Leaky Gut Solved: The Real Causes and Real Solutions for Healing Leaky Gut Syndrome

By Case Adams

If you or a loved one has an AUTOIMMUNE CONDITION you need to read this book. Or if you or a loved one has a CHRONIC INFLAMMATORY CONDITION, you also need to read this evidence-based book about how to heal Leaky Gut.
This book will show you what causes leaky gut. This book will also show you dozens of inexpensive natural strategies that have been proven to reverse leaky gut, thus healing leaky gut.
You may not realize this about leaky gut yet, but you should know that leaky gut syndrome has now been linked with just about EVERY AUTOIMMUNE CONDITION, as well as many inflammatory conditions.
This book is not anecdotal advice from someone who has a few cases to share. This book is based on hundreds of scientific studies on people with one condition or another. These studies show that leaky gut syndrome is linked to practically every autoimmune disorder that have been characterized by doctors as “the body attacking itself.”
Now we know the body isn’t attacking itself in most of these autoimmune conditions. We now know that when leaky gut syndrome develops in a person, autoimmune conditions develop soon after.
This book will walk you through the science, showing you how doctors discovered leaky gut syndrome, and will take you through the physiology of the condition, how it is diagnosed, what causes it, and what natural strategies have been proven to heal leaky gut and thus reverse leaky gut (scientifically called “increased intestinal permeability”).
This book also shows you the best diets and how to cook foods in order to heal leaky gut, making this an ultimate cookbook to heal leaky gut.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Logical Books
• Release date: Jan 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215621288

Case Adams

“One summer decades ago, as a pre-med major working my way through college, I hurt my back digging ditches. I visited a doctor who prescribed me with an opioid medication. I didn’t take the drug but this brought about a change of heart regarding my career in medicine. I decided against prescribing drugs and sought an alternative path. During college and afterwards, I got involved in the food business, working at farms, kitchens, and eventually management in the organic food and herbal supplement businesses. I also continued my natural health studies, and eventually completed post-graduate degrees in Naturopathy, Integrative Health Sciences and Natural Health Sciences. I also received diplomas in Homeopathy, Aromatherapy, Bach Flower Remedies, Colon Hydrotherapy, Blood Chemistry, Obstetrics, Clinical Nutritional Counseling, and certificates in Pain Management and Contact Tracing/Case Management along the way. During my practicum/internships, I was fortunate to have been mentored and trained under leading holistic M.D.s, D.O.s, N.D.s, acupuncturists, physical therapists, herbalists and massage therapists, working with them and their patients. I also did grand rounds at a local hospital and assisted in pain treatments. I was board certified as an Alternative Medical Practitioner and practiced for several years at a local medical/rehabilitation clinic advising patients on natural therapies.“My journey into writing about alternative medicine began about 9:30 one evening after I finished with a patient at the clinic I practiced at over a decade ago. I had just spent two hours showing how improving diet, sleep and other lifestyle choices, and using selected herbal medicines with other natural strategies can help our bodies heal themselves. As I drove home that night, I realized the need to get this knowledge out to more people. So I began writing about natural health with a mission to reach those who desperately need this information and are not getting it in mainstream media. The health strategies in my books and articles are backed by scientific evidence combined with traditional wisdom handed down through natural medicines for thousands of years.I am hoping to accomplish my mission as a young boy to help people. I am continuously learning and renewing my knowledge. I know my writing can sometimes be a bit scientific, but I am working to improve this. But I hope this approach also provides the clearest form of evidence that natural healing strategies are not unsubstantiated anecdotal claims. Natural health strategies, when done right, can be safer and more effective than many conventional treatments, with centuries of proven safety. This is why most pharmaceuticals are based on compounds from plants or other natural elements. I hope you will help support my mission and read some of my writings. They were written with love yet grounded upon science. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.”Contact: case(at)caseadams.com

Book preview

Leaky Gut Solved

The Real Causes and Real Solutions for Healing Leaky Gut Syndrome

By Case Adams, Naturopath

Leaky Gut Solved: The Real Causes and Real Solutions for Healing Leaky Gut Syndrome

Copyright © 2023, 2024 Case Adams

LOGICAL BOOKS

All rights reserved.

