Today I’m going to show you how to cure leaky gut without going to the pharmacy store.
Let us dive in…
Leaky Gut Symptoms
Warning: If you experience these symptoms, then you may have a leaky gut!
- Gas and bloating.
- Diarrhea and constipation
- Heartburn or reflux
- Symptoms from Digestive disorders like celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and Chron’s disease.
- Brain fog
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Joint pains
- Acne and rashes in skin
- Fatigue
- Allergies and food intolerance
Leaky Gut Causes: Beware – : These conditions are the root cause to majority of your issues
At the root of the root is one word – IMBALANCE !!
Our body has a lot of systems working together.
For our body to be free of diseases and perform at optimal levels, there has to be BALANCE.
So, what exactly do I mean when I say IMBALANCE.
Root Cause #1 – Inflammation
- Inflammation is body’s immune system’s response to an irritant.
- Irritant could be a germ, or a foreign object.
- It starts the moment our body starts fighting against the harmful irritant.
Cause of Inflammation
- Pathogens like bacteria, virus and fungus
- External injuries to our body (like a wound)
- Effects of chemicals
- Diseases like Cystitis, Bronchitis and others
Types of Inflammation
Inflammation can be acute or chronic
Signs of Acute Inflammation – Redness, Heat, Swelling, Pain, Loss of function.
Chronic Inflammation – Sometimes immune system fights against the body’s own cells by mistake, causing harmful inflammation like Arthritis, Psoriasis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease.
Root cause #2 – Acidity
- It refers to the acid levels within our body especially our stomach.
- Digestive juices or acids are produced in the Stomach to aid the digestive process.
- It also refers to the acid levels within our food sources.
- It is measured using pH metric.
- The food or diet sources that we eat cause a balance or imbalance in our acid levels.
- Imbalance of the acid levels are harmful to our body.
Root cause #3 – Oxidative Stress (Cell Level)
- Oxidation is an essential process that occurs within our body.
- Oxidative stress is a signal of imbalance between free radicals and antioxidants in our body.
- Because of this imbalance the free radicals can affect and damage tissues, dna and proteins in our body.
Root cause #4 – Stress (caused by increased levels of cortisol)
- Stress is our body’s response to a change caused internally or externally usually called a “fight or flight” response.
- Our body reacts may react to these stress factors with physical, mental and emotional responses.
- When our body faces continuous challenge without relief or relaxation, the effects of stress can be negative.
- Prolonged activation of the stress response causes wear and tear in the body at physical and mental level.
Cure Leaky Gut – with a simple bone broth and Colostrum
One of the main ingredient of a bone broth is collagen.
The tissues on the gut lining are disturbed and do not stick close to each other to prevent the food in the small intestine leaking out to the blood stream and vice versa.
The tight lining also prevents impurities in the blood to leak inside the small intestine.
Collagen helps bind the gut tissue lining. It is made up of amino acids called glycine, proline and hydroxyproline, which restore the gut lining.
Traditional Bone broth preparation is a time consuming process. It is usually cooked for 8 to 12 hours.
The reason it is cooked for a long duration is to get all the vitamins, proteins and minerals from the bones.
If you cook for long duration you also get a gelatinous texture which indicates that it is very healthy and well cooked.
The texture is also needed for healing the gut lining.
You need to make sure that you get the bones of organically raised animals (chicken, fish, turkey, duck) to prevent ill effects of hormones, antibiotics, chemicals, and pesticides.
The best place to get them is from your local butcher. Also make sure that you do not pressure cook to save time. Cook without pressure for a long time.
A note on Collagen
You can choose to make your own Bone broth or choose an alternate way to consume Collagen.
That is through one of the best Collagen supplement
Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn small commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.
A note on Colostrum
Colostrum is the first form of milk produced by mammals immediately following the birth of their new born.
Colostrum from cow is found to be very potent in antibodies and very good healer for human gut.
It is the best known source of nutrition to restore leaky gut.
