This Leaky Gut Diet Fixes the Root Cause of Poor Gut Health

hey everyone welcome back let's discuss the best diet for leaky gut and as you're probably accustomed to hearing gut health is crucial because of nutrient absorption that's pretty obvious but the other that's a little bit more pernicious is the fact that when your gut is unhealthy this can increase inflammation throughout the body why is that because the largest density of immune cells in your entire body is actually in the lining of your small intestine and if too much leaks through if leaky gut or hyper permeability is present then the immune system bcv inflammation is called in to clean up the mess and that inflammation can go systemic and this is why we see correlations between leaky guts and obvious symptoms like gas bloating abdominal pain diarrhea or constipation but also things that may not be quite as obvious and are distal to the gut neurological involvement like to depression insomnia anxiety joint pain environmental reactivity just to name a few so the importance of your gut is really the centerpiece of of your health and this is why how to eat for a healthy gut is so important and the one thing I want to lead with is that there is not one diet that is best for leaky gut sure there are some foods that aren't going to help anyone this would be ultra processed foods and alcohol and there are other foods that will probably be helpful for most everyone polyphenol rich foods glutamine rich foods and we'll detail all this in a moment but the one thing above all else I'm hoping to contribute with this conversation is that there are a number of foods that for some people can be helpful but for other people can be triggering and this is why for those of you listening or watching this you may have had the experience of ah you know I feel like I'm doing everything for my gut I'm doing all the healthy food stuff yet I'm still having symptoms and this might be because you haven't quite yet put your finger on some of these foods that again for some people are helpful and for other people can be triggering and I'll lead with this one analogy I don't think anyone would argue that going for a jog is unhealthy but if you had an active injury let's say you had a low back injury then an otherwise healthy activity running might flare you and if you didn't realize you had said back injury you'd be running and saying ah you know I'm going for a run I'm not even pushing myself too hard I'm wearing the right shoes I warmed up all the things yet I'm still noticing that otherwise healthy activity running is flaring my back pain the same thing can happen with your gut and so let's walk through the foods to eat the foods to avoid and then some of those Middle Ground foods that if you get these right can really lead to a lot of healing and repair in the gut so let's start with an obvious avoid or at least reduce which would be alcohol there was one study that I think was really misquoted it was a 2014 trial in which they injected directly into the small intestine alcohol they did find increased leaky gut via a few different measures lactose manital Ratio or lulose manal ratio excuse me uh tight Junction protein upregulation and to quote this paper this study demonstrates that administration of a single moderate ethanol dose increased both small and large intestinal permeability in healthy volunteers now the challenge here hopefully fairly apparent is that this was injecting alcohol directly into the small intestine this is not a normal route of administration or at least I hope it's not what other data do we have regarding alcohol yes you could argue wine has rich polyphenols and those antioxidants are Health promoting I think that's a little bit of a stretch unless we're really going to be moderate with our consumption and so this then begs the question well how much alcohol is acceptable again I don't think anyone would argue alcohol is overtly Health promoting but if you're like many people you may want to be able to go to a dinner and have a glass of wine or have a drink here or there and if you're trying to optimize your health having guidelines for how much alcohol might be reasonable uh is is helpful so a 2018 observational trial fairly large 600,000 individuals wanted to answer this question they also did something very important in that they adjusted for confounding variables how old are you what is your sex are you a smoker do you have diabetes so after controlling for all those what they found was that risk of mortality or death increased at seven drinks per week this tells us about risk of mortality risk of death it doesn't tell us necessarily about the risk of morbidity symptoms but I think we can assume it's clearly going to be somewhere less than seven and probably more than one so what I would submit to you as sort of a practical interpretation of this is the better you're feeling the healthier you are the less symptoms especially digestive symptoms that you have the more alcohol you can get away with and I think two to three drinks per week is is probably reasonable the more you're currently in the throws of not feeling well that's where I'd be more judicious with alcohol I never want to paint any of these things as extreme because this can foster undo stress so if you do find yourself out and you are having a glass of wine and a healthcare educator has been very overzealous about the messaging don't never have any alcohol what that could do is start this Cascade of worrying and fear which in and of itself is detrimental to health and healing so I don't think we have a very clear answer on alcohol again the worse you're feeling the more I would abstain and I would never or i' really try to avoid routinely going above seven drinks per week and perhaps two to three drinks per week is reasonable the other food that's fairly obvious don't consume or at least generally avoid would be upfsi so as to increase the shelf life and the the palatability and I thought Kevin wheen at Kings College said it well quoting food