well hello everyone welcome to episode three of the gut immune solution my name is Matt and this is obviously my lovely wife Sarah and we are the uh founders of goodness lover and co-creators of the series that you're watching right now so today Sarah we'd love to bring bring you a little bit behind the scenes this is our kitchen so welcome to our home and uh leaky gut so I heard about this a few years ago and I think I know what leaky gut is so why should I really what is so important about leaky gut as you learn in this episode a lot there's a lot of things that are very immensely just like take a few herbs and you heal your gut I mean for one I think leaky gut sounds so uh I remember the first time my brother actually said I think I have a leaky gut I was just like sorry what sorry what and how do you even like your gut is leaking and how do you even know that and why does why is that important so I was very much a blocker to my to my brother's Journey sounds like diar it sounds disgusting let's be frank but I mean it it's not great and you'll find out more about the far-reaching impacts of leaky gut and I'm sure well uh the scientific term for leaky gut is intestinal hyperpermeability and maybe if my brother had posited it to me in that way I would have been a lot more open to what he had to say but uh its effects are far reaching as you'll find out in this episode and if many of you are veterans to leaky gut and you're just like Sarah I think I think I know how to deal with leaky gut um I'm sure there's more for you to learn in this episode however speaking of more to learn as you will seen we have eight core episodes to this series but we have 30 interviews well most of those interviews are anywhere from an hour to 3 hours long which means that a lot of content was cut in order to make these episodes the sync and under an hour cuz I wanted to respect uh your time and you know put as many nuggets into it as much as possible but there were so many golden nuggets left behind so I will say um if you are someone that's like I love this content I want more of this content or I want to own this content cuz I want to really truly understand this maybe you've already looked at the um page where you can find out more about the packages you have on offer and you've seen how high value I believe those things are you'll want to consider owning the full length expert interviews these doctors tell us a bit about these doctors Matt they're New York Times bestsellers they're top of their game it's not like we um just send out random invites to people we um you know just get on our series please no uh it's people that are just leaders in their field like often times we're watching particularly in the process of creating this series we're watching these people just almost like Sant just like information just flows out of them like it's like no problem it's like decades upon decades upon Decades of experience of study has resulted in this incredible body of knowledge and expertise that um is life-changing and so one of the challenging things Sarah again taking you a little bit behind the scenes of goodness lover is where Matt or Sarah Matt thinks we should include this bit or Sarah's like no no we should include this bit or another one of our team members is like oh I saw the best of this interview we should go here and then we're like well guys how are we going to fit this all together how we get this under an hour and it's grueling and we all have different opinions so if you if you go and watch the full length interviews you'll you'll have your own opinion and you'll be like oh Sarah you should that was right you should have put that bit in instead of that other bit that Sarah liked more anyway if you do choose to own the series on top of all our wonderful episodes you'll get access to our full length speak interviews which we've been told from our surveys is one of the favorite things that people will like about owning the series so without further Ado we'll move into episode 3 where you can learn everything you didn't know about leaky gut enjoy [Music] [Music] hello and welcome back to the gut autoimmune solution I'm your host Sarah Otto in our last episode we took a deep dive into the world of the microbiome and discovered how nurturing the right balance of gut bugs can be a GameChanger for immune Health today we're zooming in on one of the most critical factors in the gut autoimmune connection leaky gut syndrome this condition also known as increased intestinal permeability occurs when the delicate lining of the gut becomes compromised allowing toxins and undigested food particles and bacteria to leak into the bloodstream the result a Cascade of inflammation and immune disregulation that can set the stage for autoimmune disease in this episode our experts will unpack the science behind leaky gut and reveal how this often overlooked condition could be the missing link in your autoimmune puzzle you'll discover the surprising triggers that can damage your gut lining but more importantly you'll learn the key strategies to heal and seal your gut barrier calming inflammation and restoring immune balance from the inside out I have a client that came to me and she was suffering she was on like five different medications um severe reflux and I can't remember what all the medications were but one of them was definitely 80 milligrams of aprol and she had massive food sensitivities any food that she ate she literally just like broke into highs broke into rashes she'd have to lay down after every meal because she was so tired from those food sensitivities so she was in a bad State she had lots of stuff going on and for five years by the way this is what she's been dealing with saw every major doctor out there was flying all over the place to see these doctors spent probably hundreds of thousands of dollars on this type of care which wasn't getting to the root cause so we tested her gut we did a GI map we did an MRT I did a comprehensive blood panel as well cuz she had some pretty significant stuff going on so I want to look at her thyroid gland I want to look at her iron markers her metabolic panel I want to look at her inflammatory markers which were obviously through the roof um so I got everything back and she had a lot of these going on H pylori inflammatory bacteria two parasites a weakened microbiome she needed a gut healing protocol but she was so symptomatic and has so much stuff going on before I decided to do that I put her on the twoe leaky gut protocol and here's the crazy thing about this this is just again how powerful this protocol is and also how powerful that your body has this innate power to heal itself so after about two or three weeks or so Not only was she off of all five medications all right I didn't tell her stop do meol she just went off you should never stop the cold turkey she did because she was feeling so good the food sensitivities were like gone she was eating food now the only Foods she couldn't eat were spicy foods now she can eat those as well but again just two weeks of this one protocol had such