What Is Leaky Gut And How Can You Treat It?

we always say to people you know get something from every color of the rainbow every day you know your get some plant foods from every color of the rainbow every day hey everybody it's dr. Mark Hyman welcome to this special episode of the doctors farmers that's farmers who an FFA RM Acy place for conversations that matter and I call this special episode house call in this series I'm going to sit down with my colleague and friend the ultra on the center physician and medical director dr. Elizabeth boham who's what every physician should be she's a registered dietician and exercise physiologist and an MD which is a unicorn and as I said before we're gonna talk about how as functional medicine Doc's we tackle specific conditions and our practice everyday that's very different from how traditional medicine takes care of it and today we're gonna talk about leaky gut which is something that is starting to be in the awareness of traditional medicine but they still don't have a clue how to diagnose it and how to treat it so tell us first what is leaky gut yeah so so many people are like saying the word leaky gut leaky gut but officially right the official medical term is increased intestinal permeability and I love to draw a picture for all my patients when they come in to really show them what we mean by increased intestinal permeability I failed are in the eighth grade I just show my google images I don't know I'm still drawing it each time so we know there's this one cell layer right there's that one cell layer the end of the of the endothelium that divides the inside of the intestine right so where the food is and all sorts of other things the GI tract is a tube yeah are we outside of your body right I mean it's a protective tube that you put food in also goes in it comes out of the other side and it's literally like not really part of your body in the sense of it right the stuff inside is it yet in your body yeah right though so but there's that cell layer that has to determine what should come in to my body right and it shouldn't what's been properly digested food you know has this has this protein been broken down enough should this come in sure they should I absorb this or should this stay out so that berry filter it's like a coffee filter you don't want the grounds getting into your coffee but you want the good stuff getting it and that's sort of how your gut supposed to work that's that's great yeah it's like you have holes in your coffee filter and stuff leaks through right and why is that a problem right because that that's stuff leaking through that might be a food particle that's not digested enough yet or it could be a bacteria or a bug a fungus or some something that's shouldn't be getting into the body some of the not so good bacteria and and when when those things that they get into the body when they're not supposed to then they can trigger all sorts of other symptoms in the body and that might be symptoms of inflammation so somebody might feel like joint pain or asthma congestion it may trigger and there's been a lot of studies to show this it can trigger autoimmunity yeah right oh I don't know a smile all kinds of harm amalga yeah but we know what's interesting is that most diseases that are chronic diseases are inflammatory diseases yes right heart disease cancer diabetes Alzheimer's stroke I mean these are all inflammatory diseases even depression yes inflammatory disease of the brain ad D is inflammation that brain autism is inflammation of the brain and so you know what's really interesting about this gut issue is that when the barrier breaks down and you're basically like a an area the size of a tennis court if you laid your intestines out flat and it's like you know one cell thick so you basically one cell away from a sewer you know on the other side important celery yeah it's like and and that can get damaged and when that does the things leak in like you said and you've got 60% of your immune system right under that layer mm-hmm which then reacts to whatever's coming through that's not supposed to come through yeah so your body is actually doing its job creating the inflammation yeah it's just that your guts leaky and there's stuff getting in you shouldn't be getting in right and then and then you start to not feel so good Yeah right like you mentioned fatigue or brain fog or or joint pain or swelling in the body we see a lot of people holding onto water or or swelling or congestion or and then that whole cycle of autoimmunity also yeah so it's really a you know one of the most prevalent problems and so why are we having all this leaky gut right that's a great question right and it's so much because of our crummy food supply talk about a food supply that we've been putting a bunch of you know pesticides and antibiotics into which is just shifting our microbiota and I mean it's life a sate from the ground up the weed killer that's on almost our GMO foods and even wheat products mm-hmm is one of the biggest damages of your microbiome forget to to cause cancer whether you can argue that or not but it does it disrupt your microbiome right right and you know we of course are trying as physicians not to prescribe as much antibiotics for our patients but so many of us have taken unfortunately too many antibiotics and then our food supply right you know what we're using so much antibiotics and our food supply to grow bigger cows for example and that's just shifting our whole that whole microbiota in our gut it's true and I read a paper recently about emulsifiers in food which is using all processed food to make it thick or you know solidify it hold it together and and these emulsifiers like carrageenan and anthem gum and they even had this thing called microbial translate amylase which is basically bacteria made gluten you can believe that and the reason is all gluten is because it's like glue so makes things together make the food stick together right but is highly damaging to the gut and so you've got all these processed food ingredients in food that are linked to autoimmunity yes right so it's not even a and then of course the starch and the sugar the processed oils all damage your gut and