Healing the gut takes some time, it unfortunately doesn't happen over night.  On the bright side, it's not too complicated to figure out how to start the healing process.  It does take discipline to commit yourself to a healthier eating program, supplementation, and some lifestyle changes.  There are simply 4 R's to follow:

Remove
Here is where we begin.  This is truly the most important among the 4 R's.  As we discussed in the past two posts, there are many factors that play a role in disrupting gut health.  Those main sources being stress, unhealthy food and drink choices, and chemicals from medications. 

• Stress: Often times people immediately think and say, "this is my life and I can't change the amount of stress I live with."  In some cases this may be true, we do understand this along with you.  My question to those people is this, "What do you do for YOURSELF that helps relieve or manage your stress?"  You may have a stressful job, personal stressors, etc.  As a mother of three very active kids, I understand feeling like I need an extra 3+ hours a day to try and fit everything in for everyone else and make some me time.  You are not alone in the stress department my friend.  The key to decreasing the volume of stress you feel, is to find an outlet for yourself that you enjoy, and can allow yourself some freedom from those stresses.  Yes, it takes a little planning on your part.  For example; I enjoy working out and I have used working out as my outlet since I was about 13 years old.  It's a healthy stress relief for everyone, because it not only gets your blood flowing but it also releases endorphins that naturally make you feel better.  Let's be real here, when you are trying to quick bust out a 10 minute or less mile, grinding up a quick bike ride, or pushing around some heavy weight, those stressors are taking a back burner to the art of thinking about your workout.  Think about this for a moment...an average power-walk or jog only takes 10-15 minutes of your day.  How about instead of going out to lunch every day, you prepack a healthy lunch, use the first 20 minutes of your lunch break to take a walk/run, and then eat your lunch.  Maybe you could drive to pick up your kids 20-30 minutes early before they get out of school and take a run/walk/bike ride from their school and back to pick them up.  Like I said, it does take a little pre-planning, but you would be surprised what you can squeeze into your schedule if you make the effort.   Another tid-bit, perhaps you would like to take an art class, cooking class, men's group, bible study group, etc, but you can't imagine breaking away from your family for a couple of hours once a week or month because they "need" you for dinner, homework, taxiing, whatever.  Here's the deal, you PLAN AHEAD, cook a meal the day before and make enough that there are leftovers for the evening that you are out.  Make your children finish their homework and bathe early, and make carpool arrangements for your kids.  Gosh parents, don't ever hesitate to ask for help with kid pickups and drop offs if you need it.  Way more often than not, parents are totally willing to help here and there, because there will certainly be a time that they need help and you are more than willing to return the favor.  Anyway, what I am getting at is this, take some ME time and learn to manage your stress.  Stress is toxic to our health.
• Unhealthy Foods and Drinks.  It has become too easy to grab junk food loaded with unhealthy chemicals, not to mention have zero health benefits to our bodies.  A quote I mentioned in an earlier blog is spot on, "we as Americans are the most obese but malnourished people than any other country."  Let that sink in again and understand that what we are eating is literally JUNK.  Thankfully we are becoming more educated about our nutrition and what we eat, but that doesn't mean we are following that knowledge for ourselves and our families.  One of the fun quotes I like to share, that is not my own, when someone asks about "lowfat', "non-fat", or "sugarfree" immediately think chemical s*^tstorm.  Those are the most toxic next to meat preservatives and the other numerous chemical additives.  I could go on and on with this topic for hours but I won't here.  Just try to read labels and watch out for un-necessary additives.  Stick with whole foods, meals and snacks loaded with fruits and veggies, and unprocessed meat products.  Also, the removal of gluten, dairy, refined sugars, and alcohol especially while you are trying to take those first steps in healing your gut.  Any food item that you are sensitive to, eliminate it to give your gut time to heal.
• Medications (unless medically necessary to live):  With this you must be very careful and consult with your prescribing physician before eliminated a medication. Understandably, not all medications can be removed.  You might be surprised though to learn about what you are able to discontinue taking if you change your lifestyle.  A healthy diet and weight loss program may take the place of the blood pressure and cholesterol drugs you are taking, possibly even the type II diabetic meds.  With the removal of unhealthy foods or foods that you are sensitive to increases the possibility of removing meds that you take for allergies and inflammation.  Look for alternatives when it comes to over the counter meds.  There are so many supplements that are all natural and so much more healthy to take than the slew of chemicals in medications. Boswellia for example, aka frankincense in the essential oil world, has been proven to be a more potent anti inflammatory treatment then NSAID's without any harmful chemicals.  Like I said, don't just quite taking a prescribed med without consulting the prescribing physician.  Ask that physician first, research alternatives, and make lifestyle changes to help remove these toxins.