If colostrum is not naturally accessible to you then you can rely on the best colostrum supplement
Affiliate Disclosure: As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn small commissions from qualifying purchases from Amazon.
Best bone broth to cure Leaky Gut
Leaky Gut Tea
A simple tea, which always works.
Let me explain the role of the 3 main ingredients of the tea.
Curcumin
- Has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral and antifungal properties.
- It is used to treat a lot of diseases associated to gut, neurological illness, cardio vascular diseases, arthritis and many others.
Fennel
- Is a great solution for digestive issues and irritable bowel syndrome.
- It is a very good agent that relaxes muscles in the digestive tract.
Coriander Seeds
- A very good aid to support digestion.
- It soothes the digestive tract of any congestion and clears the channel through the entire digestive tract.
- Coriander is anti-inflammatory, relieves gas and indigestion.
Tea Recipe
Now, coming to the preparation of the tea, it is very simple.
- Boil 6 to 8 cups of water in a vessel.
- Add half or a full tea spoon each of Cumin seeds, coriander seeds and Fennel seeds.
- Allow it to boil for further 10 minutes.
- Remove all the seeds from the tea and pour it into a flask.
Sip it warm every now and then throughout the day.
Leaky Gut Diet – A Diet Guide that dismisses all the myths and cure leaky gut fast!
There is a lot of information and confusion round which diet to follow to fix leaky gut.
Some of the popular diets are Prebiotics, Probiotics, Low-FODMAP, Keto, Paleo and many others.
So, which diet should you follow ?
The answer is not straight forward.
Before we dive in to the diet please remember one word – BALANCE !!
Yes, all systems within our body need to operate in balance.
Your gut is another eco system. It hosts trillions of bacteria.
Each group of bacteria perform essential functions of your gut.
Your gut will function at optimal levels if you maintain BALANCE of these bacteria.
The moment you have imbalance, you will start experiencing the symptoms as I have outlined in the first section of the article.
So, what does balance actually mean for the gut.
As I have outlined in the second section of this article, the main Imbalances are Inflammation, Acidity, Oxidative Stress and Stress
So, the diet we choose should be to attack these imbalances and bring our body back to BALANCE
Best diet to cure Leaky Gut
The diet should therefore be Anti Inflammatory, Anti Acidic (Alkaline), Anti-oxidant.
But before we go in great detail, we need to restore or fix the gut lining which would have damaged.
So, the first step would be to heal the gut using Bone Broth.
Second would be to identify any food sources or food groups to which your body is intolerant or allergic to.
Once you have identified, you need to eliminate those food sources or groups from your diet.
Most common allergic or intolerant food groups may be gluten, diary and milk products or nuts like peanuts.
A word of caution regarding diets
But a word of caution before you eliminate, please consult your doctor or health practitioner to confirm the source.
Elimination of food groups or food sources must be monitored by your doctor or health practitioner.
Some diets eliminate essential food groups; a few may eliminate carbohydrates; and others may eliminate proteins and some may eliminate fats.
This is extremely dangerous to our body.
Our body needs all the 3 major food groups – carbs, healthy fats and proteins for optimal and essential functions.
Elimination of any of them is fatal.
So, please consult your doctor before eliminating any of the essential food groups.
Now, coming back to leaky gut diet, it should be Anti-Inflammatory, Anti-Oxidant and Anti-Acidic.
What about Prebiotics and Probiotics?
Both pre biotics and pro biotics serve to balance the gut bacteria.
If you have too much bacteria in your gut which is usually known as SIBO – Small Intestine bacterial overgrowth, then you do not need Prebiotics as it promotes bacterial growth.
So, you need to understand your condition in an accurate manner with the help of a functional practitioner or a doctor and then choose appropriate diet.
I have shared the leaky gut diet approach in a separate blog post which I have shared towards the end of this blog post.
Please make sure to check that out.
Leaky Gut Schedule – The Secret to cure Leaky gut may be your Schedule.
One more important aspect of maintaining balance in your gut is your schedule.
Especially your eating and sleeping schedule.