additives are added to many upfsi fire sweeteners colors micro particles and nanop particles have effects on the gut microbiome intestinal permeability and intestinal inflammation so because of this we want to avoid ultr processed or or processed you moderate to highly processed meats and carbohydrates so for Meats this would be anything salted smoked cured dried or canned and in part this is due to the nitrates nitrates and the nitroamines those lead to which also occur in vegetables by the way hot dogs bacon sausage deli meats these are things that I wouldn't make dietary Staples I wouldn't advise to have bacon or sausage every day could you yes I think it would be better to make that a more of a once in a while sort of thing maybe bacon once per week maybe twice uh maybe some sort of sausage once or twice per week but these things can add up pretty quickly if you're having a processed breakfast sausage every morning and then at lunch you're having let's say deli turkey this is just acre more and more processed foods in your diet and with the carbohydrates they are fairly ladened with emulsifiers colors and sweeteners so think uh sweets sugary drinks sodas fast foods potato chips now whole potatoes would be different than potato chips so again it's not to say you can never have any of these but these are things that you want to be judicious with and you can certainly have let's say pork but consider pork loin that you cook at home or a pork chop things that haven't been processed so as to increase their shelf life another food to put on your radar would be non-organic Foods let me lead by saying I don't think everyone needs to be eating all organic all the time I think that's too high of a bar for many people there are no human studies directly assessing leaky gut and the impact of non-organic Foods on leaky gut however there is a 2014 metanalysis that did find that organic foods contain more polyphenols which are antioxidants that have been shown to reduce leaky gut so think about it this way we should favor conventional Whole Foods over organic processed foods meaning conventionally raised chicken breast over organic chicken nuggets and that's a simple framework I would apply and do the best that you can again I wouldn't say this is a make or break but this is one thing that if you can do this as you're able will at least give you a little bump if for no other reason than the Richer polyphenol content and that brings us to polyphenols more squarely again these are antioxidants in plant foods that give them color but they also protect the plant and this is part of the reason why you may have heard the Axiom of eating the rainbow various colors will have of plants that is will have different polyphenol content so this is why not just having greens but having Reds and oranges and purples in your diet is a good strategy and coming back back to some of the research here a 2021 randomized control trial gave 50 subjects three servings per day of polyphenol rich foods for two months and to quote the authors of the paper these data show for the first time that a polyphenol Rich diet can reduce serum zulin levels serum zulin being a blood test for leaky gut and by the way if this has been helpful Please Subscribe comment and if there's one person you think this might help please share it okay moving on to one of the foods that can go either way for people and this is fermented foods fermented foods as you may know are rich in probiotics due to the live cultures they contain one case in point 2020 clinical trial using kefir fermented dairy one cup per day for three weeks quoting the findings our study is the first showing that kefir supplementation causes an improvement in serum zulin levels two other randomized control trials examined kimchi or sauerkraut and found that one to two cups of these per day for two to three months improve the symptoms of IBS constipation diarrhea distension abdominal pain so there's certainly a case to be made and I've said before that including fermented foods in your diet to obtain probiotics is a great and evidence-based Health practice however there does seem to be an upper limit with these foods for some people if you're someone who's noticed you are environmentally sensitive maybe you have allergies of some sort maybe sometimes when you eat you notice you have a runny nose or you have fatigue brain fog and insomnia that you're not sure what's driving it it is possible that you could be overc consuming histamine and histamine is a byproduct of that fermentation that the bacteria do and for some people they have a already high level of endogenous or internally produced histamine now case in point for this is one i'llbe an older randomized control trial that fed people a higher histamine diet and they found heart palpitations low blood pressure loose bowels allergy symptoms headache flushing fatigue running nose environmental reactivity and insomnia all either started or could be spurred by a high histamine intake so this is just one of those foods and this is something I actually experienced personally where there was a point where I was eating what I call the Lazy Man's paleo diet I would wake up have a kombucha a pack of beef jerky some spinach and some avocado every one of those Foods is healthy and convenient but is also High histamine and that resolved and when I stopped doing that why I was noticing for no reason I was irritable fatigued and foggy so this is something to bear in mind and this is one of the culprits for some people who say the better I eat the worse I feel not going to be everyone but it's just something to have your feelers out for and I wanted to share with you a breakdown of the histamine content of different foods so what you're seeing here is the amount of histamine that was produced by using a supplemental probiotic and it is negligible now we can compare that to the amount of histamine contained in some common fermented foods you'll see that Kefir is actually the lowest in histamine so if you're someone who is