a significant impact on our gut microbiome we still had to go through the gut protocol because there was a lot of stuff now just because the symptoms are gone doesn't mean that we're healthy right the symptoms are the last thing that come they're usually the first thing that goes away but it just shows you that if you do this and this alone you're going to be way ahead of where you are right now a key factor that people have to pay attention to is that dysfunction in the microbiome leads to something called leaky gut or intestinal permeability now 15 years ago you ask most gastroenterologists or people who work in the medical field about leaky gut they tell you you're crazy that there's no such thing fortunately science has proven otherwise right so now we've got literally hundreds upon hundreds of papers published by large institutes like the NIH the National Institutes of Health um you know other research large research um organizations and institutes that have validated that this intestinal permeability issue occurs and it occurs quite commonly in people in the developed worlds because of our dysfunctional microbiomes what is also well established is that this leakiness in the gut leads to Chronic low-grade inflammation and The Chronic low-grade inflammation it leads to becomes the foundation for the vast majority of chronic illnesses finally we're at a spot in medicine that all of medicine mainstream medicine alop theic medicine research clinical research all except the idea behind leaky gut or intestinal permeability and what's happening with intestinal permeability or leaky gut is our interos sites the cells that actually line the GI track they're held together by something called tight junctions and when you look at tight junctions under a microscope they look like um a little zipper and when we're talking about leaky gut we're not talking about something that goes and unzips all these things right and leaves these big holes that's not what we're talking about we're talking about something that irritates those cells and then pulls on the zipper so you get these microscopic holes and those microscopic holes in between those tight junctions allow for microscopic pieces of whatever's in the gut Lumen to get into the bloodstream of the GI tract and then once it's in the bloodstream of the GI tract it goes systemic and it's becomes um something that's just in our bloodstream throughout our body and the the problem with this is we're not supposed to have a leaky gut we're not supposed to have intestinal permeability we're not supposed to be letting these microscopic pieces of food into our body systemically and our body reacts to that and and um causes rampant inflammation we see this with uh food sensitivities food allergies but literally across the board when we have intestinal permeability we have an increase in inflammation there's a really fascinating ongoing microbiome project going on in Canada currently and with multiple sites in multiple countries called The Gem study the genetic environmental microbial project which is actually part of Crohn's and kitis of Canada and this is a fascinating project that has actually started more than 10 years ago where they decided to look at first deegree relatives of patients with crohn's who had no evidence of disease so what they did was they found Crohn's patients and then they contacted and enrolled their first deegree relatives and basically they've been collecting information about these relatives pretty much on a regular basis and this information includes their microbiome information their leaky gut information which comes from testing the lactulose manitol ratio and other factors such as their symptoms uh and some of their diet and lifestyle information so what the gem study has published on so far has been really fascinating on what is happening preclinically or what we also say subclinically before autoimmune disease actually presents itself so before someone presents with ulcers in the terminal ilium and is diagnosed with crohn's what has been happening the years before and this is exactly what the gem study is showing they found that patients who had increased lactulose manitol ratios sign fing leaky gut were more likely to proceed to Crohn's and this is actually for years even years before the diagnosis in these first-degree relatives of Crohn's patients of the ones that developed Crohn's they went back and they looked at their lactulose manitol ratios and they found that there was evidence of leaky gut years before Crohn's disease manifested clinically with UL ations and biochemical tests being abnormal and so they specifically found that lactulose manitol ratios were elevated and they also found that the microbiome showed specific disbiosis such as decrease fcal bacterium PRI fpri which is one of the most important producers of short chain fatty acids such as berate which we know feeds colonocytes feeds the gut and has systemic anti-inflammatory effects so we're finally learning through this study some again earlier points that we can Now understand the development how the microbiome how leaky gut how all those things are leading to Crohn's disease years down the line so this is really important to discuss with your practitioner because there could be things you could be doing to really help prevent the progress of something like disbiosis and leaky gut to becoming a full-fledged autoimune disease and of course this is all very much in the early infancy of research but there are certainly Healthy Steps you can take with diet and lifestyle whether that means removing toxic exposures in diet and lifestyle or improving leaky gut with supplementation of things such as Al glutamin the immune system is there with the intent of protecting us we have developed a relationship with these foreign creatures these microbes that are not a part of our body and they are living they are as alive as you and I are and they outnumber us and our goal is to live in harmony and balance with these microbes and our immune system the reason why it's there in our gut is to keep these microbes in check and the issue is that part of our defense mechanism is this barrier the barrier is there like the wall of a castle and if you break down the barrier it's like punching a hole in the wall of the the castle you are allowing things to get in that aren't supposed to be there so what are those things that can happen well when we break down this barrier and we have increased intestinal permeability then we have the leakage of some of the contents some of the things that exist within the intestines and that can include literally the microbes themselves entering and going across the barrier but it also can include the things that the microbes create so the microbes will create proteins or metabolites or something called bacterial endotoxin which sort of is the root cause of inflammation so when the barrier is intact we have separation separation of the immune system and the microbes which is the way that nature intended it when the barrier breaks down now there is leakage of things into this