Replace
How do we replace?  We replace the everyday repetitive stress with time management and spending some ME time to decrease/manage the stress. Next, replace the fast food with healthy foods prepared at home (again pre-plan just a little). Replace the fake processed foods and snacks with healthy fruits, veggies, nuts, etc.  Read labels and avoid poor food choices.  Also replace the food sources that are highly inflammatory with alternatives. With the Gluten free trend, there are MANY options now available to help you avoid gluten.  Same goes for dairy alternatives as well as eggs and nuts.  As I mentioned just above, replace some of the medications with all natural supplements, whole foods, and lifestyle changes.  The key here is to replace unhealthy stressors in your gut to foods that promote healing.

Repair
After you have made the commitment to remove and replace factors in your diet and lifestyle that are unhealthy for your gut, the next step is to repair the damage.  Repairing the gut wall is a process.  Thankfully the human body is amazingly resilient and SMART!  This process can only happen if the stressors are all removed.  It is a delicate process that involves healing the gut barrier wall, the villi, and the mucosal layer.  Remember from the last blog, 70-80% of our immune system cells live within the gut. 

• The first step I recommend personally is fasting.  I'm not speaking in terms of weight-loss fasting.  Fasting allows the gut time to rest and repair.  Since each patients is different, a variety of fasting protocols can be used.  A one day water fast, or maybe a 16-8 hour fast (sixteen hours fasted/8hours eating per day). 
• Elimination diet as mentioned above, which again is eliminating any foods that you know you are sensitive to and also the most common foods others are sensitive to that you may not even be aware of your sensitivity to yet.
• Detoxification Protocol of 7-28 days that helps cleanse the body of the toxin burden.  We carry a couple of different detox kits in our office and hopefully online in our store soon.

Rebalance
The last step is to re-balance the GI system.  While whole foods are imperative to providing nutrition for your GI health, they are typically not enough in the beginning when we are re-balancing the GI tract.  The damage to the gut lining makes it difficult to utilize all of the nutrients we digest, especially if the foods are not superior quality. At this phase, reestablishing the micro-flora is paramount through probiotic support.  Take a peek at the picture below

Since starting to research this amazingly indepth topic on Gut Health, I have spent a lot of quality time speaking with our supplement companies to see what they officer to patients for gut health and inflammatory healing, and immune support.  I was amazed at the amount of literature they were able to produce on this well studied topic.  We are excited to have one of our favorite supplement reps in town next week, February 13th, to speak with not just us but also our patients and community about this interesting topic.  There is so much to learn about gut health and how it's related to your overall well being.  If you would like to hear more about the supplements we offer in the office for detoxification, gut repair supplements, and probiotics, please send me an email and I would be happy to help.

Part I of our health gut series was an introduction into the importance of striving to keep our gut healthy. As we read, gut health is the foundation to our immune system. If we don't take care of our gut health, we disrupt our microdome, which results in damage to the intestinal barrier needed to keep foreign materials out of our blood stream. This leakage of material into our blood stream is also known as Leaky Gut. Lets go back a little bit to address the 4 top struggles that contribute to an unhealthy gut/intestinal/digestive system.

1) Stress
Stress changes our hormonal balance within our bodies. With stress we find increased bowel motility and defecation while at the same time reducing gastric emptying time. Stress induced changes in the bowel motility can result in altered gut pH and nutrient absorption causing bacterial overgrowth which leads to vulnerability to pathogenic organisms. Additionally, mucosal barrier disruptions equating into an over stimulation of the immune system.

2) Diet
The GI tract is exposed to 30-50 TONS of food in the average lifetime. Too many highly processed foods that are devoid of nutrients needed for health are taking over our food industry. Our diets are consisting of too many refined carbohydrates, hydrogenated fatty acids, food preservatives and food additives. Chronic poor eating places a burden on the digestive tract leading to reduced bowel transit time, sluggish detoxification, and increased inflammation.