suspecting that you might be histamine sensitive Kefir is probably going to be the best fermented food and bear in mind it's also most kefir are also lactose-free and then you start seeing progressively more histamine in yogurt and sauerkraut and then much more in kimchi conversely remember that we've discussed that kimchi is actually probably the richest source of probiotics but that may come with some strings attached which is a higher level of histamine in that food again just remembering that you want to be careful not to overdo it with histamine intake so if you're someone who feels like you're doing a lot of things right dietarily but still struggling with symptoms this might be the culprit take stock of your diet and and if you're seeing at nearly every meal you're consuming one or a couple High histamine Foods try focusing on the low histamine foods for about a week and usually it takes only a week maybe a touch longer but usually the response here is pretty quick to see these symptoms improve when reducing the load of histamine in your diet and I just wanted to juxtapose the probiotic content here you'll see that there's a pretty similar amount of probiotic in a supplemental probiotic as compared to sauerkraut yogurt kefir and kimchi kimchi gets you a higher dose of probiotics like I said earlier but all of these are suitable approaches to obtain probiotics if again you do suspect your histamine sensitive I would opt for either a probiotic or the kefir and if you don't suspect that you are then there's nothing here to worry about the next food or type of food to consider would be foods that are glutamine and collagen rich and this is because glutamine is a very crucial amino acid and very abundant amino acid in the lining of the gut and the best evidence point for this was Kiki Zao who's over at Tulane University and we're hoping to have a conversation with her on the podcast in the near future 2019 clinical trial she administered admittedly a high dose of glutamine 15 grams per day which you won't be able to get from food you will need to supplement in order to hit that but she demonstrated a normalization of a different test for leaky gut the lactulose manitol ratio test and an 80% Improvement in IBS symptoms so beef chicken lean meats eggs and bone broth are just some glutamine Rich sources to consider including in your diet and again this is because that amino acid will help with repair of the lining of the gut similar but different Omega-3s you've likely heard of fish oil because it's anti-inflammatory a 2016 observational study did find that increased omega-3 fatty A intake correlated with lower levels of zulin in women so opting for fatty fish like salmon mackerel tuna sardines or nuts and seeds flax Chia and walnuts and targeting to eat two servings of fatty fish per week or one serving per day of nuts and seeds and this duvet Tails nicely in the theme of anti-inflammatory to certain herbs and spices turmeric or kir cumin is a Indian spice there's one pretty interesting randomized control trial from 2021 they administered 500 milligrams per day of curcumin as a supplement after 2 months they documented a 28% reduction in gastrointestinal symptoms so pain diarrhea constipation and indigestion and get this a 52% reduction in anxiety and this is likely due to the gut brain connection partially mediated VI inflammation so the objective here would be 1 to two tablespoons per day of turmeric or 500 Mig per day of curcumin a few others to consider would be peppermint and clove part of the reason for these is these are two of the richest spices regarding polyphenol content and additionally Ginger cinnamon Rosemary and Thyme and these are things that you may just want to season your food with or do something like a ginger tea now we get into more controversial territory whole grains these break down in my view to gluten containing and gluten- free and I think it's important to not just throw all of the grain baby out with the bath water because some people are Gluten Sensitive remember that brown rice oats and quinoa are gluten-free and then you have whole wheat barley and Rye now there's no studies to my knowledge that directly assess whole grain consumption being increased and decreasing leaky gut but there is a 2020 systematic review that found and I'll quote here intake of whole grains increased bifo bacteria and lacked bacillus levels and reduced pathogenic bacteria so I think it's a mistake to say no one can ever have whole grains especially because there are some people that don't do well on lots of fermented foods and lots of vegetables and do better on a moderate higher protein and starch type of diet and we just want to honor the different people and put people and their improvements first and not necessarily a dietary philosophy to acknowledge gluten and the problematic aspect of gluten in part is a protein called gladin a 2020 clinical trial published in the journal gut gave patients who suspected they had a problem with gluten a gluten-free diet for 6 months they documented reductions in serum zulin gastrointestinal symptoms and given this sort of systemic inflammatory connection improvements in fatigue anxiety and joint pain they also commented that serum zulin helped to distinguish non-celiac Gluten Sensitive individuals from healthy controls and that wheat withdrawal was associated with a reduction in Donan levels so this is one component now as I've said many a Time on the podcast in the past the prevalence of non Celiac meaning you're not diagnosable as Celiac gluten sensitivity but you still notice or suspect you're having a reaction to gluten is roughly three maybe 5% of the population some studies show less than that some studies show more than that 3 to five is kind of where you average out so it is something and it is incorrect for let's say your gastroenterologist to say oh you know if you don't have Celiac don't worry about gluten right because this has been documented in Fairly rigorous trials however I think there's a very crucial