What in the World is this Leaky Gut Business?

In this informative podcast session, Dr. Rodney and Karen define leaky gut, including reasons why it happens and what you can do about it.

What in the world is leaky gut?
Leaky gut is a term that is often misunderstood by very terms of its name. It actually is a condition that occurs due to gaps in the membrane lining your intestinal wall.

These tiny gaps allow toxic substances that should be confined to your digestive tract to escape into your bloodstream – hence the term leaky gut syndrome.

The toxic substances can come from numerous sources, such as waste products, undigested food particles or even Candida yeast overgrowth. The problem is that they can irritate your intestinal lining, eventually compromising its integrity and allowing a flow of toxic particles to "leak out" into your bloodstream. This flood of leaking particles can also promote an inflammatory reaction from your body that can result in a wide variety of symptoms

Do any of these symptoms describe how you feel?

• Gas and bloating
• Constipation or diarrhea
• Fatigue
• Nausea
• Sugar cravings
• Cravings for junk food

Then you might have leaky gut

Why does leaky gut occur?

Most often leaky gut is caused by poor diet, certain medication and other toxins.
Your gut bacteria are very vulnerable to lifestyle and environmental factors so you need to avoid such as:

• Sugar / fructose
• Refined grains
• Processed foods
• Antibiotics (including antibiotics given to livestock for food production)
• Chlorinated and fluoridated water
• Antibacterial soaps, etc
• Agricultural chemicals and pesticides
• Pollution

What can you do about it?

Repair your digestive health with these lifestyle changes:

• Eat natural whole foods
• Include fermented food
• Take probiotics
• Reduce stress
• Test for sensitivities and address root causes

Dr. Rodney is now a Certified Functional Medicine Practitioner who would love to help you with your digestive issues. You can be tested for food sensitivities and leaky gut right in our office or in the comfort of your own home.

Call 972-802-8812 to set up an introductory call to Root Cause Solutions at Stance for Health.

Functional Medicine works in every system to get you to your healthiest and to boost your longevity.

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Transcript

Karen: Welcome to Stance for Health. We're going to talk about a topic that is a little confusing just by virtue of its very name.

So we're going to talk about leaky gut. What is leaky gut, Doc?

Dr. Rodney: Well, I'm glad you asked, because leaky gut is something that the medical profession and other professions will scoff at because of its name and because if you, if you look down at your belly, you're looking at it, it's like, my, my gut's not leaking.

You know, it's, it's a semantical thing. So, what you might actually hear it listed as is increased gut permeability or increased intestinal permeability or gut barrier or intestinal barrier integrity.

Those are, those are some of the interchangeable things. And what we're actually talking about is the single cell junction. We talked about it last time. You know, the closer I get to Karen, the more I'm, you know, we're.

Karen: Like, nothing can get through.

Dr. Rodney: Nothing can get through that's not supposed to get through. And so what we talked about last time was we actually defined one of the systems as a problem that if you don't have good gut, intestinal gut barrier integrity, that what you're actually doing is you're actually signaling inflammation, inflammation in a general way throughout your whole body.

Karen: And so what you're talking about, we talked about this in our last podcast. If you want to know a little bit more about that, go back and listen to that. But tell us if I don't want to do that.

Tell, tell me what I'm talking about with that selective permeability. What is this barrier about in the gut?

Dr. Rodney: Okay, so you, you have something that's designed to be something that draws in from this little stream of, of food that's traveling through food in progress. We'll call it nutrients. Right?

And it's, and I'm, I'm speaking specifically about the microvilli or the villi that are almost like fingers, hair, you know, arms that are sticking out from these.

Karen: Your arms are so long they're not showing the fingers.

Dr. Rodney: Single cell, single cells that have project that and then there's microvilli on top of those. So we're talking about several parking lot size surface areas for absorbing nutrients in your small intestine and in some cases large intestine.

There's not quite the same kind of apparatus on those cells in there, but there's still single cells that are attached to, we'll call it fascia or connective tissue. But in general, there's really only one cell that separates the inside of your gut with your bloodstream.

