March 24, 2018 Wiggy Saunders

These Symptoms May Mean You Suffer From A Medical Mystery

I have a “gut” feeling that you’re not going to like what you hear today. However, I think it’s important you learn about this problem so you can fix it. This is a problem that isn’t yet recognized by the mainstream medical community, so you might not get the help you need there, which is why I’ll tell you about it today.

True, I didn’t learn about it in medical school, even though over 2,000 years ago the man called the father of medicine recognized the problem. (No, not me… I can’t time travel but if I could, he’s one guy I’d love to meet).

Let’s check out some of these symptoms and see if any of them sound familiar:

inflammatory skin conditions
bloating, gas, cramps
constipation or diarrhea
difficulties with weight loss
digestive issues
brain fog, moodiness, nervousness
sleep problems
food sensitivities

If they do, you’re not alone. It’s nearly an epidemic given the millions and millions of Americans who suffer from these symptoms.

I’m talking about poor gut health.

And how failing to listen to your gut may lead to a condition known as “leaky gut.” Leaky gut is something WebMD referred to as “something of a medical mystery.”

And, yes, it’s as gross as it sounds.

Here’s How I Stumbled Upon The Mystery of the Leaky Gut

For years, patients were coming in droves with these symptoms. And the hard part was that these symptoms could indicate many things that I had learned in medical school. But somehow, those diagnoses didn’t really seem to solve the puzzle.

Well, you know how I love puzzles… so once again; I donned my Super Thinker Helmet (and that’s th-inker not stinker) and began researching.

While burning the midnight oil, I came across bits and pieces of new and different information about the gut not covered in medical school and... suddenly, the reason so many people came to me complaining about these symptoms began to make sense.

I had a new picture of the gut to work with.

This is what I found.

Your gut is supposed to be a mesh-like barrier that allows vital nutrients to enter your body’s bloodstream, and keeps larger particles in the digestive tract. In fact, this regulation of intestinal permeability is one of its cells’ main functions. Kind of like a good screen door for your home.

Eating the standard American diet, which relies heavily on inflammatory food like gluten, added sugar, and processed foods, wrecks your gut’s ability to keep bad things where they belong -- inside your intestines.

How do things get out?

Blame it on zonulin. Gut cells respond to these foods by releasing a protein, zonulin, which breaks the tight junctions of your gut’s mesh-like lining. In the process, your body opens an escape route for food particles to exit out of your intestines and into the body.

Once these undigested food particles, toxic waste products and bacteria leak through these enlarged “holes” into your bloodstream, they begin to circulate throughout your body.

And while these particles are too small to stimulate an infection, the constant cycle of leakage and attack tricks your body into thinking something is wrong, and so it activates your body’s immune and inflammatory responses anyway.

Soon your immune system is fighting an invasion of these foreign particles -- always on the attack as these particles continually seep through your intestinal “holes” like swarms of mosquitoes through a broken screen.

So now that I knew what was happening, I had a better idea of which culprits were causing all of those symptoms I described at the beginning of my article.

Would You Like to Know the Main Villains Destroying Your Gut?

Well, I guess it’s no big surprise that inflammatory foods, infections, and toxins are the main villains.

I’ve written before about the damage of diets high in gluten, sugar and processed foods as well as genetically modified (GMO) foods, and artificial ingredients.

Unfortunately, they are once again suspects in causing leaky gut and destroying your body’s ability to properly absorb nutrients.

And then, there are hormone and antibiotic-laced meat and dairy products that further damage your gut’s delicate microbial balance.

They may even be wiping out certain species of bacteria, leaving your gut even more defenseless.

Chronic stress, overuse of antibiotics and other medications, antibacterial products, smoking, poor sleep habits, environmental toxins like mercury and pesticides, lack of exercise -- there are just a whole slew of offenders.

And because about 80% of your immune system is in your gut and about 95 % of your body’s serotonin (the neurotransmitter that influences both mood and GI activity) is produced in the small intestine, you can see how throwing your gut out of whack can be a disaster in the making.