Printed in USA

Front cover image by Sebastian Kaulitzki

The information provided in this book is for educational and scientific research purposes only. The information is not medical advice, nor is it a substitute for medical care or personal health advice. A medical practitioner or other health expert should be consulted prior to any significant change in lifestyle, diet, herbs or supplement usage. There shall neither be liability nor responsibility should the information provided in this book be used in any manner other than for the purposes of education and scientific research.

Publishers Cataloging in Publication Data

Adams, Case

Leaky Gut Solved: The Real Causes and Real Solutions for Healing Leaky Gut Syndrome

First Edition

1. Medicine. 2. Health.

Bibliography and References; Index

Print ISBN-13: 978-1-936251-61-2

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1. WHAT THE HECK IS LEAKY GUT?

2. LEAKY GUT PHYSIOLOGY

3. WHAT CAUSES LEAKY GUT?

4. LEAKY GUT AND DYSBIOSIS

5. REAL SOLUTIONS FOR LEAKY GUT

REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Introduction

Over the past century there has been a growing health community chorus describing an ailment of the digestive tract called leaky gut syndrome. This condition has been largely dismissed by the medical establishment as anecdotal and non-existent.

Furthermore, many in the medical establishment labeled those who taught ‘leaky gut’ as heretics. These included such luminary physicians of their era as Ilya Mechnikov, Benedict Lust, Jethro Kloss, John Harvey Kellogg, Allan Eustis, Herbert Shelton, Paavo Airola, Bernard Jensen and many others.

Despite the establishment’s criticism of these characterizations, research on intestinal drug absorption by the pharmaceutical industry consistently confirmed that the lining of the small intestine is subject to alteration. This, doctors have found, dramatically affects the absorption of drugs through the intestines. They termed this condition increased intestinal permeability.

As this research progressed, a number of protocols were developed to measure this permeability existing within the intestines. Soon researchers discovered that drug absorption wasn’t the only issue affected by increased permeability.

Studies found that increased intestinal permeability allowed macromolecules, toxins and microorganism endotoxins into the body’s tissues and bloodstream. Increased intestinal permeability became a scientifically credible disorder.

Soon the research took another dimension. International government, university and hospital researchers have since linked intestinal permeability syndrome to a host of inflammatory diseases, including allergies, asthma, arthritis, liver disorders and other issues.

In this book we will unveil how leaky gut has been proven out by the scientific community. We’ll present the research connecting increased intestinal permeability to many inflammatory and degenerative diseases.

We will prove for once and for all that leaky gut syndrome AKA increased intestinal permeability, is associated with a multitude of inflammatory diseases often assumed as autoimmune disorders.

We will then go further, to prove the scientifically-proven causes of the disorder.

Then this book will provide clear solutions for the disorder.

Because many in the health community have (erroneously) branded this syndrome as leaky gut, this book inherits the moniker, while at the same time clarifies the medical condition termed increased intestinal permeability.

There are still a number of anecdotal opinions circulating about this condition, even among some medical professionals. These have created misunderstandings regarding what causes the condition, as well as overly simplified the potential solutions.

Examples of these inaccurate simplifications include that wheat and dairy cause the condition, and abstaining from these foods will heal the gut. And because these opinions have not provided the solution in so many cases, increased abstinence protocols have been added on over the past few years.

Unfortunately, these anecdotal opines give us the impression that the only way to heal the gut is to stop eating most foods, including foods that humans have been eating for thousands of years. Such rigorous dietary measures are not only hard to do: They don’t correct the problem. They are like band aids to temporarily reduce the symptoms without correcting the causes of the issue.

It’s time to lay down the clear science about this disorder, and understand those choices we can make to prevent and even reverse the condition. This book will cover which types of foods, beverages, herbs and lifestyle choices can prevent, reverse and/or significantly improve leaky gut syndrome without starvation protocols.