then of course the lack of fiber the lack of phytochemicals in our diet electric food foods prebiotic foods probiotic foods like I had sauerkraut for lunch yesterday I mean we don't need that stuff and it's so important and we've seen so much damage to our gut because of all of these various factors in our diet and then of course there's the acid blockers that we take for everything right antibiotics you mentioned hormones can smith up your gut bacteria yeah no steroids can do it and so you end up with antibiotics obviously end up with this horrible cascade of people with gut issues it's the number one reason people go to so much of it now it's it's crazy isn't it I mean it's so many people are coming in with with digestive issues with and and symptoms of inflammation in their body but it's it's it's it's really common even if people are coming to us for other reasons yeah we're seeing okay it's the gut and we've got to start with the gut and pay attention to what's going on there I mean a functional medicine has been thinking about this for decades and you know now there's no microbiome revolution are we talking about it there's huge industry development around and there was talking about probiotics and it's not and and we've been focusing for decades on the simple fact that most of our chronic illnesses start in the gut yes and whatever the name of the problem you have whether it's migraines or whether it's depression yeah or whether it's diabetes or obesity I mean I heard arthritis or autism whatever you got to start with the gut and and traditional medicine like leaky gut is not a thing like you go to the doctor if you have arthritis or like how's your gut Cardiology how's your gut even though there's so much research showing the connection you don't get trained and so right there's this huge gap right now where the science has advanced so far but the practice hasn't right and then functional medicine we've been really great at actually getting the memo that the gut is at the center of our health right so for years right we we've learned about that five our program with function functional medicine and and and how helpful that can be to heal the digestive system and then and then heal all these symptoms or diseases that somebody has yeah means amazing I was talking to the CEO of Cleveland Clinic recently and was telling you about studies that he'd heard about that had used fecal transplants in autistic kids yeah and taking the poop out of a healthy kid and put them in an autistic kid and the kids autism goes away it's phenomenal I mean that's not true for all kids with autism but it's funny I mean yes it's amazing where they're doing transplants from people who are thin to people or diabetic and their blood sugar gets better right I mean I had a guy once who was a really great patient and he was very poorly controlled diabetic on lots of medications and we worked on his diet it helped a lot took it down from like 200 to like the one twenties or so but I never could get it all the way down it was a really good diet and exercise and he was telling me he had a bunch of digestive issues and so I said you know why don't you take some charcoal and do this and do that and and he called me back he says I don't know what happened but my blood Sugar's went to 90 right so we absorbed all the toxic crap in his gut that was causing inflammation that was causing his blood sugar imbalance these are the kinds of things that we do every day in functional medicine but that are not part of traditional care and people are missing out on right right when we're saying why is that why is this going on how do we get to that underlying root cause for that individual person hi everyone hope you're enjoying the episode before we continue we have a quick message from dr. Mark Hyman about his new company pharmacy and their first product the 10 day reset hey it's dr. Hyman do you have FL see what's FL see it's when you feel like crap it's a problem that so many people suffer from and often have no idea that it's not normal or that you can fix it I mean you know the feeling it's when you're super sluggish your digestion is off you can't think clearly or you have brain fog or you just feel rundown can you relate I know most people can but the real question is what the heck do we do about it well I hate to break the news but there's no magic bullet FLC isn't caused by one single thing so there's not one single solution however there is a systems-based approach a way to tackle the multiple root factors that contribute to FLC and I call that system the 10-day reset the 10-day reset combines food key lifestyle habits and targeted supplements to address FLC straight-on it's a protocol that I've used with thousands of my community members to help them get their health back on track it's not a magic bullet it's not a quick fix it's a system that works if you want to learn more and get your health back on track click on the button below or visit get pharmacy commnets get pharmacy with an FFA RM Acy com now back to this week's episode so you've got some amazing cases and I think I'd like to sort of get into it because you know people don't understand how so many of our issues come from the gut and how easy it is to diagnose it and treat it and we use tests that traditional doctors just don't do like we yep have a different set of lenses a different set of filters that we can sort through information and data and ask questions that traditional doctors can't like how do you measure leaky gut how do you look at the microbiome in the gut how do you look at the digestive function that God how do you actually start to treat it in a different way and your your first case is just so rich with a story that is so common that I just love you to share this because I think I think everybody's gonna arrest into this story and by the way I have never seen this patient as your patient but I have literally seen the same story a hundred times or maybe 500 times thousand times in my breath same freaking story right so tell us about this so it was a 24 year old gentleman who came in to see me and was really struggling over the last year with his digestive system he was having a lot of bloating and gas pain