3) Medications
Drugs (over the counter or prescribed) alter the gut microbia composition. Relying on chemicals comes at a risk of damaging the gut and can be counter intuitive since these drugs have the potential to create future disease development or simply be causing the chronic issues that you are trying to treat. Common examples of medications that do a number on your gut health are:

• antibiotics
• opiods
• calcium channel blockers
• steroids
• NSAID's (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs)

4) Food Allergies, Sensitivities, & Intolerances

Any of the above can be characterized by any negative reaction to food.
Food Sensitivities are non allergic immune responses to a component(s) of a food, an example is Gluten. The gliadin protein in gluten triggers an immune response causing inflammation along the inner lining of the small intestinal wall.
Food Intolerance is the difficulty digesting certain foods due to a lack of proper enzymes. There is no immune response with a food intolerance, and symptoms are typically limited to diarrhea and/or vomiting. Commonly seen with eggs, milk, and gluten.
Food Allergies affect 3% of our population in the IgE category. There are two types of allergic reactions from the body due to a food allergy, IgE and IgG/IgA.
A little about our IgA, IgE, and IgG immune responses. IgA, IgG and IgE refer to immunoglobulins, or “antibodies.” These antibodies are part of our immune system, and are produced in response to things we come in contact with on a daily basis. Our bodies make antibodies to foreign substances like bacteria and viral cells, but can also respond to foods, dust, dander, and pollen. Antibodies help the body mount an immune system response (“fight”) against foreign invaders. IgA and IgG reactions are known as delayed response reactions, that include food sensitivities, where IgE responses are immediate and are considered a true food allergy. IgA and IgG reactions may not happen immediately, but can take hours to days to show up in your skin or intestines, and cause symptoms related to inflammation like headaches, fatigue, brain fog, or joint pain. People with food intolerance may experience digestive upset like nausea, constipation, or diarrhea, or skin itching and rashes including conditions like eczema and psoriasis.
IgE immediate hypersensitivity reactions are characterized by hives and throat swelling that accompany anaphylactic reactions some people experience when exposed to certain foods. Other symptoms can include wheezing, coughing, a runny nose, vomiting, swelling of the lips or tongue, tearing or redness of the eyes, or even a weak pulse and loss of consciousness. Common foods that trigger IgE reactions are peanuts, shellfish, egg, dairy products, soy, tree nuts, wheat and fish.

So how does your gut health contribute to an autoimmune disease?

Autoimmune disease is on the rise in a major way. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 23.5 million Americans suffer from a form of an autoimmune disease, but some think that number is actually closer to 50 million. There are at least 80 to 100 different diagnosable autoimmune diseases worldwide, and more are being studied and diagnosed every single day.
We turn back to the relationship of the gut and overall health. Also the gut and our immune system, or lack thereof.
Let's re-familiarize ourselves with the word below...
dysbiosis
/ˌdisbīˈōsəs/
an imbalance between the types of organism present in a person's natural microflora, especially that of the gut, thought to contribute to a range of conditions of ill health.

Over time, having dysbiosis in your gut microbiome will eventually lead to a leaky gut. If your gut is leaky, food particles, toxins and infections can get through your intestinal lining and into your bloodstream where your immune system detects them as foreign invaders and goes on high alert, attacking them and creating inflammation. One main way inflammation occurs is that the food particles (especially gluten and casein, a protein found in dairy), toxins and infections look very similar to our own body’s cells and our immune system gets confused and accidentally attacks our own tissue, which leads to autoimmunity. This process is called molecular mimicry.
Molecular mimicry is defined as the theoretical possibility that sequence similarities between foreign and self-peptides are sufficient to result in the cross-activation of autoreactive T or B cells by pathogen-derived peptides. (*This is google worthy on a snowy day if you are more interested in autoimmune origins.)

It’s a cycle that works like this:
altered gut microbiome or dysbiosis => leaky gut => food, toxins and infections into bloodstream => immune system attacks body due to molecular mimicry => autoimmune disease.


In March of 2018, Yale University did a study on the gut bacteria in humans and mice. They discovered that certain bacteria in the gut (E. gallinarum) is able to trans-locate outside of the gut into the lymph nodes, liver, and spleen. This bacteria attacked tissues outside of the gut and initiated the production of auto-antibodies and inflammation. It was a theory that these foreign substances that leaked out of the gut and trans-located also invaded the incorrect cell space by Molecular Mimicry.

Dr. Axe that helps to simplify and describe the cycle we start to struggle with when health of our gut starts to decline. 

This is a list of symptoms that are the most common with people struggling with poor gut health. It's truly exciting to think that we can start healing many health problems simply with diet. Going back to eating whole foods is understandably not the easiest when McDonald's has your food ready in 2 minutes with barely any clean up, BUT 5, 10, 20+ years from now when you are living with a slew of medical problems and feel miserable every single day you are guaranteed to look back and regret taking the extra time and effort to prevent your problems. Next week we will discuss taking those first steps to heal your gut. I will try to help simplify your plans for eating healthier and simply making better choices for yourself and your family.

