I want to touch a little more on the concept of leaky gut. The previous videos I had done I talked about leaky gut as being a breakdown of the space that occurs between the cells of the digestive tract, what are called these tight junctions. They start to open up and you start to get food proteins and other metabolic toxins from yeast and bacteria or anything we absorb from our food or water that we take into our digestive tract and now gain entry into the bloodstream with a leaky gut.

There is no one particular treatment for leaky gut. There are various supplements that have been shown to help with leaky gut and the integrity and health of the digestive system. Probiotics like acidophilus and bifidobacter and saccharomyces boulardii which is a type of yeast that helps to fight other types of yeast in the digestive system, help with leaky gut.

Dietary control from the gluten free, casein free diet, to the specific carbohydrate diet, to the low oxalate diet, for kids on the spectrum can help decrease inflammation in the digestive tract which aids in treating leaky gut. Any time that you decrease inflammation in the digestive tract you create an opportunity for the gut lining to heal and to regenerate. We know certainly with anyone has Celiac’s disease, which is a genetic intolerance to gluten, that can cause a blunting of the digestive surface and over time can lead to a leaky gut situation. So in those cases you need to remove gluten to allow for that inflammatory process to diminish and for the mucosal barrier, which is the lining of the gut and the mucosal barrier is the mucous that gets produced, to regenerate.

Glutamine is a particular amino acid product that has been shown to be helpful as a nutritive amino acid for the digestive tract and in treating leaky gut. Cayenne is an herb that also has been shown to increase blood flow to the digestive system, it helps stimulate secretory IgA production and so too that can also be a useful remedy for leaky gut. It is being shown that turmeric or the active ingredient in turmeric called curcumin can be helpful for inflammation, not only digestive inflammation but systemic inflammation throughout the body which can also be helpful in treating leaky gut.

So there are a number of things that can be done to help leaky gut. There is not just one treatment that does the same thing for everybody. So if there is a leaky gut situation happening, dietary control, supplement control, controlling yeast and bacteria, make sure you decrease inflammation in general can be helpful for leaky gut.