Scientific references for this evidence are listed at the end of the book. Believe me, there is plenty of evidence to reference, as I have reviewed well over a thousand studies on this topic.

I thank all the dedicated doctors and researchers for their efforts in exposing this difficult and important condition.

While this text is intended for both health professionals and lay persons, the reader is advised to consult with their health professional before engaging any significant dietary, herbal or lifestyle changes: Working with someone who understands our medical history and the relative risks of change can guarantee that these concepts are applied correctly and at the appropriate time.

1. What the Heck is Leaky Gut?

Is Leaky Gut Syndrome a Real Disorder?

Yes and no. The reader might try a little experiment: Walk into a medical doctor’s office and ask the doctor if he or she knows what leaky gut syndrome is, and if so, whether they believe that it is a real condition.

Then ask either the same doctor or another doctor if they know what leaky gut syndrome is and if so, ask the doc whether this is a real condition.

Most likely the doctor will not know what leaky gut syndrome is. Or the doctor may acknowledge the condition verbally but believe that it does not exist as an actual medical condition.

At the same time, the majority of doctors will certainly know what IIPS is. Why? Because IIPS has been the subject of medical and clinical research for the past three decades.

Most doctors will admit to IIPS as a medical condition because they have to. Medical doctors must recognize that some people assimilate pharmaceutical drugs faster than others. This is because some people have greater absorption rates through their intestinal walls. They have greater permeability, in other words.

Research scientists studying pharmaceutical drugs had to understand why some people reacted more strongly to their medications than others. In order to understand this, they ran tests on urine to measure the metabolites of the drugs that were absorbed and processed. This gave them the first hint that some people absorbed the drugs faster than others.

But to be sure of the effect, they had to remove the possibility that some people were just metabolizing (breaking down) the drugs faster than others. So they established protocols to test substances that the body did not readily break down. This way, they could isolate whether some were absorbing faster or simply metabolizing faster.

The researchers found out that people were absorbing compounds at different rates. Those who had greater effects from pharmaceuticals were also absorbing the non-metabolizing drugs faster. Their intestines, for some reason, were more porous: They had greater permeability. This resulted in the name: Increased intestinal permeability.

All of us have some intestinal permeability. If we didn’t we could not absorb any nutrients through our intestines. But some people absorb more than others. And some absorb much more than others—and absorb larger molecules for some reason. So they have larger pores in their intestinal walls..

To say that this is the same as leaky gut syndrome could be considered accurate, but then again not. Our intestines do not leak. Even the intestines of someone with IIPS do not leak. Our intestines are not like big balloons filled with air or water, and some of these have holes in them and others don’t.

Rather, our intestinal walls have pores--better described as gaps. Our intestines are lined with porous, villous epithelial cells. They have junctions that tie them together and tiny pores or gaps between them that allow particular molecules through. And since they are cells, there are also pores in their cell walls.

We’ll discuss the physiology more specifically later, but an intestinal wall with increased permeability simply has wider gaps between them, allowing larger molecules to be absorbed into the bloodstream.

The word absorbed is important. It means that the intestines are set up in such a way that they draw nutrients through to the bloodstream. This means they pull certain nutrients through, using a combination of ions and magnetically charged pores. This also utilizes a mucous membrane lining filled with a complex combination of ions, enzymes, probiotics and other elements—which help breakdown and filter nutrients, and in many cases, escort them through the intestinal walls.

In other words, the moniker ‘leaky gut syndrome’ would be like calling our mouth a vacuum cleaner. It would be like describing the process of eating as vacuuming food in. Rather, the act of eating is much more delicate and complex. Food doesn’t just get sucked into our mouths. Eating is a complex process involving precise feeding, chewing, initial digestion with enzymes and so on.

The process of intestinal absorption is also quite complex. So while ‘leaky gut syndrome’ is more accurately described as IIPS, in this book we will refer to IIPS as either leaky gut syndrome or more simply, leaky gut as we lay out the evidence.

Some History

It was in 1907 that Dr. Ilya Mechnikov proposed that intestinal inflammation was at least partly the result of some kind of increased permeability within the walls of the intestines.

