10 Things That Can Make Your Gut “Leaky”

You may hear this term a lot today, but what exactly is “leaky gut”?  

Leaky gut, also called “Intestinal Permeability”, is when the gut barrier is compromised, leading to an increased immune reaction, increased inflammation, and unpleasant GI symptoms. 

Your gut barrier serves to defend against letting things into your bloodstream that shouldn’t be there, ie undigested proteins, pathogens, bacteria, and toxins.  With a leaky gut, each of these “invaders” can escape your gut and enter your bloodstream, where they shouldn’t be. 

Results of a leaky gut

The cells of your gut lining are normally held together with tight junctions which serve to keep what is allowed and not allowed into the body.  However, when the tight junctions become inflamed, they loosen up, allowing undigested food particles and toxins to go through.  Those particles are seen by the body as invaders, stimulating an antibody reaction.  This results in inflammation that impacts not only the gut lining but affects the entire body.  This widespread inflammation can bring on many unpleasant symptoms and even diseases.₁

Seventy to eighty percent of our immune system is found in our gut!  Making sure we have a healthy and robust microbiome ensures that we have a healthy immune system.  Part of supporting optimal gut health is becoming aware of what things can damage it.  

Here are 10 causes of leaky gut:

1. Chronic stress: Stress downregulates digestion and has been shown to decrease the bacterial diversity in your gut.₂ 

2. Medications: Birth control pills, overuse of antibiotics, PPIs, and prolonged use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), can disrupt the microbiota’s diversity and balance. 

3. Standard American Diet:  A diet high in processed foods and excess amounts of sugar can cause damage to our intestinal lining.  Processed foods lack nutrients and fiber, include large amounts of food additives, inflammatory seed oils (like canola, corn, grapeseed, peanut, soybean, and safflower), and often high amounts of sugar.  These foods encourage inflammation and can encourage yeast overgrowth and pathogenic bacteria.  

4. Overconsumption of alcohol: Alcohol can encourage dysbiosis and the tight junctions in the gut to open up.  

5. Dysbiosis: The presence of dysbiosis, or an imbalance of helpful and harmful bacteria in the microbiome, can lead to a leaky gut.  It’s important that the good beneficial bacteria are not outnumbered by opportunistic bacteria.  

6. Lack of variety of foods and fiber: A low variety of nutrients from fruit and vegetables, as well as very little fiber, can affect the amount and diversity of beneficial gut bacteria, as well as encourage constipation.  

7. High endurance exercise: Vigorous endurance training can increase intestinal permeability.₃  

8. Gut infections:  Bacterial pathogens, parasites, and overgrowth of yeast cause inflammation, a downregulated immune system, decreased digestive function, and decreased diversity in the gut microbiota. 

9. Dysfunctional digestion: When your food isn’t properly broken down and digested, it results in inflammation and damage to the gut’s cell lining. Optimal digestion requires adequate stomach acid, adequate pancreatic enzymes, and bile to complete the breakdown of food into absorbable molecules.  

10. Low protein in your diet: We need protein to create stomach acid, and we need stomach acid to break down our food, especially animal proteins.  It’s a symbiotic relationship.  

It’s important to address the underlying cause of your leaky gut so that you can reverse the symptoms that are a result of your leaky gut, and keep issues from returning.  

There is so much we can do to address leaky gut and support a healthy microbiome.  Stay tuned-I’ll be sharing next about some of the best nourishing foods for your gut health. 

References:

1. Mu, Q., Kirby, J., Reilly, C.M., & Luo, X. M. (2017).  Leaky Gut As a Danger Signal for Autoimmune Diseases.  Frontiers in immunology, 8, 598.  
2. Karl, J. P., Hatch, A. M., Arcidiacono, S. M., Pearce, S. C., Pantoja-Feliciano, I. G., Doherty, L. A. & Soares, J. W. (2018).  Effects of Psychological, Environmental and Physical Stressors on the Gut Microbiota.  Frontiers in microbiology, 9, 2013. 
3. Ribeiro, F. M., Petriz, B., Marques, G., Kamilla, L. H., and Franco, O. L. (2021).  Is There an Exercise-Intensity Threshold Capable of Avoiding the Leaky Gut?. Frontiers in nutrition, 8, 627289.