Karen: That's awesome. And so the bad, the good guys would be the food and the what your immune system needs to operate properly. The bad guys would be endotoxins, stuff that didn't digest, pro inflammatory compounds, things that would get through and shouldn't.

So how, what are some symptoms? How will I know if I have leaky gut?

Dr. Rodney: Well, that's the challenge is that so many of the things that we talk about are stress related that when we say stress, what we're really saying is distress. Both physical stress, like when you get in a car collision, you actually increase the gut permeability because of the, the things that are holding the cells together starts to break down.

And because it breaks down in your head by virtue, we talked about this last time, by virtue of the bloodstream, it actually sends the same messages, the same white blood cells to the sites.

Karen: And who is not stressed.

Dr. Rodney: Right.

Karen: So will I. Well, I have heart burn. What, what are some of my issues?

Dr. Rodney: And, and if you're listening to this and you're going, well, like Karen just says, like, just throw your arms in the air and just, just forget it. And then just let, let life happen to you.

So I just, just throw it in there. This is just driving me crazy, this topic of gut permeability.

Karen: How many people do I know that are taking heartburn medicine and that they're occasionally constipated or they have diarrhea, they feel nauseous, or they feel bloated every time they eat. I mean especially we've just had the holidays.

Okay, how did you feel after that? Your stomach was upset.

Dr. Rodney: So on one hand, let's just talk about the ideal situation.

Let's say that on the ideal basis, you're eating enough vegetables, you're eating and you're not eating too many fruits.

Like me, who I tend to eat too, too many mangoes, too much dried mango, dried fruit.

Karen: That was confession time, right? I'm always on his case.

Dr. Rodney: I probably Eat the equivalent of one whole mango per day in dried fruit.

Karen: But on the other hand, I just take a few bites of mango.

Dr. Rodney: I want you to know mango, not mango.

Karen: Say it the right way.

Dr. Rodney: Okay, so what we're talking about here is ideal. So if you're talking about dist.

Hans Selye, who was really the father of stress, really talked about that. He talked about distress as being anything outside of your body's ability to adapt fast enough or quickly enough to keep integrity where it belongs.

Okay, right.

Karen: And what can begin to happen besides these stomach issues though? And I want you to listen to this list because it seems like every time we turn around, people are saying, how are you doing?

You just were talking to somebody in the hall and they said getting older. Didn't they say get.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah, yeah, right. There are certain things that you can't avoid. Right. So what you're really talking about is the difference between your lifespan and your health span. Yeah, right.

Karen: Because look, listen to these. Joint problems, fatigue, general discomfort, skin issues, brain fog. Anyone? Mood issues, sleep problems, respiratory, sniffles of mucus, hormonal disruptions, and out of control cravings. So do any of those fit you?

Dr. Rodney: They used to quite a bit more. Yeah. Easily 80% more than they do presently. None of this is perfect for me, but quite a bit more. I'm a whole. I'm healthier now.

I think you can say you're healthier now than you were five years ago, without a doubt. So what we're getting at is a lifestyle choice. We'll get into the lifestyle choices, but the lifestyle choices that got us here and having this discussion absolutely are at key.

And so what we really have to do is we talked about this in the car on the way here was we have to consider that we've been programmed, whether we like it or not, that there are.

We call them commercials, but they're really propaganda for a product.

Karen: Yeah, let's.

Dr. Rodney: Let's face it. And so since that's propaganda, what we have and it's programming, what we have to really do in these podcasts, Reprogram is reprogram.

Karen: Take your stance.

Dr. Rodney: And some, some folks say, as they say, brainwash.

Karen: Not the end yet.

Dr. Rodney: So it's not. Yeah, so. But it's not. We're not brainwashing you, we are brainwashing you, but we're cleaning. Cleaning. What's the results of brain tainting is what I'd like to say.

Wow.

Karen: So, so how do I, how does this happen then? So those are the signs that are describing most people that live in our country.