component of this that's been left out and this is wonderfully exemplified by this 2018 randomized control trial and by the way there are numerous studies that have found similar to what I'm about to share with you they took about 60 people who reported they had reactivity gluten they were non-celiac Gluten Sensitive they were given either a placebo bar or a bar containing gluten or a bar that was gluten-free but was high fod map specifically high in fructans and what they found is fascinating the group that was given the gluten had less gastrointestinal symptoms whereas the group that was given the high fob map or the high fruen bar had a clear exacerbation of symptoms and this enters the other component of gluten containing foods that's probably more problematic and this is the fod maps remember that wheat rye and barley common gluten containing foods are also high in fod map so when people go gluten-free they do two things simultaneously even if they don't realize it they go glutenfree but they also reduce their fod map content and as this study showed it might actually be the fod map that's the trigger and not the gluten because this study we just covered controlled for and reduced the gluten in one and gave gluten in the other bar allowing you to see that it seems to be for more people that the fob maps are the problem and here is a list of foods in terms of low fob map versus high fob map so grains that are low FODMAP what we want if you're sensitive oats quinoa brown rice conversely whole wheat bread barley and Rye are high FODMAP then certain vegetables are high FODMAP and maybe triggering and this is really a very important example for people who feel as though they're eating fairly healthy but are still struggling with symptoms it might be your microbiome is imbalanced and you need at least temporarily to reduce the fod map content and I'll share the evidence with you here in a moment but it's it's pretty replete and this is been shown to reduce inflammation reduce leaky gut reduce symptoms so other potential triggers would be broccoli cauliflower asparagus garlic onions avocados whereas kale spinach carrots cucumbers green beans and zucchini could be very tolerated and this is a key Insight because for some people they can't piece this together it it's not very intuitive in terms of how we determine High fob map versus low fob map which is why we're Reliant upon food lists like this and then other fruits that can be triggering that are high FODMAP apples grapes plums watermelons and peaches whereas helpful or lower fod map blueberries raspberries cantaloupe oranges and strawberries now coming back to the data a 2021 clinical trial put people on a low fob map diet for 3 months and they found a decrease in multiple measures of leaky gut LPS and serum zulin quoting GI symptoms psychological State and Q or quality of life significantly improved in these patients simultaneously an improvement in small intestinal permeability and intestinal mucosa Integrity occurred so zooming out for a moment you may have heard people say well people who go gluten-free see reductions in zulin reductions of leaky gut well it might be as this study is uh substantiating the reduction in fod map why this matters is because fod map tolerance is able to be recovered 50% of the high fob map foods that are cut out of the diet can later be reintroduced and tolerance can be recovered because it could could be that the fob maps are the problem and again we know that a temporary lower fob map diet heals leaky gut reduces inflammation and also reduces things like disbiosis and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and therefore leads to improved tolerance so if you did want to let's say go out and have that glass of wine and also maybe have a slice of pizza or a bowl of pasta or whatever it is the odds are fairly likely that you will be able to do so and why I care about this is because I would like for you to have the broadest diet and the most food freedom and not be falsely attributing your improvements on a glutenfree diet to lifelong need to avoid gluten due to the gliadin but rather it may have been the fod maps again which is recoverable so hopefully that all makes sense um and moving on On To The Next Food here Dairy controversial lactose malabsorption prevalence in the US is about 42% and the cow's milk or the casine allergy is anywhere between 1 to 4% think about that for a moment the lactose the sugar the carbohydrate 42% intolerance an actual protein allergy 1 to 5% now remember that the other carbohydrates the fod maps tolerance there is recoverable well same thing here meta analyses have demonstrated that interventions that help heal the gut namely probiotics improve lactose tolerance now why is this well when the food reactivity is carbohydrate malabsorption again that is recoverable because as the intestinal tract heals endogenous or your internal production of enzymes also tends to be improved and that allows absorption and digestion of the carbohydrates that weren't able to be digested prior again why all this matters is if you've had an experience of improvement when cutting out gluten or dairy it's more likely that it's the carbohydrate malabsorption component that when you reduce those carbohydrates you saw improvements that led to your improvements and that is able to be improved and it's much more rare although it can happen but it's more rare that you have a true inflammatory reaction to one of the antigenic proteins in these Foods so zooming way out way out the the take-home here is if you've gone gluten-free or you've gone dairy free don't be afraid to reintroduce these Foods because if the issue was carbohydrate malabsorption that tends to improve over time and therefore tolerance also tends to improve over time and if you do perform a reintroduction and you do notice an aversion then as we always say listen to your body but if you haven't run an experiment it's something to bear in mind okay so then a few foods that are controversial artificial