in his stomach every time he ate he was having diarrhea and sometimes he was getting constipated and he he went to his traditional GI doctor and they told him you have irritable bowel and but he he wasn't getting any better right and he was just really he was because he was having so much stomach pain he had lost some weight so he wasn't you know he it was on the thin side to begin with hmm but because he was having stomach pain when he ate he was unable to eat as much and he was even losing more weight he was feeling really weak and tired and sad depressed right and so for him the time well for everyone the timeline is so important right that's what we are we to learn we learn in functional medicine is the gathering that information learning about that individual patients story see we start we start we start with a history with the mother and her pregnancy and the birth and why are they breastfed and where they took antibiotics whether they were sick as a kid what happened when they were introduced to food when they got gluten dare we ask all these questions so when someone comes in with irritable bowel the average GI guy is not asking all these questions right so why do we ask us question oh because for this gentleman for example you know he really didn't have stomach pain before a year ago but what we found out is that when he was a kid he had ear infections so very probably so it's such a common connection I remember months being the ER Liz and I this patient came in and this little boy keeps coming back and like the toddler was coming back over and over to the ER with ear infections and yeah it's just so inflamed and I said how was he like and like did you breastfeed yeah so when did he start getting the ear infections when we started formula and dairy and milk I don't like oh okay and even before I knew about functional medicine I know and I was like well maybe you shouldn't he did yeah yeah the kid was fine you know it's that's such a such a common connection I mean even my son with when he started dairy he got asthma and eczema it was it's it's unfortunately such a common connection so for this child he had a lot of your infections and and and and eczema and so he was on antibiotics about once or twice a year in his childhood and he really didn't think that was very much yeah he's like that's not saying you know that wasn't too much but you know it makes a huge impact on the microbiome as we're learning mm-hm and then he started to have acne as a teenager hmm maybe because of dairy more right or or some of the imbalances right when you when you screw up the gut with antibiotics or a c-section or lack of breastfeeding mm-hm then you get often more acne yes you know we treat acne on the from the from the top in as opposed to the inside out which is actually where it works much better and this this gentleman was given low dose antibiotics for two years so then he took even more antibiotics and so this history of antibiotics sort of set him up and about a year ago he had some sort of stomach bug so some probably viral stomach infection and then since that time he started to have all these digestive issues and was losing weight and so he's a common story people are so good I said this sort of smouldering a bunch of insults over the course of their life you know they're a c-section any box as a kid they took acne antibiotics they got you know they were eating a crappy diet whatever and all of a sudden something happens and then boom the body right can't take it anymore yeah it creates some kind of disease yeah and if you look at the story you can often map out exactly how this happens that connection with his acne with it with his asthma with his digestive issues with those antibiotics that's that story we often see and we're not making this up there's so much science that shows that your gut microbiome plays a role in acne and eczema asthma that it plays I mean we're actually doing this at Cleveland Clinic now we're studying asthma and looking at how the microbiome plays a role and how it affects inflammation all these various factors that most doctors don't pay attention to right so with him as we do with most of our patients we do food first right so we said okay we've got to really focus on this person's diet and help him start feeling better right away so he can start to eat more and regain some of his strength so we pulled away inflammatory foods we took them off a gluten and dairy while we were waiting for tests to come back you know sometimes we will do some tests that look at of course we'll test for celiac disease or which is a big cause of leaky gut yep that's for sure probably not number one and he didn't have that but by the way you don't have to have celiac disease to actually have a problem right you can have they call non-celiac gluten sensitivity I would estimate it probably affects 20% of the population and I think if you look at the antibody levels you can get a clue which most doctors don't look at it yeah I read a study that autistic kids and schizophrenic patients often have 20% of them have anybodies to gluten yeah it may not be full-blown celiac absolutely and and even you know irregardless of even if it people are negative totally for celiac if they have increased intestinal permeability they start reacting to a lot of different foods yeah so then you start to see with that with that leaky gut as we talked about before right the coffee filter and things are coming through then the body's reacting to lots of foods that it may be never reacted to before so there are true allergies they're more like sensitivities and because of and the real thing is because of this increased intestinal permeability yeah so our job is we have to heal that increased intestinal permeability so that they don't have to be so restrictive with their foods I mean still always want them to be on a healthy diet but but we want to we want to relax those restrictions over time most of the time we can yeah and so it's part of the approach of functional medicine we start them on the elimination diet so eliminating all the inflammatory foods gluten dairy processed foods all that stuff and then you move right you move five hours we've removed replace Rhian