Wanting to help my patients avoid any further disasters with whacked-out guts, I began investigating the microbial world I knew existed there. As I said, some bacteria were at risk for extinction.

Was this good or bad? I wanted to better understand the role these micro-creatures play.

Let Me Introduce You To 40 Trillion Bacterial Cells

Your gut has over 4,000 square feet of surface area teeming with trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi — gut bugs!

Surprisingly, there are roughly 40 trillion bacterial cells in your body and only 30 trillion human cells.

You are actually more bacteria than human! So it makes sense these bacterial cells could have a huge impact.

If the thought of all these creepy crawlies in your gut leaves you squirming to get rid of them, let me assure you that would be a big mistake. We need them to survive.

Researchers are finding that this extremely lively “bug” world, known as our microbiome, is responsible for more than just digestion. It plays a role in everything from your immune system to metabolism and weight gain, and even has a part in brain function and moods.

Just to give you an idea of how important a healthy microbiome (what we call the intestines and all the bacteria inside it) truly is, Eamonn Quigley, an expert in gastroenterology at Houston Methodist Hospital, who is world renowned for his research on intestinal diseases, said this:

“A healthy microbiome is important for health, period. The more diverse your microbiome, the healthier you are."

But we often neglect this invisible world and jeopardize its very existence by subjecting it to extremely adverse conditions. We should treat our friends better than this.

3 Ways to Provide a Healthy Home for Your Bugs!

The first step in caring for your gut is eating better. All those friendly gut bugs respond to what you feed them. And you want to give those good bugs an opportunity to thrive.

1 — Remove sugar and processed foods. These products enter the bloodstream quickly without help from your microbes. In fact, they will nourish the bad bugs, while leaving the good bugs unfed. And this may turn those friendly bugs against you: they may begin chomping on your intestinal lining creating those leaky holes.

2 — Add healthy fats, proteins, complex carbohydrates and fiber-containing foods. These will keep your good bugs satisfied and starve the bad bugs. It also helps diversify the bacteria in your gut.

3 — Nourish your gut lining with fermented foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, pickled cauliflower, olives, and coconut kefir that also contain probiotics. Most cultures of the world have developed some sort of fermented foods to aid healthy microbiome balance. They were probably “listening to their gut…”

Now Add Even More Benefits With A High Quality Probiotic Supplement

Taking the 3 food steps I just mentioned is a great start for healing your gut. It gives your body’s beneficial bacteria a chance to flourish.

However, if you’ve been eating the standard American diet for any amount of time, your gut is hurting, unable to properly balance its microbiome, and vulnerable to deficiencies of crucial nutrients.

And even if you switch your diet, it’s still hard to escape the fact that many food products have been pasteurized, irradiated, or compromised by chemicals that kill both good and bad bugs. Plus, soil has been depleted of beneficial bacteria and hidden antibiotics may kill off good gut bacteria once consumed.

So it’s tough to get ALL the probiotics you need by diet alone.

This is where probiotics supplements can help. They are the microorganism reinforcements for the good bugs as they battle the bad bugs — making probiotics pivotal in combating leaky gut and achieving optimal gut health.

As always, it’s important to get a trusted, high-quality supplement. And that’s not always easy.

Not long ago, a study was conducted on 55 brands of commonly available probiotics. The results were shocking. Only 13% contained the strains they claimed to contain and 33% contained no live strains at all!

To help our patients avoid wasting their money on products that may not benefit their gut, my team and I developed our very own probiotic.

Our Health As It Ought To Be (10-Strain) 25 Billion CFUs is one of the highest strength probiotics on the planet!

With 10 strains and over 25 billion units per capsule, taking this supplemental probiotic delivers a clinically effective dose of health boosting probiotics — just what your gut needs!

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This is one of the most popular supplements we carry. Try it out for yourself and see how it helps your community of friendly little gut bugs strengthen, grow and get to work for you!