Back Clinic Functional Medicine Team. Functional medicine is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms.
Practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.
By changing the disease-centered focus of medical practice to this patient-centered approach, our physicians are able to support the healing process by viewing health and illness as part of a cycle in which all components of the human biological system interact dynamically with the environment. This process helps to seek and identify genetic, lifestyle, and environmental factors that may shift a person’s health from illness to well-being.
Leaky gut syndrome is not generally recognized by conventional physicians, but evidence is accumulating that it is a real condition that affects the lining of the intestines. The theory is that leaky gut syndrome (also called increased intestinal permeability), is the result of damage to the intestinal lining, making it less able to protect the internal environment as well as to filter needed nutrients and other biological substances.
As a consequence, some bacteria and their toxins, incompletely digested proteins and fats, and waste not normally absorbed may “leak” out of the intestines into the blood stream. This triggers an autoimmune reaction, which can lead to gastrointestinal problems such as abdominal bloating, excessive gas and cramps, fatigue, food sensitivities, joint pain, skin rashes, and autoimmunity. The cause of this syndrome may be chronic inflammation, food sensitivity, damage from taking large amounts of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), cytotoxic drugs and radiation or certain antibiotics, excessive alcohol consumption, or compromised immunity.
Leaky gut syndrome may trigger or worsen such disorders as Crohn�s disease, celiac disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and asthma.
My colleague, pediatrician Sandy Newmark, M.D., who deals with leaky gut syndrome in children, tells me that it isn�t clear how many people have this disorder or exactly what problems can be attributed to it. Dr. Newmark says that it has been established that a significant percentage of children with autism have increased intestinal permeability, but it isn�t known whether this is a cause or an effect of food sensitivities and an underlying metabolic problem.
Some alternative medicine practitioners blame such unrelated problems as migraines, bad breath and insomnia on leaky gut syndrome and recommend buying home test kits purportedly capable of measuring intestinal permeability. I doubt it. For treatment, some of these practitioners recommend an assortment of dietary supplements.
I would be wary of any diagnosis of leaky gut syndrome if you don�t have inflammatory bowel conditions (Crohn�s disease, celiac disease, irritable bowel syndrome), rheumatoid arthritis, or asthma.
The leaky gut treatment I recommend involves avoiding alcohol and NSAIDS as well as any foods that you�re allergic to. Make sure you�re eating plenty of fiber. Take Culturelle or another probiotic supplement containing Lactobacillus GG. I would also recommend eating an anti-inflammatory diet, including essential fatty acids like fish oil and GLA. In addition, you might try supplementing with glutamine, an amino acid that helps maintain intestinal metabolism and function and seems to benefit patients who have had intestinal injury from chemotherapy and radiation.
Leaky gut syndrome is still considered a medical mystery, characterized by symptoms of bloating, gas, cramps, food sensitivities, and aches and pains. While it’s generally not recognized as a direct diagnosis but rather a general diagnosis that requires further studies, the number of people presenting these common symptoms have been on the rise. Many experts have begun to discuss the importance of digestive health.
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Because it is something of a mystery disease that can show itself as a bewildering array of other conditions, you could have Leaky Gut Syndrome and not even realize it.
The reason is that Leaky Gut Syndrome is one of the many concepts in medicine that cuts across the boundary lines of specific diseases.
It is a major example of an important medical phenomenon: distress in one organ causes disease in another. That is why it is vital to look beyond the symptoms and discover the root cause of illness.
Conditions that Signal Leaky Gut Syndrome
Do you have:
arthritis
allergies
depression
eczema
hives
psoriasis
chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia?
Then you may also have Leaky Gut Syndrome, because it causes or contributes to these conditions.
Getting a better understanding of Leaky Gut Syndrome may help you find a more effective solution to your condition.
I am telling you about Leaky Gut Syndrome because it is a vitally important, but often undiagnosed, condition that is key to recovering from many illnesses and regaining robust good health.
An Integrated Approach to Leaky Gut Syndrome
I�ve been evaluating patients for Leaky Gut Syndrome for over twenty years, and have been writing about my integrated approach to this condition. My article �Leaky Gut Syndromes: Breaking the Vicious Cycle� is available online at the Foundation for Integrated Medicine. (1)
Through my clinical experience and further research I came to understand how gastrointestinal health in general, and Leaky Gut Syndrome in particular, contributes to many seemingly unrelated conditions.
To share my knowledge and help my colleagues learn more about this important topic I wrote a chapter titled �Integrative Approach to the Gastrointestinal System� for the textbook Integrative Medicine: Principles for Practice in 2004 and coauthored the book-length monograph Gastrointestinal Dysregulation: Connections to Chronic Disease, in 2008.
