What if just one lifestyle change could help you avoid getting cancer or diabetes or heart disease or high blood pressure? This one change could cut your risk of chronic disease and add years to your life. Well the simple solution to so many of these problems is to eat a healthy diet. In other words, one centered around whole plant Foods, welcome to the nutrition facts podcast. I'm your host. Dr. Michael Greger.
Today, we look at some of the latest research on leaky gut syndrome. Did you know that come and drugs foods and beverages can disrupt the Integrity of our intestinal barrier? Here's the story intestinal permeability. The leakiness of our gut may be a new Target for disease. Prevention and therapy with all of its little, folds are intestinal barrier, covers a surface of more than 4,000 square feet. That's bigger than a tennis court and requires approximately.
Three percent of our bodies total energy expenditure to maintain mounting evidence implicates the disruption of intestinal barrier. Integrity in the development of numerous ailments such as inflammatory bowel disease. Researchers measured intestinal permeability using blue food, coloring it stays in your gut. If you're healthy, but can be detected in the blood of extremely sick individuals, as their gut barrier breaks down. You don't have to end up in the ICU to develop a leaky gut though, simply taking some ass.
Aspirin or ibuprofen can do the trick. Indeed, taking two regular aspirin or to extra-strength aspirin, just once can increase the leakiness of your gut. These results suggest, even healthy individuals should be cautious with aspirin. Use as may result in gastro intestinal barrier, dysfunction. What about buffered aspirin? It doesn't make any difference, both regular aspirin and buffer produced multiple erosions in the inner lining of the stomach and intestines.
Put a scope down people's throats and you can see extensive erosions and redness and side. 90% of people taking aspirin or buffer and their recommended doses. How many hours does it take for the damage to occur none? It happens within five minutes. Acetaminophen sold as town on the US would be a better choice unless you have problems with your liver and rather than making things better. Vitamin C supplements appeared to make the aspirin induced increase.
In gut, leakiness, even worse. Interestingly. This may be YN said drugs, like aspirin ibuprofen and naproxen or involved in up to 25% of food induced anaphylaxis. In other words, increasing the odds of life-threatening food allergy attacks by more than tenfold. Presumably. Because these drugs increased, the leakiness of the intestinal barrier, causing tiny food, particles to slip into the bloodstream, okay, but why can exercise increase risk, too?
Strenuous exercise like an hour at 70 percent of maximum capacity can divert so much blood to the muscles away from your internal organs that can cause transient injury to your intestines causing mild gut, leakiness, but this can be aggravated if athletes take ibuprofen or any of the other end said drugs, which is unfortunately all too. Common alcohol can also be a risk factor for food allergy attacks for the same reason. Increasing gut, leakiness, but cut out the
Alcohol, and your gut can heal up. What other dietary components can make a difference elevated consumption of saturated fat, which is found in meat during junk can cause the growth of bad bacteria, which make the rotten egg gas. Hydrogen sulfide, which can degrade the protective mucus layer. It is said to be clear that high-fat diets in general. Negatively impact intestinal Health, by disrupting the intestinal barrier system through a variety of mechanisms, but most of the
the vast array of study cited on the negative effects of high fat diet and got leaking, his were done on lab animals or in a Petri dish. You don't know for sure until you put it to the test rates of obesity and other cardio. Metabolic disorders have increased rapidly in parallel with a transition from traditional lower fat diets to higher fat diets. We know a disturbance in our good gut Flora has been shown to be associated with a high risk of many of the same diseases and studies using rodents.
Just at a high fat diet unbalances, the microbiome in a the gut barrier resulting in disease to connect, all the dots that we need a human Interventional trial. And here we go, a six-month randomized, control feeding trial on the effects of dietary fat on gut microbiota and indeed higher fat consumption appear to be associated with unfavorable changes in the gut microbiome and pro inflammatory factors in the blood. And note. This wasn't meat and Dairy.