oculi repair yes and we'll go into each of those because they're really important but the the the this next step is also there's other things we may need to remove there's a test we need to do so what kind of tests would you look at as a functional medicine doctor that you wouldn't see at a traditional doctor's office they'd give us a road map of how to treat these patients right so we did a stool test that looked at his microbiome and what we noticed is that there was an overgrowth of unhealthy bacteria and unhealthy yeast so he had this you know probably because of years of antibiotics he developed this dysbiosis this imbalance in the bacteria and yeast and so there was an overgrowth of the unhealthy things it's like we've having a lot of weeds in your garden yeah right right it's not it's it's not always like one of those do you think of a stomach infection and you're getting really really sick you're throwing up or having diarrhea this is this it's a it's an imbalance and it's called dysbiosis but that imbalance causes a lot of symptoms in people when you have the wrong bacteria and the wrong yeast levels you know you can get a lot of bloating after you eat you can get a lot of fatigue after you eat you can get those symptoms of constipation and diarrhea and and that causes this inflammation in the digestive system so all of your digestive enzymes don't work well so you're not breaking down your food well you're not absorbing your nutrients well and it becomes this vicious cycle that people are dealing with and we see all the time yeah it's so it's so powerful so so you know you know when I see a patient like okay you don't do all the tests but sometimes you get stuck you look at you know various has to look at antibodies against things that that are in the gut that the terminally he got right we call it xyrix to testing which is a test you can get you can write is there you can test to see if there's leaky gut I love that test too because it's a great way for us to follow up and see how much we're sealing seeing improvement are we doing enough right um are we seeing improvement in in there leaky gut or increased intestinal and then we look at the poop testing like you know where we do thousands and thousands of these tests and it's so helpful and it doesn't just look at the microbiome it actually looks at the function of the gut yes like whether there's malabsorption whether you have no digestive enzymes whether there's inflammation whether there's overactive antibodies in there whether you have imbalances and we call the short chain fats which are the the the food for the colon that are produced by bacteria eating the right kinds of fiber and if they're low it means there's an imbalance and we look at the microbiome until it grows we look at parasites and then we we target and micro target that things that are out of balance for that person and it's different for everybody mm-hmm and we might look at food sensitivity testing we might look good at dumb and even things like heavy metals or other things which can also cause it I had a patient with ulcerative colitis once and I did everything right I did the whole five are I wasn't working but I forgot the first part of the arm which is remove and I thought well maybe you know heavy metals can cause our immunity maybe it's a problem and so I tested him and he was like wasted away and he was like it was terrible he actually had high levels of mercury we treated mercury in his colitis went away so ice phenomena yeah yeah so I think it's it's so powerful this case is so important because it really describes how a patient you know goes traditional doctor is diagnosed with a disease irritable bowel syndrome by the way tell me her syndrome it means doctors know what the heck's going on it's just a collection of symptoms that we agree we're gonna put in this bucket and if you have those symptoms you have this disease but it's not really a disease and and so that's what functional medicine is this sort of looks upstream to figure out what the root causes are and and and personalize the treatment for everybody and there's common things that we do like the five are but it's maybe different ours for each patient right right right so for him we removed you know the inflammatory foods and we removed the bacteria and yeast I actually treated him with an an antibiotic a non absorbed antibiotic and an antifungal so I treated him with persuasion medication my weed killer so that was the remove right and then the replace because he was underweight and because of that inflammation in his digestive system I gave him some digestive enzymes for a short period of time just to help him he's helped it so the food wasn't as inflammatory for him and to help him absorb more nutrients and then we then we worked on rien occu lating right so after we gave him some good probiotics but in the healthy bacteria put in the healthy bacteria some good right so we know that the prebiotics are the are the things that help feed the good bacteria so they're the food for the probiotics which is usually what like like fibers fibers are amazing prebiotics we know a lot of phytonutrients are prebiotics so this I think is really exciting research when we're looking at our phytonutrients you know we know that phytonutrient right I know it's amazing right so so our food has has minerals in it it has vitamins but it also has these things called phytonutrients which are these components in our plant foods that have this amazing health benefits for us so that can include things like ellagic acid that we see in pomegranate that can feed some of the good bacteria that akram anthea that we know can lower inflammation we know that just just to back up on that Ekrem ancien thing so when we look at the poop we can tell if there's like good levels of different bugs yeah one of them we look at is Ackerman's here and it turns out that that is so important for protecting your gut it helps you keep your biofilm or that little coating over the gut so you don't have a leaky gut and it's involved in so many autoimmune diseases and response to cancer therapy and metabolic issues and weight and it's such an overlooked thing you can't take a probiotic of it at least