Dr. Metchnikoff saw this as the means for the bacteria that keep the intestines healthy escaping out of the colon and into the bloodstream. The term phagocyte was soon replaced by the macrophage, an essential part of the immune response.

Once into the bloodstream, thought Metchnikoff, phagocytes within the blood would produce an inflammatory response.

It was also Metchnikoff who proposed that lactic acid bacteria such as Lactobacilli produced healthy intestines and a longer lifespan with less disease caused by inflammation.

Dr. Metchnikoff did not prove that bacteria leaked out into the blood. But he did recognize the characteristic called increased gut permeability, which in turn produced an inflammatory response.

It was nearly a century later that science established that the bad bacteria within the gut can leak out into the blood in the form of their waste products.

And while the blood has been thought to be sterile and most medical researchers haven’t accepted that the blood hosts bacteria, there is growing evidence that some species of bacteria may migrate through the bloodstream to infect organs and tissue systems, including the joints and the liver.

Even before Dr. Metchnikoff’s research, Dr. Harvey Kellogg had established that inflammatory responses in the intestines led to a myriad of diseases. Dr. Kellogg was one of the most well-known physicians of the late Nineteenth century through the second World War. Dr. Kellogg is most famous for his invention of a whole grain breakfast cereal called corn flakes. More importantly, his accomplishments and stature within the health and medical communities during that era rose to great heights, and also fell to great depths.

Dr. Kellogg was a native of Battle Creek, Michigan, which became the eventual home for his medical center and his brother’s breakfast cereal factory. Dr. Kellogg graduated from what is now Eastern Michigan University and then graduated from the New York University Medical College in 1875 with a medical doctor’s degree.

Dr. Kellogg’s specialty was digestive health. He was a surgeon who performed thousands of surgeries on the intestines and colon, removing cancers, polyps and even sectioning intestines when necessary. At one point, he said:

"Of the 22,000 operations that I have personally performed, I have never found a single normal colon, and of the 100,000 that were performed under my jurisdiction, not over 6 percent were normal."

Dr. Kellogg also cared for many more thousands of patients in the hospitals he worked at, and at his medical center in Battle Creek. Here he promoted natural healing methods, but at the same time was conversant with all of the most modern medical treatments. He became renowned across the country for healing people that were pronounced untreatable by conventional medicine. Dr. Kellogg was a maverick, but his theories proved to be accurate.

For example, decades before modern medical research found that fiber reduces colon cancer, cholesterol and many other conditions, Dr. Kellogg was teaching and recommending high fiber whole foods. Through his abundant clinical experience, he saw that a fibrous diet with plenty of plant-based foods prevented colon cancer, constipation and many other intestinal disorders.

His dry cereal recipes promoted the concept of fiber for breakfast, as breakfast for most Americans of his day was eggs and bacon—in recent years shown to increase cholesterol and induce hardening of the arteries.

Dr. Kellogg was a big proponent of nuts and beans as a protein source, and became one of the first producers of heart-healthy soy products. He was a proponent of yogurt for intestinal health before anyone had ever heard of yogurt.

Dr. Kellogg wasn’t only focused on diet. His therapies ranged from breathing exercises to hydrotherapy to massage and water therapy. Dr. Kellogg also promoted massage and water therapy, both of which were rejected by western conventional medicine until after World War II, when army veteran hospitals discovered that massage and water therapy speeded up rehabilitation from war wounds.

Dr. Kellogg also recognized the need for maintaining and building intestinal bacteria. He was committed to the health of gut bacteria, and often treated intestinal diseases using fiber and prebiotic fruits and vegetables, which boosted intestinal flora populations. Often these would be combined with his high fiber breakfast cereals, which were a staple in his treatment center.

He also utilized colon hydrotherapy (high enemas) in order to help cleanse the intestinal system of bad bacteria. This was long before western medical researchers discovered tools such as stool replacement therapy and similar measures to boost beneficial bacteria in the gut.

