It's not my reason though. If you've read any of my posts you'll probably know that I suffered from a condition called IBS for most of my life. I didn't know what it was at the time. No-one really did. Doctors couldn't fix it and no-one really knew how to handle it. I just knew that stomach aches, headaches and digestive problems were a part of my life. They were such a big part that, unpleasant as it was, I just accepted it as normal. Like most things in life, you just learn to live with them. But what's normal about having constant, debilitating stomach aches and an inability to keep food in and being sick ALL the time?
I only found out that food might be the cause of the problem when I was in my early 20s. A homeopath told me I had IBS and suggested that I cut gluten and dairy out of my diet. What a shocker that was! I grew up on bread. I had bread for breakfast, lunch and supper and then snacks in between, every day of my life. Let's face it, it's the easiest and cheapest thing to feed a family with 4 growing kids! What on earth was I going to eat if I couldn't eat wheat?! It was very hard to follow a gluten-free diet in those days and it took me a few years to actually get used to it and get it right.
These days it's pretty easy to avoid it. Gluten-free has become the new fad diet. It's become almost cool to say you're gluten-free. The thing is, most people are doing it for the wrong reason; to lose weight. Don't get me wrong, whatever reason you do it for, can only be for good, because I honestly believe that gluten is very VERY bad for us. We shouldn't be eating it at all and yet, it's pretty much a staple in everyone's diets.
Gluten is a substance made of 2 proteins: gliadin and glutenin. It's found in wheat, and some other grains like barley, rye, and spelt, among others. It's what gives these grains, especially wheat, its stretchiness. Ever eaten a slice of gluten-free bread? It's hard and a bit crumbly and not at all tasty! That's because of the lack of gluten. Let's face it, gluten is what makes bread so appealing! That's the thing with stuff that's generally not good for you... it always tastes so damn good!
Now let's talk about a little protein called Zonulin. Zonulin is essentially there to protect your intestines from foreign invaders. If you eat something that contains bacteria like Salmonella or E.Coli, Zonulin is responsible for creating bowel “leakiness”. It allows water to leak into the intestine causing you to get diarrhea in order to flush them out. The problem is, Zonulin is ALSO triggered by gliadin which, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, is one of the two proteins that make up gluten. So, in effect, Zonulin sees gliadin as a foreign invader as well and it reacts by creating "doorways" in the intestines. The problem with this is that it actually generates a two-way response: Not only can water enter the intestines, but the contents of your intestine are also able to enter your bloodstream. Now, generally speaking, you DO want the nutrients in your food to be passed into your bloodstream, but you don't want massive gaping holes that let EVERYTHING through without being digested properly. That's going to cause problems.
Ever heard of leaky gut syndrome? It's a more common name for a condition called Hyperpermeable Intestines. Usually, your intestines are very selective in screening what moves through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. With leaky gut syndrome, your intestinal lining becomes more porous. It develops holes that are larger in size than they should be and the screening out process stops functioning properly. The result is that larger, undigested food molecules and other “bad stuff” (yeast, toxins, and all other forms of waste) that your body normally doesn’t allow through, start flowing freely into your bloodstream. This is a BIG problem that has a ripple effect, causing a whole bunch of other problems.
Now let's talk about a little protein called Zonulin. Zonulin is essentially there to protect your intestines from foreign invaders. If you eat something that contains bacteria like Salmonella or E.Coli, Zonulin is responsible for creating bowel “leakiness”. It allows water to leak into the intestine causing you to get diarrhea in order to flush them out. The problem is, Zonulin is ALSO triggered by gliadin which, as I mentioned in the previous paragraph, is one of the two proteins that make up gluten. So, in effect, Zonulin sees gliadin as a foreign invader as well and it reacts by creating "doorways" in the intestines. The problem with this is that it actually generates a two-way response: Not only can water enter the intestines, but the contents of your intestine are also able to enter your bloodstream. Now, generally speaking, you DO want the nutrients in your food to be passed into your bloodstream, but you don't want massive gaping holes that let EVERYTHING through without being digested properly. That's going to cause problems.
Ever heard of leaky gut syndrome? It's a more common name for a condition called Hyperpermeable Intestines. Usually, your intestines are very selective in screening what moves through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream. With leaky gut syndrome, your intestinal lining becomes more porous. It develops holes that are larger in size than they should be and the screening out process stops functioning properly. The result is that larger, undigested food molecules and other “bad stuff” (yeast, toxins, and all other forms of waste) that your body normally doesn’t allow through, start flowing freely into your bloodstream. This is a BIG problem that has a ripple effect, causing a whole bunch of other problems.
The first reaction your body has to these “foreign” bodies in your bloodstream is to fight like mad. What will happen is that your liver will start to work overtime and try to screen out all the food particles that your intestinal lining was supposed to take care of. Unfortunately, your liver has little to no chance of keeping up with the constant flow of waste. That means that all the toxins, undigested food and other pathogens start to accumulate in your body.
This causes your immune system to sit up and take notice, and it will NOT be happy AT ALL. It goes into full battle mode to fight the evil intruders and get them out of the body as quickly as possible. Of course, the body ALSO can't keep up with that and so the unfortunate end result is that the majority of these foreign bodies and toxins are absorbed into the tissues throughout your body and THAT is going to trigger inflammation.
