You may have been wondering “do I have a leaky gut?” On Instagram @AndreaHardyRD, I talk all about gut permeability and the role that fibre plays in your diet.
‘If you don’t feed them, they will feed on you.’
Everyone is OBSESSED with ‘leaky gut’ or how I prefer to refer to it – gut permeability.
Your gut barrier is made your gut microbiota and a few components:
1) Your mucus layer
2) epithelial lining (a single celled lining that makes up your gut wall and selectively allows things to pass through)
3) your lamina propria (a mucosal right behind the epithelial lining where your immune system is housed and things pass through to be absorbed, or an immune response is mounted).
These layers work together in conjunction with your gut microbiota to regulate what gets through the gut and what doesn’t.
While we know the gut barrier can be compromised and contribute to disease states there ALWAYS seems to be a pill, potion, supplement regime out there because apparently ‘everyone has leaky gut’.
💤Tired? Leaky gut.
💩Constipated? Leaky gut.
💰Don’t got enough money in the bank? Leaky gut.
The REALITY of gut permeability is – we do NOT have a validated test. Which means we certainly don’t have a validated treatment.
Where is the state of science? 🔬
Research has begun to show us the role diet plays in gut permeability.
In animal models 🐀 we can explore the mechanism of action in which diet plays a role. When rats are fed a fibre devoid diet, it ‘starves’ many of their microbes. However our mucus degrading microbes can thrive in this situation, because they still have fuel – the mucus layer! This leads to a breakdown of the mucus layer, increased gut permeability and increased susceptibility to infectious disease.
So if you REALLY want to take care of your gut permeability – at this point, it’s really all about getting back to basics and eating enough fibre! Because if your microbes aren’t fed, they’ll feed on you 😉
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