In all these respects, Dr. Kellogg and other natural doctors of his time such as Dr. Benedict Lust, Dr. Jethro Kloss, Dr. Allan Eustis, Dr. Herbert Shelton, and later Dr. Paavo Airola and Dr. Bernard Jensen, shared a vision that the gut was a source of inflammation and disease around the body. These doctors all had success with digestive disorder patients by improving their diets.

This vision of health was based upon prevention. They used their medical degrees and clinical experience to determine that particular activities prevented disease, and other activities tended to cause disease. They also found that many of these same preventative therapies were also powerful healing therapies for diseased conditions.

Today, practically every one of their natural strategies have been proven to prevent disease in conventional western medical research.

These weren’t the only theories that Dr. Kellogg and his colleagues held that have proven out. They also held the understanding that should the intestines become diseased through poor diet and the consumption of other toxins, the intestines could allow toxins access to the bloodstream and the body’s tissues.

This internal exposure to toxins, they held, caused many inflammatory disease conditions. The condition was eventually described inaccurately as leaky gut. As we’ll find, this theory, long disputed by western conventional medicine, has—like many other concepts by Kellogg and his colleagues—proven out to be true in modern randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled research.

How is Leaky Gut Determined?

So how do scientists and physicians test for increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut syndrome)? Many of the studies we’ll discuss in this book utilize one or more of these procedures, so we ought to clarify them early on. Intestinal permeability is typically measured by giving the patient a compound that is not readily metabolized—or broken down—in the body.

Intestinal absorption is gauged using difficult-to-metabolize compounds of varying molecular sizes. Those compounds consisting of larger molecules will gauge the intestinal wall’s ability to absorb larger molecules. Those with smaller molecule sizes will gauge levels of less permeability. Substances scientists have used for testing absorption through the intestines include:

Horseradish peroxidase

Ethylenediaminetetraacetatic acid (CrEDTA or EDTA)

Mannitol

L-rhamnose

Lactulose

Cellobiose

Polyethylene glycols of various molecular weights

These substances are not readily metabolized (broken down) in the body—particularly in the intestines, bloodstream and liver. So if they are absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestines, they can readily be measured in the urine. This will show the level of permeability within the walls of the intestines. They also have varying molecular sizes, allowing them to be used to measure gut permeability.

Absorption testing is controlled by giving the test subject two different substances of different molecular sizes at the same time. Increased permeability will allow larger molecules through at a higher rate. This allows the tests to accurately gauge permeability independent of the person’s variations in metabolism.

For example, sugars and sugar alcohols such as lactulose and mannitol are often used. These indicate leaky gut syndrome because of their different molecular sizes and the fact that they are not readily metabolized after ingestion. After ingestion, the patient’s urine is tested to measure the quantities that these two molecules were absorbed through the intestinal walls.

Because lactulose is a larger molecule than mannitol, it will thus be more present in the urine compared to mannitol when there is greater permeability of the intestinal wall. Intestines with normal permeability will have less lactulose absorption. This creates a ratio between lactulose and mannitol, which scientists call the L/M ratio.

The L/M ratio has become an international standard to quantify leaky gut. When the lactulose-to-mannitol ratio is higher, more permeability exists. When it is lower, less (and normal) intestinal permeability exists. Higher levels are graduated using what many researchers call the Intestinal Permeability Index.

The procedure is simple. The researcher feeds a mixture of the two compounds, or the two separate compounds to the subject at the same time. After several hours—typically five or more—the subject’s urine is tested. The urine is then analyzed for its contents of the two substances of relatively different sizes.

Over years of testing with these same substances, levels of the smaller and larger compounds have become standardized. This allows researchers or doctors the ability to immediately gauge the level of leaky gut in the patient or subject.

The standardized ratio becomes the ruler by which to measure by, associated with the period of time from ingestion to urination test. For example, the standardized L/M ratio is the proportion of lactulose to mannitol found in the urine after five hours of feeding to a patient.

Newer methods of determining permeability by international researchers include transepithelial (across membranes) electrical resistance testing. This methodology measures the ion resistance across the intestinal wall.

