Do you suffer from Leaky gut? Do you have any of the following symptoms:
- Irritable bowel
- Skin rashes, eczema, rosacea
- Mood disorders
- Candida, or a white coating on your tongue
- High stress
- Excessive gas or bloating?
- Autoimmune disorders
- Do you take medications a lot, or in an on going manner?
If so, you may have leaky gut. The above is not an extensive list of all the ailments that can originate from leaky gut, there are countless others that may stem from, or be affected by this.
Digestive system
Our gut (the hollow tube from the mouth to the, ahem, ‘other end’) should be semi permeable, just like a very fine meshed net. Certain things should be allowed to pass through this net, from the hollow tube (‘gut’) across into our bloodstream. When people suffer with leaky gut, it means this ‘semi’ permeable wall, has in effect become ‘very’ permeable, with big gaps in it. This is akin to a leaking bucket with holes, or a fishing net who’s mesh has mostly collapsed. This allows undigested foods and other matter into our bloodstream, rather than being carried away to our bowel or kidneys for elimination.
Once this occurs, particles that were never meant to gain entry into our body, do so, and in turn create inflammation, allergies and more.
The lining of our gut is a vital barrier and one of our first lines of immune defence. It’s the job of our immune system to work out whether everything that ends up there is friend or foe. There is a vast mucous lined barrier that does most of this work. When this becomes ‘leaky’, many health problems can arise.
How to treat leak gut
Leaky gut is something that needs to be fixed. It starts with promoting the growth of good bacteria on us and in us. It involves eating fibre rich foods to feed these good bacteria, along with drinking enough water. One of the best ways to ensure a healthy balance of internal bacteria, is to ingest a very wide variety of plant based foods. It’s said that ingesting around 25 – 40 different plant based foods is a wonderful way to create a healthy population of our internal ‘bugs’. Whilst this may sound difficult, just think how quickly they’ll add up if you add some herbs and spices to a lot of your meals! There are also many ‘gut healing’ supplements on the market – we stock a large array of them, all with slightly unique qualities about them.
Please come in and chat to our staff to find out more, or if you need to go deeper, book an appointment with our Naturopath.