Diagnosing Leaky Gut Syndrome
Leaky Gut can be diagnosed through several different mechanisms. The primary way it is diagnosed is by a through history and exam. However, there are several other objective tests – blood, stool, and urine, that can be used to officially diagnose or confirm the presence of leaky gut.
Dr. Hayden and Dr. Horsley will help to answer this question of primary causes 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.
Transcription from Video on Diagnosing Leaky Gut:
Dr. Hayden: Hey everyone, thanks for joining us through this mini series on leaky gut. So far in our previous videos we’ve talked about what leaky gut is, what are some of the common symptoms, and what are some of the common causes. Today we’re gonna talk a little bit about how it is diagnosed. So, Dr. Horsley, if you had a patient walk in and you suspected leaky gut for them, how would you diagnose that?
Dr. Horsley: For a leaky gut, as with several conditions, it is largely based upon the symptoms that people are presenting with. If you come in and you’re talking about how you’re having so much bloating and indigestion, they’ve noticed increases of skin reactions and rashes, and they have been experiencing brain fog along with an increase in asthma symptoms and an intolerance to smells. For many patients of these patients, if you walk like a duck, and you talk like a duck, and you sound like a duck – I’m going to think you’re a duck. So the same with leaky gut, if it sounds like the exact presentation for leaky gut, we would start doing some of the treatment for that. Of course, in our office, first and foremost the key is to do no harm. Therefore, we would do a treatment that would be super beneficial if it was leaky gut, but wouldn’t be harmful at all if you were to do it, but not actually have leaky gut.
Dr. Horsley: But maybe we really want to know specifically that it is leaky gut. There are several more objective based tests which can confirm the presence of leaky gut. So what different more objective based tests would you use to determine if someone has leaky gut?
Dr. Hayden: As with a lot of diagnostic testing there are three main ways in which we can do some objective tests: urine, stool, and blood. With these tests we do a sample and then send it out to the lab for analysis. The traditional test for leaky gut syndrome has been a urine test – where you measure something called lactulose and mannatose. These are sugars that are found in the urine, which shouldn’t typically get into the urinary system unless your gut is leaking. So there are labs out there, like Great Plains Laboratory that will do a urine test.
Dr. Hayden: The test we typically use the most is a stool sample where we use a lab called Genova. That lab uses a functional stool sample, where you collect stool samples over three days, you send everything in, and you get back a six page report that talks about gut bacteria and the status of your microbiome. This looks at the good guys, the bad guys, the opportunistic guys, as well as infections, parasites, viruses, funguses, and other things like that. It is a really comprehensive stool test which is great. The last way, which is kind of on the forefront of research when it comes to diagnosing something like leaky gut comes from the blood test – where the researchers are looking for antibody tests or your immune cells that are eating the gut, causing that permeability to be present. So if we think back to our first videos when we’re taking about what leaky gut is – it’s where the holes and the wall open up and stuff starts slipping through that shouldn’t. So if the immune system is eating some of those guards or protective guys on the border, they won’t be there to stop the things from passing through.
Dr. Hayden: The unfortunate thing for these tests is that they’re typically expensive and insurance doesn’t always cover them, which is why, as Dr. Horsley said, we primarily start based off of what someone’s symptoms are and use that as the primary rationale for treatment. So if someone comes in and walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, like Dr. Horsley said, we will frequently begin treatment. If we feel that treatment is not going in the direction that we want, that’s when additional testing comes into play. Unfortunately, like we said, the cost is often the prohibitive factor for a lot of these objective tests.