new space from the gut into the bloodstream Beyond the Wall microbes metabolites proteins endotoxin these things start to cross over that's going to activate our immune system that's going to trigger inflammation and that's going to lead to some of the issues that we see exist exting here in the 21st century and when it comes to things like bacterial toxins particularly endotoxin also known as lipopolysaccharide which is a uh component of the cell wall of some bacteria in your gut bugs that we call Gram negative tend to divide bacteria into gram negative and gram positive those that are gram negative have this stuff called lipopolysaccharide in the cell wall it's also referred to as endotoxin and it's not like they're releasing a toxin to make us on well it's just they grow it just like we grow hair we grow nails they grow endotoxin it just happens to be that this stuff is very pro-inflammatory and the amount of endotoxin in each person's got is different too because that depends on the level of beneficial versus versus pathobiol versus pathogen in terms of bacterial balance and I'll Define that from pathobiol in more detail too it's kind of a term that we microbiome scientists use to define bacteria that when present in the right amount do healthful things for us do great great things for us in fact that they're important for our overall health and well-being but when they're present in too high amounts cause harm and some of those bacteria in that category are gram negative and then we have more classic you know pathogens like salmonella or shagel or you know types of strains of eoli or cbella that that people would be very degrees familiar with they contain a very pro-inflammatory endotoxin um that they constantly release as they live and they release a lot more when they die but people's proportion in their ecosystem can large amounts of those pathogens and pathion in which case they have a really high endotoxin load and if your Transit time is slow you actually will absorb a lot more of that just due to the fact that it's sitting there for potentially days at a time for longer periods but en toxin itself causes leaky gut and and we know that from a small bile perspective it causes leaky colon too so you get that sort of vicious cycle that the endotoxins there causes damage to the colon cells which allows absorption of those endotoxins which into your bloodstream and then they cause you know body wide inflammation and again that will manifest differently in different people so what happens with inol permeability the way that I like to look at the GI lining and mainly in the small intestine that's mainly what we're talking about here is there is you right there is your cells that's like the floor of your house that's what you're walking on Barefoot that's where your bed sits on and your kitchen and your kitchen table sits on right that's you then there's the foundation of the house which is that really really thick lining that basically separates you from the dirt and then there's the microbiome and the microbiome is the dirt right and so what you want to make sure is you want to make sure your floor isn't touching the dirt anybody who has had Foundation issues knows why that's not a good idea in your house it is definitely not a good idea in your microbiome either that Foundation level that's made by mucin or kind of like mucus right and there are bacteria in the microbiome that specialize in just producing that mucin and what's important is if that mucin is gone then you have trillion ions of bacteria touching you and that's obviously a huge air attempt when that happens all of a sudden things that are in the GI track that should have stayed in the GI tra are now entering the body they're diffusing through a porous floor and now you've got a bunch of rats a bunch of mice a bunch of food that shouldn't be there like a bunch of Critters that are in your body that shouldn't be there that obviously upregulates the immune system to say that's not me I know that's not me and now I'm going to start an immune response we try to kill whatever is in our bloodstream that shouldn't be there and that makes the immune system rev and it's able to get confused and that's when it starts attacking you one of the ways it could happen is that for example highly processed foods have agents in them which are called emulsifiers emulsifiers they're used in processed foods to change the texture of food and make them like creamier and stick together more and a better texture these emulsifiers are thought to maybe punch holes in the mucus layer and then it can degrade it and then maybe some of these Bad actors can have direct connection or contact with these immune sentries which then start creating antibodies or weapons against these these interactions which then go attack us like an example is the eukaryotic molecule right that was created the ubiqutin that was created by the the bacteroides it is very similar to the same molecule that is in each of our cells but it's a little different a little different enough so that uh it causes a problem once it reaches or inner spaces so those are examples of how their immune reactions to activities going down into our gut which can eventually create problems for us in disease promotion there are other things that are other agents besides emulsifying agents that are thought to punch holes or degrade this mucus layer things like Advil Motrin a leave anti-inflammatory drugs are thought to do this as well now there are other risk factors that drive the type of chronic illness that one would develop but what is absolutely clear is that intestinal permability is at the root cause of most digestive disorders most immune disorders and most metabolic disorders you even see it in most skin disorders and you also see it in most cognitive disorders as well when we're talking about um mood dysfunction so anxiety depression you know in some cases ADD ADHD among kids even autism has been pretty well described as a outcome of leakiness in the gut and dysbiosis so when you look at all of these types of disorders that people are experiencing from this root cause of having disbiosis and leaky gut it becomes quite clear to understand that if you have any of these issues right it becomes a signal or symptom to you that your gut is leaky which means your immune system is compromised if your microbiome is dysfunctional or dysbiotic or imbalanced which leads to leakiness in the gut you can be quite sure that your immune system is compromised because you've got the wrong balance of microbes you've got the wrong level of diversity you don't have enough of the friendly microbes that act as the eyes and ears and the neighborhood watch for your immune system you also don't have enough of the microbes that will help shuttle the immune system from that inflammatory damaging innate response to the Adaptive response you also don't have enough of the microbes in your system that support the immune system with energy with molecules like reactive oxygen species to help that immune cell do their the work that they do right so if