If you use painkillers, imbibe alcohol or are concerned, as we recommend you should be, with runaway bodily inflammation, then caring for your gastrointestinal health with probiotics should be considered as part of your health promotion program. In fact, if you are taking a baby aspirin a day or using other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), this information is critical.
Leaky Gut Syndrome — Serious & Widespread
What on earth is a leaky gut? And why should we be concerned with this condition? Well, leaky gut is a serious condition and probably far more widespread than we might realize; even if you are clinically healthy today and don’t know you have leaky gut, it could well put you at risk for serious disease.
“A major task of the intestine is to form a defensive barrier to prevent absorption of damaging substances from the external environment,” says Daniel Hollander, M.D., of the Harbor-UCLA Research and Education Institute. Dr. Hollander is one of the nation’s leading experts on inflammatory bowel disease.
This protective function of the intestinal mucosa is called permeability. Clinicians use inert, nonmetabolized sugars such as mannitol, rhamnose, or lactulose to measure the permeability barrier or the degree of leakiness of the intestinal mucosa.
Ample evidence indicates that permeability is increased in most patients with Crohn’s disease and in 10 to 20 percent of their clinically healthy relatives. Permeability is also increased in celiac disease and by trauma, burns, and use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin and ibuprofen.
Alcoholics and people who imbibe would also do well to be concerned about leaky gut. Thirty percent of alcoholics develop cirrhosis, and new research suggests that the development of alcohol-induced liver injury is caused in part by a leaky gut, say researchers at the Department of Medicine (Division of Gastroenterology),
Animal studies have shown that gut-derived endotoxin is a critical factor in causing cirrhosis. Increased intestinal permeability has been shown to cause endotoxemia, and it is now believed increased gastrointestinal permeability (leaky gut) contributes to alcoholic liver disease.
“Because only the alcoholics with chronic liver disease had increased intestinal permeability, we conclude that a ‘leaky’ gut may be a necessary cofactor for the development of chronic liver injury in heavy drinkers.
Inflammation
Many of the pathogens that make us sick enter the body through the food we eat. This means that an individual with leaky gut syndrome is much more vulnerable to infection than someone with a healthy gastrointestinal tract.
The activation of immune cells within the huge surface area of the gut lining can cause a systemic inflammatory response—and overall bodily inflammation, we now are learning, is a key to many different disease states, including heart disease, cancer, arthritis, and diabetes. The passage of bacteria and toxins through leaky gut mucosa may amplify or perpetuate this systemic inflammation.
Inflammation causes damage to the tissue, resulting in excess permeability and unusually large spaces between the cells of the mucosal lining, which allows bacteria, viruses, fungi and other potentially toxic materials to enter the bloodstream. The widened spaces can also allow undigested food particles to “leak” through the intestinal lining. This could pose a serious health risk since these particles may be considered “foreign” by the body and the immune system may try to destroy them.
Thus, by this logic, leaky gut can be linked with a whole host of chronic diseases. It is not the only cause, but in many people, leaky gut isn’t detected, and they don’t know that they should be healing the gastrointestinal lining with probiotics and other nutritional supplements.
Benefits from a Healthy Gut Lining
There are many benefits that accrue to people who free themselves from leaky gut. Allergies and food sensitivities are markedly reduced. Risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis also decrease—along with overall bodily inflammation.
There are even nutritional benefits. Repairing the intestinal damage caused by leaky gut syndrome can improve nutrient uptake. Leaky gut syndrome results in significant mineral deficiencies because the same inflammatory process that injures the mucosal lining damages carrier proteins. These carrier proteins are the means by which many of the essential minerals are absorbed.
In the September 2001 issue of Gastroenterology, researchers from the Division of Gastroenterology,
And in Nutrition Today, researchers state, “As a result of intestinal inflammation, a greater amount of antigens may traverse the mucosal barrier, thus becoming an important risk factor for the development of allergic disorders.” They note that lactobacilli and other probiotic microorganisms “help reinforce the barrier effect in the gut. The results of the studies in this article show that the capabilities of such probiotics may introduce immunotherapy as a new approach for the early management of allergic diseases.”
Other researchers state, “Studies have shown probiotic bacteria have potential in the treatment of clinical conditions with altered gut mucosal barrier functions.”
Quick Check: At Risk for Leaky Gut?
Leaky gut syndrome is a very common (often undiagnosed) condition in which the lining of the small intestine becomes inflamed. Many different things, including the following, can cause this inflammation:
Under any of these conditions, you should consider using probiotic supplements containing Lactobacillus acidophilus and bifidus cultures. Be sure to take your doctor’s advice before discontinuing any prescribed medications.