Dr. Rodney: Don't you think?

Would you, if you're listening to this or watching this, would you be willing to consider that. And maybe you're the same person in Frankfurt or maybe you're in some other country and you can point at your finger at us and say those silly Americans, they eat this horrible food and they have this horrible system of health care they call healthcare.

It's actually sick care and it's the standard American diet. And you get all sick because your government doesn't protect you from. From itself. And, and you have all these toxins in your food.

And, and you should be banning all these pesticides and herbicides. Be right. Yeah. Those are the things that are hurting us in the United States.

Karen: So the food we eat, especially the fast food industry, because that's the oils. We have whole podcasts on that as well.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: The toxins that are everywhere around us. The.

Dr. Rodney: So basically you're saying in that, in that case, that scenario, industries that help each other.

Karen: Yeah.

Dr. Rodney: They play off of each other. And so in essence, what we have is a system that gets you from your mouth all the way through to the hospital.

Karen: Yeah.

Dr. Rodney: Starting with your mouth all the way through your hospital and your skin and the air you breathe and the, and the light that you're looking at right now, if you're looking at a device, you're looking at it.

Karen: They are.

Dr. Rodney: I know, I know. Backlit blue light.

Karen: But have blue blockers.

Dr. Rodney: Get some blue blockers or change the tint of it. So anyway, that's, that's a whole nother topic.

Karen: So when you begin to have, say joint problems. Most common thing. What's the most common thing that people do for joint issues?

Dr. Rodney: Okay, I'm so glad you asked that. A non steroidal anti inflammatory drug.

Karen: And that another. We call that nsaid.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. Okay, so you're going to take. Let me make. I'm painting a scenario. You have an issue. That's. If you would be willing to consider this. If you're listening to this or watching this, would you be willing to consider that the reason the way you got here was actually the food that you ate or the thoughts that you had or the lifestyle that you led.

And now you want to make the. And you want to take a drug, a chemical that will make the situation worse and you don't know it until now. Maybe you've never heard that before.

Maybe you've never heard that an NSAID will make this worse.

It will. Because zonulin and occluding are designed to keep this gap at a. At the proper level. In other words, I'm designed to stick to her like this. I'm. I have a.

I'm designed.

Karen: You're not bad guys aren't getting through.

Dr. Rodney: Stick to her. Right. And so the, the way that a cell, a single cell works is a little bit like a micro version of you. It actually eats the food. It takes it in and it go.

But in, in reality though, when it gets all the way through and gets processed, it gets that what it, what it eats gets into the bloodstream, which is good broken down food.

Or it's at a, at the right size. It wants to allow for a macromolecule to pass through this way. So you have a couple different ways. But what if that molecule is.

That's. Is there. Is actually bigger? Because the gap is bigger because zonulin, which is a gap junction protein, is degraded. It allowed this, the size of it to get bigger.

Now what happens is a bigger molecule gets in and it triggers that ilk or interleukin 6 or cyto, in other words, cytokine for inflammation. Now that particle now becomes recognized as a what, as a potential invader, an antigen, a stimulator of your immune system.

So anything that looks like it, if it happened to be chicken, what happens when you eat chicken next time?

Karen: Or what happens, you get more inflamed, right?

Dr. Rodney: Or what happens when you eat some other kind of protein that looks like chicken? Remember the old joke is everything tastes like chicken. Well, whatever. What if everything looks like chicken to your immune system?

Now all of a sudden you have a sensitivity, a food sensitivity.

Karen: And so just as an example, when that happens, then what most people find is that they actually crave the thing that's not good for them. Because those out of control cravings is the body is wanting more of that and they're the.

Hence the fatigue, all of these things. And so we're painting a pretty dismal picture because who's not under stress? And, and we're surrounded by the food. We're surrounded by.

Has anybody ever been at an event and said, I have a headache?

10 people at least. Women's events will dig into their purse and say. Some will even say they'll have three or four NSAIDs in there that they brought just in case they got that headache.