you have digestive disorders if you have skin disorders if your moon disorders if you're stress if you can't sleep you know if there are lots of foods you can't tolerate if you're sensitive to things around you like you have allergies all of these things are a signal that your microbiome is dysfunctional you likely have leaky gut and that means your immune system is compromised so leaky gut can manifest sometimes as digestive symptoms um so it's certainly something to think about when people have digestive distress sometimes pain cramping loose stools constipation things like that you could think about leaky gut as a possibility more often than not though I also see more systemic symptoms and I'll see systemic symptoms of inflammation so I'll see people with joint pain I'll see people with rashes with eczema chronic dermatitis of some kind um that's really more what I look for when I think about leaky gut and then in more extreme examples um we'll see people with autoimmune conditions things like lupus or multiple sclerosis rheumatoid arthritis uh and conditions like that and it's very often that people with crohn's disease or also sort of colitis which are both inflammatory bowel diseases um that you'll see that when they have those conditions more chronically over the years they'll also develop a leaky gut I work in Urgent Care as well as the as our own Farm practice and so in Urgent Care not an hour goes by when patients don't come in requesting antibiotics multiple times for viral illnesses for colds you know things that doctors are taught never to provide antibiotics for you know and needless to say that the vast majority of these patients are probably omnivorous in other words the eating animal Foods animal Foods 99% of the animal food consumption in America is conventional animal Foods in other words they're coming from concentrated animal feeding operations which specialize in plying the animals with antibiotics 70% of all the antibiotics used in this country are used there in these facilities when we measure the urine of the average American we measure cypro flowing out of them they're not taking antibiotics but they have antibiotics flowing out of them just from eating chicken eating meat eating pork you're taking antibiotics we can find it in you we can find it in your urine it's being metabolized and released we now know that if I am to give a prescription for antibiotics to someone for whatever reason whether it's a a real reason or not whether they should have it or not or they have a tooth infection or they have a urine tract infection that after that course of antibiotics it's estimated that upwards of 90% of their gut micro biome is wiped out think about what happens to a person on a da basis who's eating cypro which is a broadspectrum antibiotic which is designed to kill gut Flora it could not create a healthy microbiome antibiotics are very harmful to our gut microbiome try to avoid them in two ways don't seek antibiotics from your doctor if you have an infection especially in upper respiratory infection they're mostly viruses and I'm not telling you to sit home and take a Tylenol and while you get double pneumonia I didn't say that sometimes we need antibiotics there's a reason for drugs but they should be used very selectively and don't eat these the standard American diet with all these animal foods that are now organically raised animal foods not that I'm recommending them I don't because they're not good for our health but at least they're prohibited from having antibiotics in them whereas the the conventional ones do if you want to avoid antibiotics and the devastating effect antibiotics has on our on your gut microbiome and then furthermore on your General Health and the creation of autoimmune diseases stay away from these areas glyphosate has a patent in the federal registry as an antibiotic it is an antibiotic we've just explored the fascinating and complex world of leaky gut syndrome and its profound connection to autoimmune disease from the role of endotoxins to the impact of our modern diet and lifestyle we've covered many of the factors that can contribute to increased intestinal permeability we've also learned how leaky gut can manifest in a wide range of symptoms from digestive issues to skin problems and even mood disorders but here's the burning question if leaky gut is at the root of so many health issues how can we repair this crucial barrier and restore our health coming up we'll explore one of the most powerful Tools in our gut healing Arsenal this simple amino acid has been shown to have remarkable effects on repairing the intestinal lining and reducing inflammation so stay tuned as we dive into the science behind this gut healing supera and learn how you can harness its potential to support your gut health and potential reverse your autoimmune condition L glutamine is an essential amino acid that is actually feeding your gut cells and providing energy and there have been studies that show that L glutamine depletion for example in cases of Po infectious gut issues that can lead to leaky gut El glutamine has basically come up as one of the most most important and well studied factors to help repair leaky gut so there was actually a study by Zhao and others in 2019 looking at people who developed leaky gut and post-infectious IBS after infections and so again by measuring lactulose manitol ratios they found that these patients had increased ratios that correlated with their symptoms and that all started after this infection they gave these patients 5 Gams of L glutamine three times a day for eight weeks and they found that not only did the lactulose manitol ratio decrease and they actually achieved sealing of their gut barrier but they also drastically improved these chronic iic IBS symptoms so perhaps you know IBS is not the right word for I think a lot of The Chronic gut symptoms that people experience it probably is leaky gut and L glutamine seems to be an amino acid that is safe and that has an incredibly beneficial effect in improving leaky gut unlike the brain which runs on glucose and our muscles which run on glucose the main repair and energy substance for the small intestine is glutamine and we glutamine is an amino acid and we find it in animal protein and high protein foods um but you can also take it as a supplement so one of the things I love to recommend is people taking um a teaspoon or two of el glutamine powder and putting it in their water bottle and just kind of sipping on that through the day and um because that will help to heal the the small intestine what I find is L glutamine in a powdered versus a pill form for 17 years has worked very effectively and efficiently in healing and repairing that mucosal lining what it's going to do is it's going to speed up the healing if you have a cut and you keep picking at it it's not going to heal properly versus if you take a little Neosporin on that cut put a Band-Aid on it so it can just have a little time to heal that's what these nutrients and Botanicals provide some other great nutrients just for coating the