not yeah right but you can feed it the good guy we can feed it we can feed it with all these amazing phytonutrients like the what's in pomegranate the elegiac acid and also we know that so fear of fame from our cruciferous vegetables feeds the good bacteria yeah you know Brock the collards kale but not juicing it right Brussels brats all those good ones we know that green tea you know that has good phytonutrients in it that's good for the digestive system so we always say to people you know get something from every color of the rainbow every day you know your get some plant foods from every color of the rainbow every day get some good red foods like the pomegranate or cranberry yeah get something orange and yellow and green blue purple white tan you know those all those good healthy plant foods and that we you know like our vegetables or fruits or spices our teas or coffees really actually are impacting our microbiome which is is fascinating so great and you know just a great anecdote from a colleague of mine dr. lead was on our pot is talking about eat to be diseased his mother had Stage four uterine cancer and being the smart dock he is he understood from the research that if you have low a cure man sia patients don't respond to the amino Theory what they call the checkpoint inhibitors which is this new form of cancer therapy that helps activate your immune system so if your gut isn't healthy you can't actually get the cancer cells to die with the immunotherapy right so basically you die unless you have good bacteria in your gun so his mother was at Stage four uterine cancer was gonna die and wasn't responding and he gave her pomegranate cranberry green tea all these phytochemicals not her akram and sea levels up and she was cured of her stage four cancer within a month that's a phenomenal story it's an incredible story and I think that just showed the power of these plant foods of plant foods and of getting focused on the gut yes yes I I you know we called the five are I call it the weeding seeding and feeding program so I weed out the bad things you see with good things and your feet it would good so yeah it's really it's it's so it's so powerful I I can't tell you you know as a functional medicine doctor for the last 30 years and you you know been doing this almost as long the the results you get from focusing on the gut mm-hmm with so many conditions whether it's autoimmune or that's allergic whether its digestive whether it's your skin issues like acne and eczema whether it's your mood it's weed metabolism whether it's migraines whether it's Alzheimer's I mean autism ATD it's just amazing when you start to focus in on this so let's break down the the 5-hour program for everybody so we got the remove so what are we looking at removing removing unhealthy foods or inflammatory foods for that person so they can be food sensitivities sensitivities and then we're removing losses food and junk that's for sure and sugars and you know excess sugar which is feeding the wrong bacteria and then we're removing the unhealthy bugs on or or yeast or viral growth used to overgrowth a parasite yep you know I was on the red Tabletalk and Jada and her son both had parasites and they both had gut issues for a long long time right and they thought it was just how they were why would you know short little course of treatment they were both I've never felt better right and all the other symptoms now you're actually absorbing the nutrients you're eating which just helps the body heal yeah so so then so you remove and we replace you might also remove things like heavy metals all right yes or right toxic people in your life or whatever's giving you a stomach drop replace means just to replace some of those digestive enzymes if needed reenact you late as well we the replace also could be like prebiotics right so putting in the fibers to feed the gut and to to actually maybe use hydrochloric acid sometimes for people who aren't digesting their food as they get older yeah and to help get them off of the acid blockers which you know we know are creating a lot of problems because we need that acid in our stomach to digest our food okay let's take a little detour so you've mentioned acid blockers uh-huh okay these are among the most prevalent drugs prescribed today in America other statins I think when I was in medical school and in the 80s and we we just had those drugs come on the market the drug reps used to come to us and say these are very powerful drugs never use them for more than six weeks because they block stomach acid and don't cause significant problems if you do that long term right you can cure an ulcer with it you can fix an acute problem but never use this now people are on this for decades yes and it and and the the side effect which is listed in the you know manuals that we get as doctors is that it causes irritable bowel syndrome right so you end up fixing the heartburn but you get irritable bowel and bloating and bacterial overgrowth all these problems right because you need the acid in your stomach and when you block that acid then there can be an overgrowth of bacteria where there's not supposed to be that can cause all those slew of problems you use tissues and all the stuff and then you don't you're not absorbing your minerals so you can get osteoporosis and you're not absorbing your b12 so you can get fatigue and dementia right it just goes on and yeah he'll absorb zinc and magnesium minerals calcium and cause osteoporosis pneumonia it causes you know right yeah it's so it's and it's it takes some work sometimes when people have been on an acid blocker for a long time it takes some work for us to help clean them off because their body has gotten pretty used to it they they start to get their bodies their body wants to make acid so it's it's working against the medicine so when you lean them down sometimes they get more acid production three down so you actually yeah and it's sort of a trick like you get off it but it makes you worse so you feel like I got it but it's actually not true right actually get off it absolutely you do that all the time you do it all the time so reenact you late giving all the good prebiotics and probiotics the good bacteria