the damage, the health of the gut microflora and your individual genetics (for people with Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth, recovery can take up to two years!).� Until the gut is completely healthy, it is important to abstain from all grains, all legumes, and all dairy products (some people may tolerate ghee and/or butter from grass-fed sources, but I recommend leaving it out for at least a month before trying it).� It is also important to avoid additives in processed foods (many of which irritate the gut) and refined sugars (which promote inflammation).� Some people will also need to eliminate vegetables from the nightshade family (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers of all kinds, and especially potatoes), eliminate egg whites (I actually rinse my egg yolks before eating them), and limit nut consumption (other than coconut and macadamias).� Changing your diet to avoid gut-irritating foods is critical.� But, it is also important to include foods that can reduce inflammation and help heal the damaged gut.
Eat foods that reduce inflammation.� It�s very important to be mindful of both your omega-6 and your omega-3 polyunsaturatedfatty acid intake.� Omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, which are found in large quantities in modern vegetable oils, meat from grain-fed animals, and many nuts and seeds, increase inflammation.� Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in large quantities in wild-caught fish, pastured/free-range eggs, and meat from pastured animals, decrease inflammation.� To help reduce overall inflammation and heal the gut, aim for a 1:1 ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid intake in your diet.� There are several ways of doing this:� you can make sure that all of the meat in your diet is exclusively from grass-fed animals (beef, bison, goat or lamb); you can eat plenty of wild-caught seafood; and/or you can supplement with a good quality fish oil.
Vegetables are rich in anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals which help control inflammation (and help with just about every other normal function of the body!).� Eating a variety of differently colored vegetables, a variety of dark green leafy vegetables, and a variety cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, turnip greens, kale, Brussels sprouts, etc.) every day will provide all of the essential vitamins and minerals in a way that is easy for the body to absorb (no more need for a multivitamin!).� Fruits, especially berries, are also a good source of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.� However, most people will need to exercise some portion control with fruits due to the high sugar content.� I recommend eating vegetables at every meal (it can be a bit strange getting used to eating vegetables at breakfast, but it�s amazing what a difference it makes to how you feel for the whole rest of the day!).
It is also important to make sure you are getting enough Vitamin D.� You can achieve this by simply spending some time outside in the sun every day, or from eating liver once or twice per week, or from supplementing with Cod Liver Oil or Vitamin D3 supplements.
Eat foods that restore gut microflora.� If you have a leaky and inflamed gut, chances are very good that your resident good bacteria are having trouble too.� To help restore their numbers and their diversity, eat as many different good sources of probiotics as possible.� You can do this by taking Probiotic supplements and changing brands every time you buy a bottle (the different brands all have different proprietary strains, which helps with increasing your gut microflora diversity).� Even better, you can consume probiotic rich foods, like unpasteurized Sauerkraut and other unpasteurized fermented vegetables, Kombucha Tea (my personal favorite), and coconut milk Yogurt or Kefir (which can be a little harder to find in stores but very easy to make at home).� All of these can be found at alternative grocery stores (like Whole Foods), and some can be found online, but all can also be made easily and inexpensively at home.
Eat foods that promote healing:� As the body tries to heal itself, it�s important to provide it with plenty of good quality protein (needed to make all those new cells and connective tissues) as well as vitamins, minerals and good fats.� In this way, the best way to promote healing is to eat a paleo diet that includes wild-caught fish, meat from grass-fed sources, organ meat (preferably from pastured sources), and plenty of vegetables.� There are two other healing foods that are very important to include: coconut�and bone broth.� Antimicrobial short- and medium-chain saturated fats, like those found in coconut oil�and other coconut products, help to reduce overgrowth of bad yeast, fungus and bacteria in the small intestine.� Medium chain saturated fats are very gentle on the cells that line the gut since they can be passively absorbed without being broken down by digestive enzymes and used for energy without any modification.� This source of easy energy is very helpful for healing the lining of the gut.�Broth made from the bones of chicken, turkey, duck, beef, lamb pork and/or fish are anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, and contain nutrients which help rebuild the integrity of the digestive tract.� Most importantly, broth is rich in the amino acids proline and glycine, which help regulate digestion, reduce inflammation, and promote healing in every part of the body.
While these dietary changes may seem overwhelming, it is important to remember that making them will keep you healthy, put many diseases into remission, and prevent dozens of other diseases from developing.� For the vast majority of people, using diet to prioritize gut health will mean a lifetime of good health.
Bloating, gas and inflammation are some of the most common symptoms signaling the presence of leaky gut syndrome and it could have been caused due to improper nutritional habits. Digestive health is essential towards the overall health of the body. When a balanced diet is not being followed, the gut can struggle to absorb nutrients and water from food. For people with a leaky gut, a proper diet can help heal them from the disorder.
Trending Topic: Vaccines Revealed Episode 2
Dr. Gentempo and others are bringing great awareness to our community regarding vaccinations and their dangers.
Posted: 01-12-2017
Vaccines Revealed and Exposed on Episode #2
As a healthcare provider, Dr. Patrick Gentempo has been searching for the truth behind the effects of vaccines on the general population. When making critical decisions about you and your children�s health, it�s essential to have the correct knowledge of all medical procedures you�re being involved in, including the administration of mandatory vaccines, among others.
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .�
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or Vitamin D3
supplements.
supplements and changing brands every time you buy a bottle (the different brands all have different proprietary strains, which helps with increasing your gut microflora diversity).� Even better, you can consume probiotic rich foods, like unpasteurized Sauerkraut
and other unpasteurized fermented vegetables, Kombucha Tea
(my personal favorite), and coconut milk Yogurt
or Kefir
(which can be a little harder to find in stores but very easy to make at home).� All of these can be found at alternative grocery stores (like Whole Foods), and some can be found online, but all can also be made easily and inexpensively at home.