esophagus and the intestines to create a barrier between the inflammation and the actual lining is things like deglycerized licorice um another great nutrient is even aloe now DGL and aloe won't heal a leaky gut El glutamine really can and will El glutamine has an incredible amount of data behind it both animal and human it's been studied again and again and again what we find is that it's an amino acid sugar so it is kind of sweet when you take it it doesn't dissolve great in water but people can usually get past that what we find is that higher doses five grams two to three times a day for somebody with like IBS and nine grams two to three times a day for somebody with inflammatory bowel disease is very effective at feeding the cells of your GI lining to let them be less inflamed so basically the GI track is the only system in the whole body that eats from two sources it eats from the bloodstream like every other cell in the body and it also eats from the tube of your digestion if you give glutamine directly to the anas sites that is like their monor bread it is like the most delicious organic substance and it just brings down inflammation as you bring down the inflammation there's less things that can get into the bloodstream by transfusing through the Lumen and so you end up really just making your GI more stable the other thing that El glutamine can do actually and it has relatively good data is it can actually support your mood because it's an amino acid it is one of the building blocks of neurotransmitters and so glutamine is quite useful for mood support especially people with anxiety it can be very very helpful for those people El glutamine is truly remarkable from its role in feeding and energizing our gut cells to its ability to reduce inflammation and seal the intestinal barrier this simple amino acid has shown to have impressive results in both research and clinical practice but as powerful as L glutamine is it's not the only nutrient that can support gut healing and immune function our bodies are complex systems that require a variety of nutrients to function optimally so what other key nutrients might be missing from your gut healing protocol let's find out the other thing I would say is probably zinc so zinc rich foods are going to be uh super important uh because they really help with the health of um immune globulins or antibodies and one of the first lines of Defense um as you sort of get past that mucus layer is this very specific antibody or class of antibodies called IGA so IGA is a class of antibodies we everybody has it but it doesn't really float around the body so much it actually stays fixed on the surfaces and it lines our lungs and our sinuses and also our gut and so anything that can keep that IGA healthy and abundant is a really good thing and zinc can be one of those things zinc is critical for immune health and it's also important for cardiovascular health it's something that about 177% of the human population on Earth is deficient in it's not a super widespread issue but it can be a problem and um you may want to get your blood levels checked zinc is found in lots and lots of foods uh if you're on a plant-based diet some of the top sour sources are going to be legumes and whole grains and nuts and seeds now there's something called Fates that can interfere with zinc absorption and they're in a lot of plant Foods so one thing that helps with this is fermentation and and adequate soaking and cooking so with legumes for example if you soak them for 48 hours pouring off the water every 12 and and res soaking them and then pressure cook them you're going to find that the phate uh quantities go down quite a bit which makes it easier to absorb the wonderful zinc that is in those legums uh they're also softer and lots of nutrients are more bioavailable at that point fermentation can also help even with whole grains in our family we'll soak them for 24 hours pouring off the water every 12 which kind of starts the sprouting process just a little bit before we cook them even rice quinoa and this can help uh to make the nutrients more bioavailable but particularly zinc so the way that I focus on zinc are looking at the studies have that have shown that in patients who have increased intestinal permeability and specifically in autoimmune conditions like Crohn's they've shown that increasing zinc supplementation actually does heal the epithelial barrier to help heal disease so there have been studies looking at using zinc in patients with increased intestinal permeability such as in Crohn's disease and some of these Studies have shown that using for example something like oral zinc sulfate at 110 milligrams three times a day for 8 weeks has helped to seal up the intestinal barrier zinc ELC carnosine is another very well-known supplement specifically that's actually been helpful in helping with increased intestinal permeability of the upper GI tract and has been something that has been used in patients who suffer from infections such as helicobactor pylori and gastritis so specifically in those types of indications zinc ALC carnosine has been uh a preferred type of zinc so one way to approach optimizing your nutritional parameters around intestinal permeability are of course to test for nutritional deficiencies and see what is actually going on in your body to understand how aggressive or what you need to increase it so for example it is quite easy to check a zinc level and you know when patients are are in the lower even low borderline range in for example in the 60s you definitely can be motivated to increase zinc supplementation again using something like in the study such as zinc sulfite or really any other supplemental type of zinc but then following up to ensure that that zinc is being absorbed and that there is clinical Improvement so you're not using something that is not working there are definitely a lot of conditions where you may not be absorbing zinc correctly and although again there is this theoretical thought that it's helping also just at the actual intestinal border but for it to have a more systemic effect you would want to focus on understanding that the zinc is being absorbed re-checking the level and then optimizing that level for full body health I think it's always important to optimize nutrition through what you're eating and so for example to optimize zinc some of the foods that are high in zinc include pumpkin seeds oats and so you can definitely incorporate these Foods into your healing protocol but it is important to understand that zinc that is in these Foods may not be as readily available might not be as much of it to properly absorb to have the therapeutic effect that you want for example for leaky gut so although it is really important to make sure you're having a diverse well-balanced diet including foods that are increased in the micronutrients that you're wanting to optimize but there is a possibility they might not be absorbed or optimized in your blood we've just explored the crucial role of zinc in supporting gut health and immune function from its ability