Now here's the weirdness that we have is that in our house, we don't have a single insect. We don't have anything for pain because we get to the root.

And so that's what we want to talk about. What can you do about this? Because we've painted the picture well.

Dr. Rodney: Right. And. And what we want you to appreciate if since you've gotten this far and you're listening and watching is that you're coming here for solutions, you're coming here for deprogramming.

And what we really want to do is tell you that if we're telling you the problem, then we have a solution too.

There is a solution out there. It's not as abysmal or dismal as the picture we're painting.

Karen: What I love about what we're doing with Functional medicine is that we're aligned with Functional Medicine University and there is a tool that is a detailed questionnaire that's presented and that we can give to you that you can come to us.

And for a small fee you can take the most detailed questionnaire that's going to identify which systems need to be looked at more closely and if you need additional testing.

And so what we love about that is that we are listening to every part of what's been going on in your body and that has brought you to this point because it's so many factors.

You mentioned stress when we first started. I mean learning we can't ever eliminate stress completely, but we can certainly help support our healthy gut lining and normal intestinal permeability by doing certain things for that.

What do you recommend for that stress?

Dr. Rodney: Well I'm glad you asked that and I'm always glad that you asked those questions. Is you think about three different major types of stress that we all deal with that you just mentioned.

How do we categorize them? We categorize them as physical car accidents.

And a guy that I was just talking to in the hallway. Car accident was a style of car accident was actually a roller coaster ride.

Right. Studying that type of trauma, it will lead you to believe.

Karen: So the guy went on a roller coaster.

Dr. Rodney: Right. And the. The change in velocity is enough on that's a whole nother topic because that's.

Karen: Where I got six flags from our office.

Dr. Rodney: I. I started geeking out on traumatology. That's but that's beside the point. That's one source of trauma can actually open up your calcium gated ion channels as well as the gut blood barrier and the blood brain.

Yeah. It's less physical. Chemical We've been talking about chemical. And now what you're really I think you're getting at is what most of us think of as stress is emotional stress.

In other words distress. Something that you feel like you don't have any control over. And that's number one on the list is how do we deal with out of control boundaries?

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: In other words, you don't feel like you have control. Maybe it's because of a boss. Maybe it's because how you were brought up. Yeah.

Karen: You were told that you can't say no. You've got to be super nice.

Dr. Rodney: Say those things, say those Fs. That. That most of us are way. The way that we deal with fear or the way we deal with anxiety.

Karen: We freeze. We fight. We fawn. And I'm missing one.

Dr. Rodney: Fight. Fight or flight? Flee. Flee. Freeze. Fawn. Is it. Did I say them all just like.

Karen: Yes, yes. Yeah, freeze are fun. I said fun instead of free.

Dr. Rodney: Let's just call them the four Fs. No.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: That's the. That's a.

Karen: And most people have heard of the two. The fight or flight. But some people just do what I just did. My. I had what they call a brain freeze.

Dr. Rodney: So I think what we've gotten into just now is. Is sort of a subcategory and we.

Karen: Can do a whole podcast and we have done those. But what about deep breathing exercises? That does. What we're talking about here is if you're going to restore your gut, your intestinal permeability is a lifestyle.

And being grateful, praying, meditating, spending time in nature, all of those things are so important. You want to limit your exposure also to environmental toxins and support your body's natural detoxification pathways.

So that's a healthy diet once again comes into play.

Now, you need to look carefully at your medications. For example, when you take antibiotics, it's going to get rid of the good guys in your gut. And so you're going to need to take probiotics and eat prebiotics, which help a lot.

As we're going into more in depth in this, we're going to do an entire podcast just about the steps to restore your healthy intestinal permeability.

We are delighted to have you with us and we look forward to other times together to help you take your stance for health. Talk to you soon.

Dr. Rodney: Thank you for joining us at Stance for Health podcast, where getting healthy and staying that way are not as complicated as you might think. Subscribe now and discover steps and small changes that can increase your energy and open the door to virtual, vibrant health and longevity.

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