Foods To Avoid With Leaky Gut Syndrome
The foods we eat, and the foods we avoid, can play a large role in gut health. Certain foods have been found to be inflammatory and can be destructive to our gut lining, thus, contributing to leaky gut. All body functions rely on the ability of our gut to break down food and absorb nutrients effectively. If the foods that we consume create inflammation and lead towards damage in our gut lining, this creates a vicious cycle in which the damage further compromises the gut’s ability to properly break down and absorb other nutrients. This leads to many of the symptoms that are associated with leaky gut.
Dr. Hayden and Dr. Horsley will dive more into this idea as well as cover several other key concepts as they continue this series, “Leaky Gut Syndrome – Your Symptoms Could be Directly Associated with Your Diet”. You will learn about what leaky gut is, what the symptoms are, how it is diagnosed, what the best treatment options are, and common conditions tied to leaky gut. These videos will be released over the next couple days on our youtube account, facebook account, and as a blog post on The Hayden Institute website.
Video Transcript from Video on Foods to Avoid with Leaky Gut Syndrome:
Dr. Hayden: Hey there everyone, thanks so much for joining us during this leaky gut mini-series. So far, we’ve talked about what is leaky gut, how it is diagnosed, what are different symptoms that you have associated with it, as well as maybe other different conditions that may be associated with leaky gut. So today we want to talk about the more dietary side of things – about what specific foods may play a factor in leaky gut. So if I was to avoid certain foods to help to give my gut a chance to heal, which ones would you avoid first?
Dr. Hayden: You made a very valuable association there, which is that food affects our gut. If our gut is inflamed it results in difficulty tolerating certain things, which then creates more inflammation – thus creating a vicious cycle every time we eat something. Therefore, it would be important for us to identify which foods create this inflammation and then remove these foods from our diet. There are a lot of foods in the world, obviously, but there are certain categories of foods that tend to show more benefit when they come out of the diet during the phase of leaky gut. The four most common ones that I often have my patients start with would be gluten, which is found in wheat, barley, and rye; casein, which is found in dairy (but not eggs); corn and soy. So therefore, if a patient had leaky gut like symptoms and they wanted to run and experiment, I would often have them remove gluten, dairy, corn, and soy from their diet for a period of 30 days or so. However, Dr. Horsley, I know you sometimes include a couple of other foods. What are some of those?
Dr. Horsley: So other ones in addition to those top inflammatory foods are going to be things like artificial sweeteners. Artificial sweeteners can often play havoc on our nervous system, gut, and brain. So avoiding those and trying to steer more towards real cane sugar, stevia, xylitol, or honey is going to be a better option than the little pink, yellow, and white packets that you will find on the tables at different restaurants. Additionally, avoiding things like alcohol. Alcohol can play a big factor in overall gut health, not only with the gut, but also in the interrelationships that it has with the liver.
Dr. Horsley: The key is trading out these inflammatory and toxic foods and focusing on getting your food as much from nature as possible. Therefore, trying to avoid genetically modified foods. Genetic modification helps to increase yields so we can get more food. This is a great thing. However, the price comes in the fact that as we change the composition of food to resist these herbicides, pesticides, and chemicals, we also are indirectly making them resistant to our own gut enzymes. Therefore, if we’re making food resistant to these things, it may also be resistant to our body’s ability to brain them down. That is why trying to stick to organic or things that are more natural is often a better option for your overall health and gut health.
Dr. Hayden: So it sounds like if I avoid gluten, dairy, corn, soy, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and genetically modified foods that I have very little to select from when it comes to eating, that I may not be able to eat anything. So the key is to try to avoid these inflammatory foods for a period of 30 days (it could be beneficial to do this longer for certain individuals depending on the burden that has already been placed on their gut). That period of rest allows those cells to knit themselves back together to heal and take that burden off, allowing the microbiome and gut to come back to more of a sense of balance. We oftentimes like to compare this process to that of a broken leg. If you have a broken leg then obviously you are not gonna want to go run on that broken leg, even though, classically, running is a good thing. If you have a broken leg, you want to cast it – allowing it to have time to heal. So in these cases we are “casting” your gut to allow it to have time to heal. So then at the end of that period of 30, 60 or 90 days, you add back in those foods – one by one- to see if you are better able to tolerate them at that time. Therefore there is light at the end of the tunnel. We do want to avoid these foods, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a death sentence. There may be a time in which you can bring them back in the future.