and all the things that feed the good bacteria and then the fourth R is repair I don't know what probiotics it take oh that's a great question we could talk about that for the next yes it's true right there's a lot there's more and more probiotics that market every day and a lot of different roles and different functions I'm sort of honestly I think you know we've been doing this forever but feels to me like we're at the infancy of this understanding of how do you have sees in medicine yeah so what I mean there's some great brands that I trust and I use all the time but when when somebody is you know doesn't maybe know what to do I'll say you know get one get go to a reputable place a reputable pharmacy or a good wellness store pharmacy and and get a probiotic you know try it if it makes you feel worse then stop it you know because there's some there's some good bacteria that make people feel worse bad bugs growing in there and you put the good bugs in there they have a fight yeah and so that means we just have to do more work before we can start it yeah so so you got to reenact you late then yeah and then repair yeah and that's the fourth are so that's things like that's like giving good protein good amino acids which are the building blocks of proteins from times where yeah to help repair that barrier that that that coffee filter right we have to repair it with good protein and sometimes we use amino acids like glutamine that help repair it well we'll give more zinc whether it's from food sources or as a supplement maybe we'll give some vitamin A which also helps with healing that barrier it helps with healing the endothelium in the gut so those are things we will do to repair and then and then rebalance right that's the fifth are which is really focused on managing our stress and how we're reacting to the world because we know that when our parasympathetic nervous system is engaged when that calming nervous system is engaged through meditation and yoga and breath work that our body has has the ability to heal and it heals better when our body is is is that at rest I mean yeah you know you just touched on something very powerful which is that our our gut and our brain are connected there's a whole hardwiring of nervous system in our gut even has this independent nervous system that actually is like a second brain yeah and and so you know was you know we have to say people are irritable bowel or emotional or anxious or have you know just now adaptive emotional coping mechanisms but it turns out that that the irritable bowel actually can cause an interval brain and lead to anxiety and all these emotional issues so it's a bi-directional and I think that's a great lever for helping people reset their gut absolutely you know I I just want to share a story because I you know I've been doing it for a long time and of course my my I don't know what it is curse or Blessing depending how you look at it is is actually getting really sick and having to figure out what to do to fix myself and and I've had a lot of gut issues over the years which is why I really focus on this the first is when I had mercury poisoning you know I tried everything I did every functional medicine trick in the book back then and it wasn't working right until I got the mercury out which disrupts all your enzymes it disrupts your God it causes leaky gut it causes yeast overgrowth it's cause of the bacteria in your gut it's like I've heard of the mercury for my system I couldn't get my gut straight yeah impacting your immune system too right right and then and then I appears many years later I you know kind of got an issue which was triggered by an antibiotic for a root canal that I had to take home clindamycin which is known to cause c-diff which is a terrible bacterial infection that kills like 30,000 people a year yeah and I got that yeah and I was so sick and I and you know Liz would come over to my house and I was like it was pretty bad I'm like we're all struggling to figure out right yeah and I had mold in my house all these other things but I ended up having colitis and I had tremendous leaky gut and I did my own stool tests in my friend Patrick hanaway who worked for the stool test company for many years my colleague at Cleveland Clinic he and I looked at my stool tests and we probably that between the two of the seen like 20,000 stool tests like this is the worst one we've ever seen and everything was screwed up and I had all no good bacteria I had low butyrina it was nothing that just ding I had tons of inflammation it was terrible and and I couldn't really fix it using a lot of the traditional things and then I started to sort of work on a gut shake which included a lot of the sort of five-hour concepts right so I clean up my diet obviously I got rid of the bad bugs but I used a combination of these polyphenols from the plants a pomegranate cranberry green tea also added you know glutamine I added prebiotics probiotics I even added colostrum you know which is to help regulate the immune system and it was like a miracle I had went from full-blown fly it is to like normal in three weeks and I've been great ever since and you know it's just like wow this is something that people can actually do it's not that hard it's not drugs and the alternatives are like really bad drugs right so you know we want to go to the next case which was sort of not about people with a gut syndrome cuz people out think oh well if I have a leaky gut or if I have got related problems I'm gonna know it my stomach's not gonna be right I'm gonna feel symptoms but that's just not always the case so the first case was a guy who did have a typical history of you know antibiotics and acne and some infection and then you know diet and all this stuff and that was pretty clear but there are many cases where people come in and they have zero gut symptoms but their guts a mess and it's causing all these issues so tell us about your your next case of this patient with a 50 year old woman who came in and she didn't have any real digestive issues that she was paying attention to or that were bothering her what was bothering her were her joints so she was having a lot of joint pain especially in her hands and she