to strengthen our gut barrier to its importance for antibody production zinc is clearly a key player in our body's defense system coming up we'll dive into another vital nutrient that plays a critical role in maintaining the Integrity of our gut lining supporting our immune system and even influencing autoimmune processes so let's hear what our experts have to say vitamin A is an important antioxidant in the autoimmune pathway it works actually on protecting the thymus gland it works as an anti-inflammatory why the thymus gland is so important in the autoimmune conversation is because it produces those tea cells and t- helper cells and these are very critical immune cells that are actually driving the autoimmune pathway and in many situations uh I've personally done a lot of research on the th17 pathway which is the t- helper 17 so vitamin A supports the thymus gland it helps balance the thymus gland so we want vitamin A in the mix it's an anti-inflammatory it's protective for our cells it's a fat soluble vitamin and any fat soluble antioxidant like vitamin A and even vitamin E they help protect the membrane of our cells every cell has a what's called a phospholipid membrane which means it's partly fat and because those fat soluble vitamins can easily get in there and they scavenge they help remove those reactive oxygen species they help take them out of the body and vitamin A is also part of that Suite of antioxidants vitamin A is also very protective for the mucosal Linings of our body so the mucosal Linings are things in our nasal passages also in our gut so the vitamin A in take can actually reduce gut inflammation we know that whenever there's inflammation in the mucosal lining in the gut we are looking at conditions like leaky gut inflammatory bowel disease we might be seeing disbiosis because the cells of the gut are not able to produce the necessary uh byproducts to fuel those bacteria in the gut to fuel the microbiome so we have this whole host of issues when we start to see inflammation creeping up in into the gut it creates more food sensitivities and food allergies even so vitamin A has really become an important conversation in autoimmunity and there are a lot of different sources of vitamin A we can actually have the pre-formed vitamin A which is found in more animal products or the provitamin a which is more in those carotenoids that you see in carrots and squash and yellow and and orange bell peppers so getting those types of foods into the diet can certainly increase our access to vitamin A and increase our our body's ability to lower inflammation so vitamin A deficiency has actually been associated with altered mucus production and we know that the mucus layer of your gut is such an important part of your gut barrier strength so there have been multiple studies looking at using vitamin A and specifically actually together with vitamin D as the two vitamins that can really help a strengthen the mucus layer and then help with improving and healing intestinal permeability in fact there have actually even been studies that are written by Dr Michael camer from Mayo Clinic that have looked and reviewed at the benefit of using vitamin A and vitamin D in leaky gut so I think that we're Beyond saying that leaky gut is not a thing or that it doesn't exist I think that the studies now show that leaky gut or increased intestinal permeability is indeed a physiologic phenomenon that is so important to our health that we actually have scientists like Dr Michael caler from Mayo writing academic articles that show what is used to improve it such as vitamin A and vitamin D so we have cells in our immune system that are called dendritic cells which help our immune system understand when it needs to rev up or when it needs to calm down and very interestingly one of the receptors that is used in the calming down process is a receptor called the tlr2 receptor and this receptor utilizes vitamin A in sending its message and so this is actually one of the connections of how the immune system when the cells are trying to tell the immune system to quiet down but if it's dependent on vitamin A and there's a deficiency then there could be a defect in telling your immune system to quiet down that can ramp up autoimmune disease and interestingly autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes very commonly are found to have vitamin A deficiencies it's not uncommon to see vitamin A deficiencies and actually one of the symptoms of vitamin A deficiency is that we get the bumps on the backs of the arms this is a common sign and symptom from a nutritional standpoint we're looking for symptoms and signs that of nutritional deficiencies and that's one of them so the bumps on the back of the arms that is often a sign of vitamin A deficiency and why do people have vitamin A deficiencies in our society one of the top reasons is probably that they're not eating enough vitamin A Foods so we don't see enough color on our plates enough diversity in the vegetables category on people's plates and the other factor is they might not be breaking it down well and absorbing it so someone that has inflammation in the gut already is not breaking down and absorbing their nutrients well at all across the Spectrum so not just with vitamin A but of course as a nutritionist we're always looking to see are they eating enough of the vitamin A containing foods whether it's pre-formed vitamin A or provitamin a through animal sources or from plant sources are they just getting that intake if they're not then we have to increase the intake if we see the intake is there but they're still deficient then we're going to be looking at an absorption issue is there some sort of problem in the gut it's not converting and especially on plant-based vitamin A that provitamin a that's not actually vitamin A it's more like a precursor to vitamin A that's why it's called a provitamin because it's the precursor to vitamin A it has to convert those carotenoids have to convert in our gut to a vitamin A and there may be a conversion issue that's happening that could be causing some of these deficiencies so we have to oftentimes just work down the pathways to see where the problem is vitamin A is critical to immune Health cardiovascular health and it's also really important for Eye Health longterm uh studies show that people who consume plenty of vitamin A are less likely to develop macular degeneration it was once thought the vitamin A was only found in animal products but then researchers realized that carotenoids are forms of vitamin A and those are found in lots and lots of plant foods and in fact the very best sources are carrots and sweet potatoes especially the in of sweet potatoes and squashes uh these provide so much vitamin A that researchers are looking at how a lot of eye problems around the world could be alleviated just by giving people some squash seeds and having them grow a squash plant or two in their backyards so vitamin A is potent and again squashes carrots and sweet potatoes are your top plant-based sources so if you're looking to optimize your