This causes your immune system to sit up and take notice, and it will NOT be happy AT ALL. It goes into full battle mode to fight the evil intruders and get them out of the body as quickly as possible. Of course, the body ALSO can't keep up with that and so the unfortunate end result is that the majority of these foreign bodies and toxins are absorbed into the tissues throughout your body and THAT is going to trigger inflammation.
Inflammation is also an immune response and it causes even MORE stress on your system. Now that your body is focused on fighting a serious war, the smaller battles, like filtering out the blood, fighting bacteria, calming inflamed areas and regulating your intestines, are starting to be ignored. This process can actually lead to your body starting to fight itself and that is where you become susceptible to an array of autoimmune diseases such as Chronic Fatigue, MS, IBS, Ulcerative Colitis, and Fibromyalgia.
Your body will begin to produce anti-bodies designed to fight against what it sees as foreign objects (which can be anything from the proteins in milk, to proteins in nuts, grains and eggs). For example, when I was slap bang in the middle of my IBS, I would IMMEDIATELY react to eating a handful of nuts. I'd get an instant headache, brain fog, and I'd be running for a bathroom. It wasn't something slow. It happened immediately. But that's because all of this had been building up for a long time and I didn't realise it. My body was at war with itself.
The problem with this whole process is that, pretty soon, your body starts to see EVERYTHING you eat as a foreign object, so it won't actually matter what food you cut out. It will all cause a reaction as soon as it gets through the holes in your intestines. That's exactly what happened to me. It got to the point where I was permanently suffering from headaches, brain fog and horrible digestive issues. I was living on painkillers and I was eating next to nothing because everything made me feel terrible.
This is what gluten does to you. It's not limited to me, or people who are sensitive to it. It happens to everyone because all human beings produce Zonulin. The problem is that most people don't realise it's happening because most people are so used to being in a constant state of sickness. Like me accepting my IBS as "just how things are", most people do the same.
You may have a headache every second day, or every day for that matter. You may often have acid reflux issues, heartburn and indigestion. You may find that your memory is getting worse and worse and you feel tired a lot more than usual. You may suffer from eczema or some kind of skin rash that just won't go away. You may catch every bug that is doing the rounds, and when you catch it, you are sick for WEEKS on end. Candida is VERY common if you have leaky gut syndrome. If you suffer with any kind of thrush, you probably have candida and may also have leaky gut syndrome. Sometimes it's so hard to pin down exactly what's wrong, you just know you feel "off". There may be underlying issues but I can guarantee that one of the problems is the amount of gluten you are putting in your body.
The problem that really gets most people who eat a lot of gluten, is malnutrition. You may think I'm nuts saying that, because I bet you eat 3 square meals a day, just like most people, plus snacks in between. How can you suffer from malnutrition if you are eating all the time? What happens is that your body isn't able to absorb the nutrients from the food you're eating. Your intestinal lining has what's called intestinal villi and it's the job of the intestinal villi to absorb nutrients. If you have leaky gut syndrome, those villi come under attack and are unable to do their job. That means that, no matter what you eat, your body is not benefiting from it. You can be 50kgs overweight and you can still suffer from malnutrition and that is going to lead to a whole bunch of other issues like anaemia, osteoporosis and infertility, to name just a few.
These days, autoimmune diseases are pretty common. Like cancer and heart disease, they are diseases of civilisation. The more "advanced" we become, the more we rely on convenience foods, the greater the stress on our bodies, the sicker we get. What you need to do is halt the process I described a few paragraphs ago, BEFORE you get to the point of no return. I've said it many times before, prevention is far better than cure, and far more effective. An autoimmune disease is pretty hard to fix. And the underlying root of the problem is always going to be there no matter what. What you need to do is change the way you think, completely. If it's going to mean a better quality of life, why would you even think twice about it?
How do you fix this? Well, if you are experiencing any of the symptoms above then it's a little more complicated than just cutting out gluten, but that is an extremely good place to start. Give your body a fighting chance by cutting it out completely. Fixing leaky gut syndrome is quite similar to fixing candida, which I posted about a few days ago. You can refer to that post and you can also try some of these options to speed up the healing process and fix the damage that's been done:
- Dietary Restrictions: Cut out all sugars, starches, grains and processed foods. (which always contain all of the other things anyway!) This immediately alleviates the inflammation and starves the yeast overgrowth. Then the intestinal tract will slowly start to return to its normal permeability, stopping the flow of foreign objects into the blood, which will stop food intolerance symptoms and eventually help stop the vicious cycle.
- Nutritional Supplementing: As I said earlier, you are going to suffer from nutritional deficiencies and, if you don't get proper nutrients into your body, it will lead to a whole host of problems. Supplementing with a good multi-vitamin (Look for foodstate at Dischem. Don't use anything synthetic), large amounts of vitamin D, and zinc will help the intestinal lining return to normal. Fish oils also really help improve the condition of the intestinal lining by reducing inflammation.
- Probiotics: Putting the friendly bacteria Lactobacillus Acidophilus back into your intestine is very important. Cutting out all the bad food will get rid of the bad bacteria and you need a constant feed of the good bacteria to replace it. Friendly bacteria also help prevent bad bacteria and yeast. They heal the intestinal lining and help nutrients get absorbed which helps to keep the vicious cycle in check. Again, foodstate has a very good one.
- Digestive Enzymes: Usually you get digestive enzymes from the raw food you eat (which is why it's essential to eat some raw food with every meal) but your intestines will probably feel a bit aggravated by raw food initially so, to help them out, supplement with digestive enzymes. You will find them at Dischem too.
Your body WILL thank you.
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