This is a similar method used by electricians to determine the conductivity and electrical potential of circuits. The reasoning is that the intestinal wall is a conducting medium. The intestines draw nutrients or other molecules through epithelial gaps by way of ion conductance.

Diseases Related to Leaky Gut Syndrome

In the last two decades, leaky gut syndrome has become associated with a number of disorders. The list can be very long, depending upon our sources. Basically any Here we will focus on add associations made in modern clinical research with clinical findings of peer-reviewed health professionals and their respective organizations.

We’ll be presenting numerous studies showing a myriad of diseases associated with leaky gut syndrome. Let’s start with a short sampling of some of the clinical human research that has found leaky gut syndrome associated with disorders affecting millions of people around the world:

Autoimmune Disorders

Autoimmunity is defined as a state where the immune system is attacking itself. This is generally a state of inflammation, and the tissue systems that are supposedly under attack from the immune system have become mysterious to conventional health providers.

Autoimmune disorders examples include arthritis, diabetes, some allergies, eczema and many others.

The problem with the definition above is that it assumes that because the testing equipment being employed cannot locate or find any particular antigen (what the immune system would be attacking), then the immune system must be attacking healthy tissues.

It is sort of like the old adage about some blind people walking around an elephant and trying to determine what it is by touching different body parts, and coming up with different conclusions.

Like the blind men, what conventional medicine is missing with autoimmunity is that if the body consumes or is exposed to toxins, and those toxins become metabolized by certain tissues and cells, the immune system may respond aggressively in order to repair tissues and stimulate a cleansing process to rid the tissues of the toxins.

So what does this have to do with leaky gut syndrome, you might ask?

Plenty. When toxins that are not supposed to leave our intestinal tract have a pathway out and into the rest of the body, the body must metabolize those toxins somehow. The immune system is aiding the process of cleansing the body by launching an inflammation response.

These are toxins from our foods, byproducts from bad bacteria, undigested (large) food proteins and other compounds, that again, should not be getting through the barrier of the intestinal wall.

So is there any evidence of this? Yes, there are a number of studies that have specifically shown how leaky gut is linked to various autoimmune disorders. A review study of this research from the University of Tokyo thus found:

"The intestinal surface is constitutively exposed to diverse antigens, such as food antigens, food-borne pathogens, and commensal microbes. Intestinal epithelial cells have developed unique barrier functions that prevent the translocation of potentially hostile antigens into the body. Disruption of the epithelial barrier increases intestinal permeability, resulting in leaky gut syndrome (LGS). Clinical reports have suggested that LGS contributes to autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and celiac disease."

Asthma

Researchers from the Immunity and Allergy Department at France’s Calmette Hospital studied the potential of leaky gut among 37 asthma patients using chromium 51-labeled ethylenediaminetetraacetatic acid (CrEDTA) urinary recovery. They compared the test results with 13 COPD patients without asthma and 26 healthy people. They found that CrEDTA recovery among the asthma group was 2.5 percent, versus 1.16 percent in the COPD group and 1.36 percent in the healthy group—about double the levels of the non-asthma groups.

Furthermore, the asthma patients with allergic asthma had higher levels (2.94 percent) than the non-allergic (no IgE sensitivity) group (1.92 percent).

The researchers proceeded to continue the testing over a period ranging from two to 13 months to confirm the results. The results stayed consistent.

The researchers concluded:

"Our results support the hypothesis that a general defect of the whole mucosal system is present as a cause or a consequence of bronchial asthma."

Researchers from Sweden’s University Hospital in Uppsala studied 12 patients with allergic asthma who were sensitive to birch pollen—along with 12 healthy controls. They found that exposure to the birch pollen allergen increased the intestinal permeability of the allergic group, but not the healthy group. They concluded:

"This would suggest less organ specificity and more general allergic recognition shared by several immunocompetent tissues in the body, probably mediated by circulating IgE antibodies."