Our body has an internal clock which responds to sun light and moon light.
It does not respond to the external man made clock that we follow.
There is a lot of research going on in the field regarding body’s function and internal clock which responds to solar and lunar rhythms.
It is called Chronobiology.
The digestive system in particular behaves differently during different times of the day.
Sun rises during the early hours of morning during which it’s influence power is in a rising state.
The main activity of the digestive system is to digest food.
It does that by producing digestive juices in scientific terms but it is referred to as Digestive fire.
Link between Sun and Digestive Fire in your body
The digestive fire is in a rising state during early morning hours similar to the sun.
So, you need to have moderate breakfast comprising mostly of fruits and easily digestible natural food.
As the sun rises, it’s power and influence increases from morning to afternoon during which it hits its peak.
So does the digestive fire in our digestive system.
When should you have Largest meal of your day
That is the reason it is recommended to have your largest meal of the day during afternoon when your digestive fire is at its peak.
Post noon the sun sets and it’s power and influence gradually reduces and disappears in the evening.
Similarly digestive fire also starts to lose its peak capacity post noon and disappears once the sun sets.
That is the reason it is recommended to have dinner around sunset time and not during late nights (post 7 pm)
Dinner should be the lightest meal of the day.
In terms of the order of heaviest to lightest meal in a day – it is lunch followed by breakfast followed by dinner.
So, to summarize again lunch should be your largest meal of the day and dinner should be your lightest meal of the day.
Case Study – How Maria, a 36 year old Call Centre professional cured her leaky gut
Maria a mother of one was working in a call center.
Because of the nature of her work she had to work in shifts.
Her shifts used to rotate every 3 months.
She used to work during early morning, mid-morning and late afternoon shifts for some time.
Then for certain time she used to work in evening and late night shifts.
Because of this constant change in the schedule she could not have a fixed schedule related to her diet, sleep and exercise.
Her shifts caused her to skip meals, sleep and exercise during certain days and it was difficult to adapt to changing shifts.
It took a toll on her body.
Maria’s Symptoms
She started experiencing brain fog, bloating and constipation which became regular.
Her stress levels also went up for a long period of time and the symptoms became worse and intolerable.
She had a leaky gut which had to be restored.
That’s when she had to make some good hard decisions.
She consulted a holistic health practitioner and described her problems.
The practitioner suggested her to check if she could manage to get a fixed working shift during the day.
He also suggested her to alter her diet, sleep and exercise schedules.
She discussed with her team mates and her manager to alter her work schedule.
She managed to get a fixed schedule during the day so that she could have a normal schedule for her meal times, sleep and exercise.
Maria’s treatment
As suggested by the practitioner, she started to heal her leaky gut with Bone broth.
She used to sip Leaky Gut tea through the day.
Her breakfast was light and healthy comprised of fruits and nuts.
Based on practitioner’s advice, she consumed sprouts, green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale during her lunch.
He had asked her to avoid heavy food like meat, dairy for some time.
Her health took a healthy U turn and she started to feel normal day by day.
After a month and a half she was feeling a lot better with a lot of vitality and energy.
She continued with her fixed day shift and did not even think about working in other shifts especially the late evening and night shifts.
Reference
Coriander
Fennel Seeds
Cumin
- Anti-inflammatory Properties of Curcumin
- A review
- Lessons Learned from Clinical Trials
- Curcumin in Disease Prevention and Treatment
- Curcumin Dietary Supplementation on Human Gut
Conclusion
Leaky gut is a reversible condition.
There is nothing to be afraid of.
A holistic medical practitioner or functional medicine practitioner or a gastroenterologist should be able to help you to identify the root cause and guide you to recovery.
With a few life style changes and diet changes you should be able to cure leaky gut.
The major factors are Inflammation, Oxidative Stress, and Acidity (pH Levels).
If you can eliminate the source that contribute to the major factors and restore balance then you will be on the path to recovery.
So, what do you think about the guide?
Please comment and share for the benefit of others.