I have found Leaky Gut Syndrome especially relevant for many people with chronic fatigue syndrome.
What is Leaky Gut Syndrome?
Because it connects apparently unrelated disorders, Leaky Gut Syndrome is one of the most misunderstood concepts in medicine today.
To begin with, Leaky Gut is not a single disease or syndrome; it�s a pathological condition that occurs as part of many different diseases and syndromes. The term refers to an abnormal increase in the permeability of the small intestine. Increased intestinal permeability is a component of many different disorders.
Leaky Gut Syndrome is associated with:
inflammatory and infectious bowel diseases (6-12),
several types of arthritis (13-18),
acne (19),
psoriasis, (19),
AIDS (20),
chronic liver disease (21),
pancreatic disease (22)
as well as numerous conditions triggered by food allergy, including eczema, hives, and irritable bowel syndrome (29-37).
Sometimes, Leaky Gut Syndrome plays a primary role in the evolution of an illness.
Crohn�s disease is a serious chronic intestinal disorder that effects almost a million people in the United States. People who develop Crohn�s disease may have a genetically induced increase in intestinal permeability that creates the inflammation in the bowel. This predisposing leakiness can be found in close relatives of patients with Crohn�s diseases, suggesting that it precedes the development of inflammation.
Leaky Gut Syndrome can also be caused by the treatment for another disease.
In rheumatoid arthritis, for example, the drugs used to relieve pain and inflammation can damage the intestinal lining, leading to Leaky Gut Syndrome within two weeks. Leaky Gut Syndrome, in turn, is associated with aggravation of arthritis.
For most conditions, the precise role of Leaky Gut Syndrome remains unclear, but it seems to be part of a vicious cycle that makes the condition get worse over time. Allergic reactions to food, for example, cause a transient increase in intestinal permeability. If this happens frequently, it may increase the number or severity of food allergies.
In chronic fatigue syndrome and major depressive disorder, Leaky Gut Syndrome activates the intestinal immune system to produce chemicals called cytokines that spread inflammation through your body.
Inflammation is an important trigger for symptoms like fatigue, malaise, pain, and depression.
When should you suspect Leaky Gut Syndrome?
If you have:
pain in multiple joints,
a chronic skin condition,
chronic diarrhea or abdominal pain,
chronic fatigue,
chronic depression,
malaise,
a feeling of being infected but your doctor can�t find the infection,
or if you use aspirin or anti-inflammatory drugs on a regular basis, or if you�re a heavy drinker of alcohol.
Recent research in animals has indicated that Leaky Gut Syndrome may also be associated with difficulty losing or gaining weight, but its association with obesity is still under investigation.
Five Steps to Help Heal Leaky Gut Syndrome
Get rid of anything that might be causing or contributing to increased intestinal permeability:
Stop drinking alcohol for at least a month.
Stop using aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). I wrote about the side effects of these common pain relievers in a recent Huff Post article �Why Medication Can Be Dangerous to Your Health.�
Have a stool test for intestinal parasites. There is extensive medical literature on intestinal parasites causing symptoms like fatigue, joint pain and skin disorders, without causing diarrhea. I discuss these in a chapter I wrote titled, �Intestinal Protozoan Infestation and Systemic Illness�, for the Textbook of Natural Medicine, 3rd Edition, in 2005 [34].
Adopt an anti-inflammatory dietary pattern. I explain the benefits of eating to reduce inflammation, and provide a plan to achieve that, in my book, The Fat Resistance Diet. The principles are simple to understand: avoid foods with added sugar and refined starches, made from white flour. Decrease consumption of saturated fat and most vegetable oils, using extra virgin olive oil instead. Eat at least 9 servings of fruits and vegetables a day and at least 4 servings of fish per week.
There are dietary supplements that help the small intestine heal and restore its functional integrity. The most important of these are the amino acid L-glutamine and the amino sugar N-acetyl- glucosamine, which are readily available in health food stores.
These are but a few introductory steps toward an integrated approach to this condition. There is a vast amount of scientific literature on Leaky Gut Syndrome, a sample of which appear in the references below from journals such as The Lancet, The British Medical Journal and The Annals of Internal Medicine.
The health of every system in the body is ultimately essential to promote overall wellness and when one of these is out of balance, it can trigger an array of symptoms and disorders. Digestive health is of utmost importance because it’s the source of most nutrients. When a disorder develops it could be due to another cause, such as leaky gut syndrome.
