Could your issues be in your gut?

Do you suffer from seasonal allergies? How about brain fog or mood swings? Is your skin problematic? Do you have digestive issues? Do you suspect your hormones are imbalanced? It might surprise you to learn that all of these maladies can be symptoms of leaky gut syndrome. What is a leaky gut? Advanced Functional Medicine explains this problem, and offers advice on how to heal your gut and experience better health.

What is leaky gut syndrome?

You may not know this, but your gut is very important to your health, because it’s where almost 80 percent of your immune system is located. What’s more, up to 90 percent of the serotonin in your body is produced in your gut. Leaky gut syndrome occurs when the intestinal wall is compromised, and toxins, microbes, and undigested food particles are allowed to escape into the bloodstream. This can put a person on the path to chronic illness, with symptoms far surpassing simple digestive issues.

Conventional medicine does not recognize leaky gut as a valid diagnosis, because conventional medicine views the body of a collection of different systems. Functional medicine, however, looks at the body as a whole, seeing all the systems as part of one unit, working together. However, even conventional medical doctors concede that poor diet and chronic stress are connected to gut inflammation.

How To Diagnose Leaky Gut

If you have symptoms that lead you to believe you have a leaky gut, like the ones mentioned above or a diagnosis of a condition like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, celiac disease, chronic fatigue, or fibromyalgia, a functional medicine doctor can run tests to determine whether or not you have intestinal permeability. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay test (ELISA) is often used, because it is very accurate. You can also test for leaky gut by determining if you have a food sensitivity. You can do this by completing an elimination diet, removing certain foods from your diet for a short period of time. The foods are then reintroduced one by one, to help identify which might be causing issues.

How to Heal Leaky Gut Syndrome

One approach to dealing with a leaky gut is to follow the 4Rs:

Remove all inflammatory foods, like gluten, dairy, corn, soy, and eggs, as well as toxic foods like sugar, caffeine, and alcohol.
Replace bad things with good things, adding leaky gut supplements and digestive enzymes to support digestion and nutrient absorption, as well as reducing inflammation responses.
Reinoculate your gut to with beneficial bacteria to rebuild a healthy microbiome by consuming high-quality, high-potency probiotics.
Repair the damage by providing your body with essential nutrients, through supplements designed to repair the gut, which your functional medicine doctor can recommend.

Treating the Whole Person

At Advanced Functional Medicine, an integrated medical clinic, we exclusively practice functional medicine. A full functional medicine approach to healing uses a comprehensive diagnostic screening to get to the root of a patient’s issues. Our whole body approach to medicine utilizes all-natural, researched-based nutritional approaches to optimize the body’s natural healing abilities, rather than just using medication to treat symptoms. Each individual receives unique and customized care, formulated based on the latest scientific resource, and we have a 96 percent success rate in patient outcomes. As a medically driven, patient-focused health clinic, we support our patients’ individual health goals, providing natural relief for symptoms of chronic factors and expert guidance about the decisions affecting a patient’s long-term health. It is our goal to help reverse chronic disease without resorting to dangerous or unnecessary drugs or surgical interventions, promoting healing from the inside out, in its truest, healthiest form. To schedule an appointment or learn more about how we can help restore your health and strengthen your body’s unique physiological functions, call 858-500-5572 or contact us through our website.