The researchers just swapped in refined carbs and place of refined fats like a white rice and white flour for oil. These findings suggest countries westernizing. Their diet should advise against increasing intake of dietary fat. All countries have already adopted westernized, diet should consider cutting down so far. We've discussed things to prevent a leaky gut. What about foods to heal a leaky gut. That's what, we'll cover next. Our intestinal tract is the largest
Barrier between us and the environment. More than when we touch your breath. What we eat is our largest exposure to the outside world. Normally our entire gastrointestinal tract is impervious to what is inside of it. Allowing your body to pick and choose what comes in or out. But there are things that make our gut leaky and chief among them is our diet. What happens is the standard American diet can cause gut dysbiosis. Me A disruption in our gut microbiome, which
Can lead to intestinal inflammation. In a leaky intestinal barrier, then tiny bits of undigested food microbes, and toxins can slip Uninvited through our gut lining into our bloodstream and Trigger. Chronic systemic inflammation to avoid this dysbiosis and intestinal inflammation. Plants should be preferred vegetarian diet gut bacteria are associated with intestinal microbiome, balance High bacterial, biodiversity, and integrity of the intestinal barrier. They tend to suffer from Mark.
If you were uremic toxins, like it in dull and Peak wrestle and because fiber is the primary food for our gut microbiome, the gut bacteria of those eating plant-based diets, produce more of the good stuff. The short-chain fatty acids that fulfill a protective and nourishing role for the cells lining our gut ensuring the preservation of the intestinal barrier plant. Fiber is of prime importance to the preservation of intestinal barrier Integrity, but you can't know for sure until you
put it to the test. People were given whole grains beans, and lentils fruits, vegetables and nuts, and seeds, and got a significant reduction in zone yilin levels Zone. Leland is a protein responsible for the disassembling of the tight junctions between gut lining cells. And so it's a biomarker that reflects an impairment of the intestinal barrier. In other words, Zone. Yellen is considered to be a useful marker of a leaky gut, but since adding all those plants seem to,
Levels that may imply that appropriate fiber intake helps to maintain the proper structure and function of the intestinal barrier, but whole healthy plant foods, have a lot more than fiber. How do we know? It's the fiber and the study didn't even have a control group. That's why they say gut. Permeability might be improved by dietary fiber to prove cause and effect may be nice to have a randomized. Double-blind, crossover study, where you compare the effect of the same food with or without fiber. And
Here we go. People were randomized to pasta with or without added fiber and there was a significant drop in zone Yin and levels in the added fiber groups of fiber does appear to improve got leakiness, any plant Foods in particular, that may help curcumin. The, the yellow pigment in the spice Turmeric can help prevent the intestinal Damage Done by ibuprofen type drugs, but that's in rats similar protection was noted for the broccoli. Compound sulforaphane, but that
In mice. No human studies and broccoli yet, but there was a study on three days of the equivalent of about 2 to 3 teaspoons a day of turmeric, which did reduce the gastro intestinal barrier damage caused by exercise less may work too but no smaller. Doses have been put to the test. If you ask alternative medicine, practitioners What treatments they use for a leaky gut. Number one on the list, after reducing alcohol, consumption is zinc. Zinc, doesn't just
Protect against aspirin, like drug induced damage in rats when put to the test in a randomized trial of humans. The same thing was found the insect drug into Matheson caused a three-fold rise in gut. Permeability as one would expect from that class of drugs, but when they were also taking zinc, this prevented the rise in permeability strongly suggesting a small intestinal protective effect. The dose they used was massive, though. 75 milligrams a day. That's nearly twice the
Herbal, upper daily limit for zinc. What about getting zinc? Just two regular food doses. There was a significant Improvement in gut, leakiness. Even with a dose of just three milligrams of zinc suggesting that even relatively low, zinc supplementation, may work. You can get the three extra milligrams of zinc in your daily diet. Eating a cup of cooked. Lentils. We would love it. If you could share with us your stories about, Reinventing Your Health through evidence-based nutrition.
Go to nutritionfacts.org testimonials. We may share it on our social media to help Inspire others to see any graphs charts. Graphics images are studies. Mentioned here. Please go to the nutrition facts podcast, landing page there. You'll find all the detailed information. You need plus links in all the sources. We cite to each of these topics. My latest two books are how to survive a pandemic available on eBook audiobook or
Actual book and the how not to diet cookbook with more than 100 recipes for delicious and nutritious meals. All proceeds are received from the sales of my books. Go to charity. Nutritionfacts.org is a non-profit science-based Public Service where you can sign up for free daily updates on the latest in nutrition research via bite-sized videos and articles everything on the website is free. There's no ads no corporate sponsorship, but strictly non commercial.
Marshall not selling anything. I just put up as a public service, as a labor of love, as a tribute to my grandmother, whose own life was saved with evidence-based nutrition.