vitamin A status the first thing I would always recommend is again test your level it's an easy blood test that that you can do with your Healthcare practitioner usually the RDA of vitamin A is from 700 to 900 micrograms a day for your average female and male now for people who are looking to optimize that number further who are low then of course you can supplement with a vitamin A supplement and usually the number that you're looking for is something like 3,000 micrograms a day now again vitamin A is important to track so it's important to check it see what the number is supplement it optimize it through diet and through supplementation and then check it again and the reason is because you can overdo it with vitamin A because vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin there's actually the potential for toxicity so vitamin A d e and K are actually vitamins that can become toxic if you overs supplement not like Vitamin B and the B vitamins that you just urinate out any excess so it is important to keep track while you're in this optimization process the power of vitamin A in supporting gut health and immune function is truly remarkable isn't it from protecting our delicate mucosal Linings to regulating immune responses this nutrient plays a crucial role in our body's defense system but as we've discovered throughout this episode Optimal Health is like a complex symp Sy with each nutrient playing its own unique part while vitamin A hits some beautiful notes there's another key playout we need to bring into our gut healing Orchestra up next we'll shine a spotlight on a vitamin that's been making waves in the world of autoimmune research this vitamin has the potential to conduct our immune system keeping inflammation in check and potentially turning down the volume on autoimmune symptoms so get ready to discover how this Powerhouse nutrient could be the Maestro your body needs to create Harmony between your gut and immune system one thing I want to touch on with vitamin D is this is people who have high levels of inflammation high C reactive protein autoimmune disease inflammation from their diet chronic viral infection when you have higher levels of of C reactive protein you don't absorb vitamin D properly so vitamin D is getting used up to fight against that inflammation that's where I think it's very important you drive vitamin D up and drive inflammation down at the same time that's how you rebuild a healthy immune system because I see people all the time they're like but I'm taking vitamin D I'm taking 5,000 units a day I look their inflammation is super high I'm like well good luck you have to bring down the inflammation and raise the vitamin D and if you're not taking enough vitamin D you need more if you're not targeting the inflammation you're going to get lackluster results to get rid of chronic inflammation I think identifying the source is pretty important so you know how to Target it more effectively and efficiently and usually you see that in somebody's history or in their story or in their symptoms if you're really properly evaluating them so if you're somebody who's watching this and you're like I know my issues are hormonal I know they are all day every day you you can't ignore that right because between cortisol and androgens and their impact on inflammation in the immune system and even testosterone what's testosterone it's a steroid hormone and when you have steroid hormones they're key in fighting against inflammation vitamin D has been probably one of the most studied nutrients out there and there's still a lot of debate actually around vitamin D we all know vitamin D is essential for a bone health that's been proven that's a guarantee you take you know take your vitamin D that improves bone health and improves calcium absorption now we know vitamin D should be paired with a vitamin K so we've improved that knowledge but it's still that knowledge is there about vitamin D and bone health vitamin D on the immune platform is an interesting topic because it's a reverse acute phase reactant and what's that okay so we have these things called acute phase reactants these are kind of the first line of fire when there's inflammation in our body this is that c reactive protein fertin these are some of the things that show up on lab markers the um said rate you you might have your doctor run some of these and they'll say your C reactive protein is high that's a sign of inflammation they might run said rate to see also for that inflammatory marker but vitamin D is the opposite vitamin D shuts those down so in theory if vitamin D comes up your C reactive protein should come down and this is a really important conversation when it comes to our immune system because vitamin D in that reverse acute phase reactant is actually tamping down that overactive immunity and so this is also a conversation and this is something the scientists are still trying to figure out why is everyone vitamin D deficient yes maybe we're sitting in front of our computers too much and that's a reality but there's something else going on where people have bottomed out vitamin D and some people have low vitamin D even when they're supplementing I see it all the time what's going on with our vitamin D levels this I think is a conversation that's worth exploring is the vitamin D working and being used up to Tamp down that inflammation and this is something that's still newer in the research the scientists are really starting to shed light on this relationship between vitamin D's ability to decrease those inflammatory markers so that's very very important with autoimmunity because those are the some of the first things they check with autoimmune conditions they're checking those C reactive proteins C rates and the thotin levels so often times the vitamin D is low unless someone's heavily supplementing with that this is the conversation with vitamin D and the immune system this is a really important factor with autoimmunity vitamin D is one of the most important vitamins that most of us aren't getting enough of and we aren't talking about it nearly enough now traditionally our ancestors would mostly get vitamin D from sun exposure because your body actually produces it in response to the it's it's actually a kind of like a hormone vitamin D is not found directly in very many foods there are some some fish livers and and fish products that have a little bit or sometimes more than a little bit and then it's found in mushrooms when they're growing in in contact with sunlight but most of us get most of our vitamin D endogenously by making it ourselves in response to sunlight and in the modern world a lot of us spend time indoors we may live in climates where you don't want to be outside with skin exposed a whole lot or we cover up and so then we're not getting that vitamin D production naturally so it can be really beneficial to take some supplemental vitamin D to make sure you're getting enough now I'll say for myself personally that I used to not take vitamin D and I got colds like most people do two or three times a year that's