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Vaccines still remain as one of the most controversial topics of our time. Immunizations and vaccines are believed to be the cornerstone of modern medicines, where many professional physicians and healthcare providers validate their effectiveness, however, others have argued whether all vaccines can truly be labeled as safe and effective. Many experts have been warning the public on the dangers of vaccinations while the government and various other medical groups claim these should be mandatory. The accounts of side effects caused by these have increased.
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
RA is an autoimmune condition that is more commonly experienced by females and is thought to occur or result from a combination of factors including genetic, environmental, and other unknown events that occur within our bodies. These factors can cause people to experience multiple hot, swollen, inflamed, and painful joints at multiple sites throughout their body, most commonly in their hands, wrists, ankles, and feet. Current medical management of RA and other autoimmune diseases involves the use of medications to manage the disease but we have yet to find a cure at this time.
Some new research is pointing to the possibility that the normal bacteria in your gut (microbiome) may contribute to your risk of RA as well as active inflammation in your joints. This is possible as the type of bacteria that make up our individual microbiome is different, and some specific types of bacteria can lead to issues in the gut as well as other areas throughout the body including joints.
The specific bacteria in your gut is associated with the foods that you eat and can be involved in causing Leaky Gut Syndrome (aka. intestinal hyperpermeability) as well as loss of immune tolerance to the normal bacteria of your gut. Specific locations in the body with a high load of bad, opportunistic bacteria (for example, the gut) may represent the source by which immune cells begin attacking body parts as they increase the amount of inflammation circulating in the bloodstream. This led scientists to the idea that if the types of bacteria in your gut could possibly be changed, it could allow your immune system to recover and potentially stop attacking your joints.
In a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial study, patients with RA were given either a probiotic capsule daily for 8 weeks, or a placebo sugar pill for 8 weeks. At the 8-week mark, RA disease activity was significantly improved in the group which received probiotic treatment when compared with the group that was given the placebo pill.
Taking Probiotics and Lowering Inflammation
The researchers found a significant decrease in specific markers of inflammation and a significant increase in good regulatory markers. These researchers also found a lower Disease Activity Score in patients that were given the probiotic treatment as well as a lower number of active swollen joints. It is also important to note that there were no new problems noted in patients after taking probiotics in the study.
There is also the issue of underlying Leaky Gut Syndrome (aka intestinal permeability). Tight junctions are proteins that bind together cells side by side in the walls of the intestines to create a physical barrier to bacteria and particles that are within the digestive tract.
It has been shown in many studies that specific foods and food additives can lead to changes in the tight junctions between the cells of the gut, leading to holes, or �leaks� in the gut wall, thus Leaky Gut syndrome. These foods and additives include sugars, salt, emulsifiers, organic solvents, gluten and even nanoparticles. As well, all of these food additives are shown to be used in greater quantities in countries with a higher rate of RA and other autoimmune conditions.
Guide for People with Rheumatoid Arthritis
1. Reduce your intake of Food Additives
These food additives include added sugars and salt in foods and beverages such as soda, juice, milk, chips, crackers, milk and other highly processed foods.
2. Reduce your intake of Gluten � Avoid it completely if you can
Gluten has been shown to cause Leaky Gut and even Celiac Disease. Cut down on or even eliminate your intake of breads, chips, tortillas, and wheat-based highly processed cereals.
3. Start taking Probiotics (after consulting with your doctor)
Probiotic supplements have been shown to reduce active inflammation in joints of people suffering with RA as well as other autoimmune conditions. L. casei was the specific probiotic that was used in the studies outlined earlier in this article. Consult with your doctor before taking any probiotics.
4. Consult a Functional Medicine Doctor
If your current course of therapy is not effectively managing your disease, consult with a doctor who practices Functional Medicine. These doctors will help you find the root cause of your disease process and give you a course of treatment to heal the source of your condition.
Gut health is essential towards the function of many of the systems in the body, primarily because of the process of nutrient absorption after each meal. Bacteria can be found in the gut associated with the type of food people eat and new research has shown that harmful bacteria can lead to the development of rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition which causes inflammation of the joints.
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The mandatory need of vaccines and their effectiveness has been an ongoing controversial subject within the medical field. While vaccines and immunizations have been utilized before to prevent diseases, studies have been surfacing regarding the dangerous and sometimes deadly side effects these can cause among the general population. Although further research has yet to establish a link between vaccines and neurological disorders, healthcare professionals have begun to speak out against the mandatory need for these multi-billion dollar industry medicine.
For more information, please feel free to ask Dr. Jimenez or contact us at 915-850-0900 .
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