was starting to get a lot of swelling and deformity and she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis really common yep and her rheumatologist wanted to put her on a biologic medication he wanted to start her on umbral and so by the way these are drugs that suppress your immune system that can cause life-threatening infections and increased risk for cancer that cost fifty thousand a year so it's not risk-free and it's super costly and it can save lives and it can be a great rescue medicine yep people need it but most of the time using functional medicine not all the time but most the time you can figure out the puzzle of why they're sick and fix that and then they get better and they don't need the medication right so she and she wanted to try it a different way so she came to see us and said you know what before I go on this medication can we do it a different way can I can I can I can my body heal and can I get to the point where I don't need this medication and and so we did a lot of testing on her and what we found and by the way the testing can somebody be expensive but it's a lot cheaper than a lifelong course of these medicines and the suffering that goes along with it right so if you have spent a few thousand dollars up front to figure it out you know you can stop having to pay 50 grand a year for the medication for the rest of your life and you feel so much better yeah and so so we found out that she had increased intestinal permeability we did that test that you were mentioning earlier that's cyrex - which looks at antibodies against different proteins in the digestive system and if they're elevated it gives us an indication that there's that increased intestinal permeability and and hers was really really high yeah and she had no symptoms no and she had no symptoms right and one of the markers on there was high that makes me also think okay is there really a gluten issue for this person because because we know that that can damage as you were mentioning earlier that for people with celiac disease that really can damage the that end of that that those villi in the intestines and is a major cause for leaky gut yeah so well just that's interesting point you bring up gluten so even if you don't have celiac you can still have issues and and one of our our functional medicine faculty dr. Alessi of Asano's one of the world's experts on leaky gut and gluten yes and and he discovered this because he found that you know in cholera when there's a mechanism in the body that actually causes you to have a leaky gut and sort of get rid of the infection and it can kill people if it's bad enough but he realized that the same thing that gets activated collar X and they called azan Ewan yeah it's activated by gluten yeah so gluten causes this protein to be produced that creates a leaky gut and you don't actually have to have celiac and you could even have what we call non cell mediated immune response which is the old ancient immune system that doesn't even use antibodies so you can even measure it or test it right so inflammation it's inflammation sort of like it's like you know there between a smart bomb and like you know carpet-bombing you know like it's it's like sort of an ancient part of the museum just reacts and gets pissed off and inflamed and that can cause a leaky gut so when people have highs on levels or create antibodies to silence meaning there's some issue with the gluten yes yes and so you know we we said when we saw her intestinal permeability test we said okay we've really got a focus on these five hours with you and we went out and we went on to find also a bacterial overgrowth we found a bacterial overgrowth in her digestive system and we found a bacterial overgrowth in her in her mouth so we we know that there's been really interesting studies showing that when there's certain bacteria in the in the oral cavity that have been associated with autoimmune disease so gingivitis or inflammation in the gums from a bacterial overgrowth has been associated with auto auto immune disease in some people and I think for her there was we saw that connection because we saw some elevated levels of unwanted bacteria in her mouth yeah and we saw some unwanted bacteria in her digestive system what does she need like mouthwash yeah you know I mean you can you can treat you can treat the bacterial overgrowth in the mouth you can treat it with certain types of dental care scaling and root planning we also used a a herbal she wanted to go the whole herbal route so we used an herbal rinse for her mouth and herbal toothpaste and an herbal rinse that helps get rid of the overgrowth of one wanted bacteria we use some good probiotics that you actually chew and that they give back mouths probiotics yeah well and we used we also used an herbal regimen that for the digestive system to get rid of that bacterial overgrowth because what what they're learning right is that there's certain bacteria that when they cross into the body when they're not supposed to they trigger the immune system and they trigger this autoimmune process and they trigger that inflammation and then the body gets confused and it starts fighting off you know it's joint space when it's not supposed to yeah they may be genetics like did gene I think is dr4 or something which which is associated with increased susceptibility room arthritis in the face of certain gut infections and we we know this from manis we were trained in medical school that if you have certain bacteria like your Sania you can get arthritis or if you have entamoeba histolytica which is a parasite you can get rheumatoid arthritis so we can learn this as traditional medicine doctors but we sort of have don't pay attention the fact that it may be more broad than that yep and I think you know you also mentioned the overgrowth the bacteria so I think people might be wondering well isn't there a ton of bacteria in your gut anyway what's the big deal right so but there's some bacteria that that are good back I mean we can put them in the category of good and some that we that we don't think are as good and that have been associated with inflammation in the body and autoimmunity so it's really it's all about balance that can