the average in the United States and then uh about 10 years ago I started taking supplemental vitamin D3 daily and I stopped getting CTS and since that time I've had about three Colts in the last decade and those have all happened at times when I stopped taking vitamin D for one reason or another I got lazy and then I'm like oh my gosh I got a cold and I look back and I'm like oh my goodness I haven't been taking my D so for me personally that's anecdotal but I personally am a big fan of taking it and I think that it helps my immune Health a great deal and that might be true for you as well you can get your blood levels checked to find out where your levels are at any doctor's visit they can do that for you you want to be at the middle range or upper range you don't want to be at the bottom end of what's considered normal if you want optimal so some people need to take a couple thousand micrograms a day or I use rather a vitamin D per day uh personally I take about 7,000 I use of vitamin D3 per day and that gets me to a level a blood level that seems to be about optimal which is around 50 for me be your own expert on this and not everybody needs to take it but it's recommended for a lot of folks and we see a lot of people who feel healthier and better and have better immune Health in particular when they take D3 on the regular if you want vitamin D3 it's only found in little bits in some fish products but but mainly it's it's best to get that in supplemental form or to make your own with sun exposure like say 10 or 15 minutes of time sunbathing on a regular basis could be really good for your health so typically what I use is I use a vitamin D that is in it's aisolated vitamin D so misol means that it's already prepackaged and ready to be absorbed into the cells and get into the lymphatic system that's the pathway for fat soluble vitamins and with aisolated vitamin D usually they're in the emulsi you'll see a brand that says emulsi something you know UL D or something to that effect that usually means it's mulated and it's ready to be absorbed into the system and I will usually try and get my patients up to if they're very deficient I start with 5,000 I use a day and I keep them at that level until we retest if someone's coming in with semi low vitamin D I like to see vitamin D levels at 50 around there if someone's cominging in at 35 or 40 I might put them at 2,000 I use per day and keep them at that someone whose levels are normal they're 50 I'll keep them at a th000 I use per day as a maintenance D so really just depends how depleted their vitamin D levels are and what what's going on vitamin D can also have an impact on sleep there are some studies showing that people that are having Sleep Disorders if they're taking higher level vitamin D might actually improve their sleep as well so sometimes we see an improvement and people sleep with those higher doses so it depends on what's going on with the individual on how I will recommend the dosing but generally I will bring vitamin D into the mix into until that conversation changes scientifically I'm going to stick with what I see in my clinic and what what the research is saying if you've just been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease or suspect that you might have one you cannot ignore gut health I think the the role of enhanced permeability leaky gut or or despotic ecosystem um as drivers of um autoimmune diseases evidence is clear these things are core drivers of those conditions and it also means that we've got alternative ways of treating it because we can just go oh my god I've got a label of disease that I'm going to have my life and which is often the case when you just speak to your your specialist for example and they go all you can do is take this medication forever rather than okay can we stop the process can we reverse the process there's answers I think that's the cool thing is that by working on the gut working on Integrity working on the microbiome we can actually change the inflammatory environment in your body and that's important for autoimmune disease totally but for aging optimally as well and for for every single chronic Western disease that we're we're having Associated it's so common in Western Nations these days and I think there's so much power in the capacity of changing because we can change those things we can change our diet we can take the right supplements we can eat the right herbs Etc we can alter those things and alter the disease process that I think is what's exciting what I've found in clinical practice and working with thousands of people over the last 30 plus years is that when people address the gut their autoimmunity improves it's not the only thing you have to address right there's a lot of other factors we have to heal the tissue tissue that's been damaged we have to look at nutrient imbalances so Etc and the the nutrient imbalances can be as a result of the gut being a mess but I've had folks who have Lupus for example right and they've been diagnosed with lupus for like the last 10 15 years and they thought it was hopeless right the doctor just keeps giving them steroids and telling them that you know this is a lifelong thing and when they turn their health around when they get their gut balanced because that's the first thing we do with people who have any kind of autoimmune we heal the gut we we remove the foods and the environmental substances Etc that are hurting the gut and then we replenish and we rebuild the gut and suddenly the lupus symptoms go away I one person who had shr's disease and she'd been told it was a life sentence that was it she had such low energy she could barely make it through the day and we looked at improving her gut we put her on a cleansing program we put her on a food sensitivity diet pulled out the things that were affecting her gut we helped her to restore her gut now she's fully functioning person full-time job and volunteering in the community and the autoimmune disease is in remission what an incredible journey we've had in this third episode of the gut autoimmune solution we've dealt vved deep into the world of Ley gut syndrome uncovering its profound connection to autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammation we've explored the factors that can compromise our gut barrier and learned about powerful nutrients like El glutamine zinc and vitamins A and D that can help repair and strengthen it but our exploration of the gut autoimmune connection is far from over in our next episode we'll be tackling a critical piece of the autoimmune puzzle chronic inflammation we'll dive into the far-reaching impacts of chronic inflammation on your body and mind and uncover the hidden causes that might be lurking in your everyday life you'll hear from leading experts about Cutting Edge research in this field and learn practical strategies you can Implement right away to start cooling the fires of inflammation in your body so thank you for joining me today in episode 3 and I'll see you in our next episode [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music]