Welcome to our series on gut health.  This is one of those topics that is overwhelmingly MASSIVE and hard to even know where to start.  You have likely heard or maybe even researched a little for yourself, on the topic of gut health.  Maybe you know that probiotics are pretty good for you, you are just not sure why.  I'm just going to scratch the surface a little bit today on gut health, then I will dig deeper for you in the subsequent weeks to come. 

What is the gut Microbiome?  “Just like any other environment on the planet, our bodies have their own ecosystems -- made up of 100 trillion microorganisms, or microbes, that live in and on our bodies," says Rachael Buck, PhD, Abbott's lead research scientist and resident gut health expert. "These include bacteria, fungi, viruses and other types of tiny organisms. It’s so large in fact, that the genes of microbes outnumber our body’s genes by 100 to 1." 
The Gut Microbiome Explained (© 2019 Abbott)

When it comes to the microbiome, the large intestine (or, the colon) receives the most attention because it contains the highest concentration and greatest diversity of microbes in the entire body. The large intestine is lined with a layer of mucus and the microbes that live there form a gut biofilm. The biofilm contains an array of different microbes that carry out different tasks in your body and also work together to keep you healthy.What’s even more fascinating is that each and every person has a unique make-up of microbes. What determines the different types of microbes in a person is a result of ones genes, age, gender, diet, hygiene, and even the climate you live in and your occupation. In fact, studies show that the gut microbiome affects everything from pain, mood, sleep and stress, to how our bodies use the food we eat and how we fight off infection.

1) NUTRITION
Your gut bacteria can become unbalanced with a poor diet of high fats and highly refined carbohydrates/sugar.  Numerous studies are showing a HIGH correlation between highly processed foods and Leaky Gut Syndrome (more on that later).  The poorly managed diet ends up eroding the muccosal layer that lines the inner wall of the intestinal tract which is suppose to protect us from the unwanted bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc.

2) SLEEP AND MOOD
The quote: 'Our gut is our second brain", has become increasingly well known and popular.  Dubbed the second brain, the enteric nervous system within the gut contains 30 types of neurotransmitters and 100 million neurons. Ninety-percent of serotonin, which helps to produce melatonin, the “sleep hormone,” is located in the gut. There is also 400 times more melatonin in the gut than there is in the brain.  The gut brain axis picture below is great depiction of this relationship.

3) Inflammation and Infection
Healthy microbes in the gut destroy the harmful bacteria plus release chemicals that decrease inflammation in the body.
4) Skin
In addition to helping to keep our mind and body healthy – research has shown the microbiome also works to keep our skin healthy. Oily parts of the body – like the back or the face – tend to have fewer types of microbes because oil is anti-microbial, which keep bacteria out.These microbes also transform oils in the skin into natural moisturizers to keep the skin soft and supple. And when skin is moisturized, it also prevents bacteria from invading our bodies.

What does all of this mean in regards to a healthy immune system?  It's simple, yet not: healthy gut = healthy you.  Let me do a little bit of schooling here though to help set the ground work for understanding more.  The gut lining has 2 very important parts: the microbiome that is home to all of our good bacteria, and the barrier layer that keeps all of the good, bad, and ugly in our gut and not floating about.  As mentioned above, the microbiome is working to keep the good bacteria growing and fighting, and the rest of the bad and ugly down and out.  The gut barrier is "the Wall".  The wall is very protected by a mucus layer.  Check out the picture below:

The lining of the intestine is made up of Intestinal Epithelial Cells that are bound tightly together to not let anything bad break through to the bottom barrier.  As we consume a poor diet, take medications, live in a constant state of stress, etc., these cells lose their strength and start to break down.  When bad bacteria, fungi, viruses, even food particals infiltrate past the damaged barrier, our bodies immediately start fighting those substances.  The constant battle is on with everything that enters your gut.  The end result is a constant state of stress in the body = inflammation = poor immune function = chronic symptoms such as poor mood, sleep, nutritional deficiencies, weight gain, and even the start of autoimmune diseases.  Here's another diagram below.

 In Part II of our healthy gut series, we will look more in depth to food sensitivities and autoimmune diseases with regards to our gut health.  Lastly, we will map out plans to help heal the gut while restoring your health and increasing your immunity.