go where they're not supposed to go right absolutely so like the small intestine is where you get most of leaky gut and what happens is sometimes those bacteria that should should shouldn't be there kind of migrated up into the small intestine which is like twenty-two feet and then start to grow and then when you eat them sorry when you eat certain foods it caught a cause of that food to ferment because the bacteria is there it's we get the food baby and the blowing and the yep and that's a big that's a big clue for people if you have bloating after eating yes that is a big clue you know it's it's not normal you should not know you have a digestive system and I told like two minutes for you have to go to the bathroom you go to the bathroom in five minutes or less and you're done that's it like but people don't realize that the other constipation the bloating that weird album is the diarrhea there don't bow it's so common yeah so for this woman we did of course the five hour program we removed gluten we removed those bacteria we used an herbal protocol and then we then we reenact you lated right we we gave a lot of the good bacteria the pre and probiotics and we did a lot of nutrients just to help her body heal right the vitamin A the zinc the colostrum you mentioned before and really worked with her to help with managing her stress and you know she was able to avoid the biologic medications got better her joints got better her energy got better the inflammation in her body got went down she actually lost a bunch of weight as you know you know as a side effect she was happy with that side effect yeah that's a good side effect yeah she that she was happy with that so she really got much better so that was it was exciting to see and we see this all across the board when we start focusing that God and yeah he got whether it's you know allergies or asthma or migraines or autoimmune diseases or light I mean it's just it's amazing how powerful it is and and this is the one thing that functional medicine spoke asan that the traditional medicine is almost uniquely ignored and man I remember when I was at Canyon Ranch probably 25 years ago and I was talking to a bunch of doctors who were they were guests there and we were having a dinner and I started talking about Lieb he got and it was an allergist there and she's like that it's just such garbage and nonsense it's not true but now it's really different and now there's enormous amounts of research going on about they got microbiome and about leaky gut and now they're looking at treating in the ICU and it's right it's like it's like wow we've really taken a huge turn in the last 30 years right right right it's really great but I think again if you're suffering from any kind of inflammatory issue if you're having any kind of cognitive behavioral mood issue if you're struggling with any kind of sinus or allergy stuff or any gut stuff you've got to find a doctor who really understands how to work with the gut yeahwe and and the truth is it's not that hard it's like once you figure it out and how to navigate but but we need to sort of just review what we talked about cuz it's so it's so compelling and I think that that most people don't really grapple with this idea but that leaky gut is a thing that it causes a whole range of conditions we just talked about the traditional medicine ignores it that there's a really great test for it right there's really great tests to look at food sensitivities that your microbiome and your God and all the factors overgrowth of bacteria use parasites that'll tell you exactly what you need to do and then you use functional medicine to fix the problem using this five hour approach which we kind of went through with these patients and even diabetes is caused by leaky cup yes right yes because the the metabolic toxins get in the system and in anything that tries inflammation causes weight gain right those lipopolysaccharides right right and there's a whole like yeah a lot of science about this so it's pretty exciting and then and then people can start to change what they're eating to include more prebiotic foods include probiotic foods more fiber foods or phytochemicals and phytonutrients they can do things to help their gut repair or using enzymes or Pro prebiotics and using gut repair nutrients like we talked about vitamin A C so all sort of item AED and and gluten oxide glutamine and zinc and that really is an incredible roadmap for people to heal their gut and to heal all these chronic conditions and this what we do with the Ultra Wellness Center day in and day out we've been doing it for 25 years together 15 years of the ultra Wellness Center and I I think I just want people to understand that they don't have to just suffer people just suffer needlessly when there are ways to heal these problems that are quite different from what you get in traditional medicine and that's what we do at the Ultra Wellness Center in Lenox Massachusetts we have you know four incredible doctors to piays well I'm one of the doctors so I can't call myself incredible but I think you're incredible I think I'm okay I think I do all right and and and we have an incredible team of nutritionists and we see people from all over the world to deal with these chronic issues and we'd love to welcome you there you go to dr. Hyman calm /uw see that's for Ultra Wellness Center dr. Hyman calm /uw see so it's been great having you Liz on this week's house call of doctors pharmacy I really love the conversation it's just so deep and beautiful and I hope people get something out of it if you enjoyed this minisode of the doctors pharmacy share with your friends and family on social media subscribe wherever you get your podcast leave a comment I'd love to hear from you and we'll see you next time on the doctors pharmacy Thank You Marc you

Channel: Mark Hyman, MD

Views: 59,959

Rating: 4.8490944 out of 5

Keywords: leaky gut, gut health, ibs, autoimmune, rheumatoid arthritis, functional medicine, fecal transplants, diabetes, dr. mark hyman, dr. elizabeth boham, ultrawellnss center, microbiome, prebiotics, probiotics

Id: IwfEK72c3sg

Length: 48min 18sec (2898 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 20 2020