sweeteners if you had asked me on this five plus years ago I would have had a more conservative perspective on artificial sweeteners sort of against them looking at this 2020 three review paper I'll quote although some human trials have observed a dis biotic effect of artificial sweeteners many randomized control trials have reported a lack of significant effects on the gut microbiota now the gut microbiota is not leaky gut but they are interrelated I'm not convinced in a big credit to Lane Norton who I think has done some great reporting on artificial sweeteners as it pertains to metabolic Health but I'm not convinced that artificial Sweeten are going to be a problem for everyone I had cited years ago the San Antonio longitudinal study on aging and they did find a correlation between higher consumption of artificially sweetened drinks and waste circumference but evidently as more research has been done they're not finding any metabolic ill effects and we weren't able to find anything convincing showing exacerbations of gastrointestinal symptoms and so ultimately I would listen to your body but I don't think from a datadriven perspective we can say that artificial sweeteners are going to be a problem for most people and sort of fuel leaky gut nightshade vegetables this is also something where there's not a lot of research but this is something that I personally have noticed if I consume too much either tomato or red peppers I will experience joint pain as will my mother so this tends at least in my observation to follow Family Lines so that's something to think about if you've done everything else and you're noticing joint pain take stock of the night shades that you're consuming and see if you can draw a correlation which should be repeatable between consumption of night shades and joint pain usually it starts about 24 hours later again this is not going to be a majority thing but it's a fine-tuning factor to pay attention to seed oils one study did not find that soybean oil increased lipopolysaccharides and I think you could make a case that continual Heating and reheating of seed oils might pose a problem but I'm not convinced that seed oils pose a problem for human health I know this is a loaded topic and we are reviewing the evidence here and and I plan on releasing a piece that really goes through this in a very thoughtful and evidence-based fashion and certainly my persuasion is more leaning in the direction away from seed oils because they're not necessarily A ancestral Norm if you will but when ju's opposing that across randomized control trials that are designed to clarify is the seed oil the problem or is it more of a bystandard effect or or guilt by association at least thus far I'm not convinced that seed oils pose a problem I know that sounds like heresy um but more to follow and then finally there's a few plant irritants oxalates silicates and lectins and I can't say that well firstly there's not ample research to give us the luxury of having scientific evidence to learn from so then it's more so anecdote and experience and I can't say that any of these Foods seem to be problematic for most people perhaps if someone is consuming a very high amount of oxalates silicates or lectins reducing that could be helpful I think what happens more often than not especially in the case of lectin people make many changes that improve the quality of their diet and they think it's because of the lectins but sort of like the gluten-free example people go gluten-free but they actually end up going low fod map and it might be the FODMAP production that was actually why they improved I suspect with lectins that's what's happening and at some point we'll do a full review on lectin also and then oxalates and solic lates my perspective here and I don't think anyone has this fully figured out but my thinking is that if someone is not consuming a very very high amount of either one of these then it's more likely you need to improve the health of their gut by going through all the other steps that we outlined and the ulate or silicate sensitivities are usually secondary to a gut that's not very healthy or sort of running with that back injury so in close it's important to experiment with your diet to figure out what is going to be optimal for your individual gut everyone should be mindful of alcohol reduced Ultra processed foods eat whole Fresh Foods optimize quality like organic when and as you're able and include certain medicinal or healing foods like polyphenols glutamine Omega-3s and anti-inflammatory herbs and spices experiment and personalize fod Maps gluten dairy and high histamine foods and remember to reintroduce and personalize over time and this is the key aspect that it's easy to lose sight of that the foods that you didn't tolerate on day one you will likely be able able to enjoy day 30 60 9010 what have you so remember just like with the rehab plan coming back to that back injury you take some time to not stress your body with exercise do rehab do foam rolling laser whatever it is and then gradually over time you're going to resume more activity more running maybe even sprinting or squatting or deadlifting and that's going to be a grad ual thing that you do over time as you rebuild and regain resiliency and strength and the same concept here applies with diet well okay I hope this helps let me know what you think in the comments and I'll talk to you next time [Music]

Channel: Dr. Michael Ruscio, DC, DNM

Views: 18,971

Keywords: leaky gut, leaky gut diet, leaky gut symptoms, how to heal leaky gut, leaky gut syndrome, leaky gut treatment, healing leaky gut, leaky gut cure, symptoms of leaky gut, how to prevent leaky gut, best foods for leaky gut, leaky gut foods, heal leaky gut, fix leaky gut, leaky gut foods to avoid, leaky gut tips, how to repair leaky gut, gut healing, gut health, healthy foods for your gut, gut health foods, diet for leaky gut, how to heal your gut

Id: 6wk9GaT2mtw

Length: 35min 20sec (2120 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024