Guide to Healing Chronic Pain - a Holistic Approach by Karen Kan

Author:Karen Kan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Karen Kan, MD
Published: 2013-02-16T07:00:00+00:00

Four Vicious Cycles

Allergies are the first in the vicious cycles that people with leaky gut have to contend with. As I described above, the immune system just isn’t used to dealing with an onslaught of foreign proteins that normally would stay within the confines of the intestines. The second vicious cycle that is set up with Leaky Gut Syndrome is malnutrition. Elizabeth Lipski PhD, in her book Digestive Wellness describes the primary cause of mal-absorption with a leaky gut: The small intestinal villi become inflamed and thus prevent small nutrients and food molecules from being absorbed. Villi are small fingerlike projections in the small intestine. Villi have a large surface area to absorb nutrients. When they are destroyed, not only are nutrients not properly absorbed, but also the gut fluid leaks between the cells of the intestines before being processed.

Nutrients are supposed to be taken in through the intestinal cells themselves. It seems that the leakier the intestinal wall, the less nutrition is absorbed by the intestinal cells. Without proper nutrients, not only do other parts of the body have difficulty healing but so does the metabolically-demanding intestinal wall itself. A symptom of nutritional deprivation is overeating. Most of the obese people in America are malnourished. They may eat a lot, but either the quality of what they eat is poor or they just aren’t absorbing nutrients effectively.

The third vicious cycle in leaky gut is the overgrowth of “bad” bacteria, yeast, fungus and parasites in the intestines. In Digestive Wellness, Dr. Lipski discusses bacteria translocation, whereby “bad” bacteria normally associated with the intestines make their way into the bloodstream through the leaky gut and colonize other parts of the body causing inflammation and pain. Blastocystis hominis, a bacterium that causes GI problems, has been found in the synovial fluid of arthritic patients. This condition is called dysbiosis. Without the “army” of healthy gut flora protecting it, the moist warm environment of the intestines can harbor all sorts of foreign invaders that cause chronic disease.

Sometimes I can easily tell if someone has an imbalance of intestinal organisms by asking one question: “Do you have sugar cravings?” Often, if not always, my patients with uncontrollable sugar cravings have intestinal dysbiosis. The overgrowth of yeast, such as Candida, love to be fed a diet of easily digestible energy, so they’ll literally signal the body to crave sugar. My patients often feel guilty when they can’t stop eating sugar, but when I explain to them that it is the extra five to seven pounds of dysbiotic organisms living in their gut which are making them crave sugar; they have an easier time letting go of their guilt. Also, when they feel like reaching for a candy bar, they think twice about feeding the opportunistic organisms growing in their bellies.

The fourth vicious cycle of having Leaky Gut Syndrome is stress on the organs of detoxification, specifically the liver. The liver is often overworked trying to get rid of toxic molecules. In the process, the liver creates free radicals which in turn get released into the bile and this damages the gut further.

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