Medical researchers from Kuwait University studied 32 asthmatic children together with 32 matched healthy children. They conducted a lactulose/mannitol test to determine intestinal permeability among both groups. They found that the asthmatic group exhibited more than three times the levels of leaky gut syndrome than did the control group. They also eliminated other possible relationships, such as eczema and inhaled steroid use.

Food Allergy

Oslo researchers found that higher antibody levels to food allergens was associated with leaky gut syndrome. They found that IgA and IgG antibodies against eight common food antigens among 35 allergy patients and 12 healthy controls were tested for IgA levels and 28 allergy patients and 20 controls were tested for intestinal permeability using the Cr-EDTA test. The two tests were performed among 17 patients, and 21 of the entire group permitted a repeat of the tests five years after.

The tested found that higher IgA antibody titers were associated with leaky gut syndrome among the allergic patients.

Medical researchers from Italy’s University of Bari studied the relationship between anisakiasis—an infection of the Anisakis simplex parasite—and leaky gut in 540 persons. They found that an anisakiasis infection significantly leaky gut syndrome. They also found that those who ate raw fish were most exposed to the parasite. Those with more intestinal permeability were also exposed to other pathogens, and when their parasitic infections were resolved, many showed improved permeability.

We’ll show more of this research later as we discuss leaky gut syndrome physiology, its causes, and its solutions.

Eczema

Eczema is characterized by rashes, itching, swelling and inflammation on the skin. Research has found eczema associated with allergies and toxic exposures.

Medical researchers gave polyethylene glycol to eight eczema patients with food allergies and 10 patients with supposed non-allergic eczema in order to investigate leaky gut syndrome. Both groups absorbed macromolecules in excess of the normal subjects. They concluded that eczema with and without food allergy was associated with intestinal mucosal defects (leaky gut syndrome).

Other Allergies

Medical researchers at Norway’s University of Bergen found that irritable bowel syndrome was associated with leaky gut syndrome. Of the 71 adult subjects, 93 percent had irritable bowel syndrome and leaky gut syndrome, while 61 percent had other allergic conditions—primarily rhinoconjunctivitis. All the allergic sufferers also had respiratory allergies, and 41 percent had food allergies.

Autoimmune Hepatitis

Hepatitis is an inflamed liver and it can be caused by a number of things. First there are the viruses – HAV, HBV and HCV, which can infect and inflame the liver. Then there is alcoholic-liver type hepatitis, and hepatitis caused by medications. One of the most notable of these is acetaminophen and other NSAID (pain-relief) medications, known to product inflammation of the liver.

Autoimmune hepatitis is a liver disorder that is typically diagnosed when there is no obvious liver toxicity from one of the viruses, or obvious alcohol or medication consumption. The assumption is the immune system is just inadvertently attacking the liver for no good reason.

A 2015 study from China’s Tianjin Medical University tested 32 patients and volunteers, including 24 patients with autoimmune hepatitis. They gave them a flurry of testing, including those that test the microbiome (gut bacteria) and those testing the intestinal barrier function.

The researchers found that those with the hepatitis all had significantly increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) within their intestines. They also had dysbiosis (a lot of bad bacteria). The researchers also found bacterial translocation which means these bad bacteria and their byproducts were escaping the intestines and relocating elsewhere, including the liver.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) has been linked to leaky gut syndrome in a number of studies.

Investigating this link, doctors from the Mayo Clinic together with several international university researchers analyzed the research to date in a 2021 study.

The researchers analyzed 66 studies that tested intestinal barrier function with IBS patients and control patients. Of these, 27 studies actually used intestinal probes to confirm the existence of leaky gut.

The doctors found that a majority of studies found leaky gut prevalent in IBS patients, especially in children and those cases identified as IBS-D and PI-IBS. The researchers concluded:

"Barrier dysfunction is present in a significant proportion of adult and all pediatric IBS studies, especially in the IBS-D and PI-IBS subtype. The majority of studies indicated a positive association between loss of barrier function and symptoms such as abdominal pain and changes in the bowel function."

In one of these studies, researchers from Ohio State University’s Medical School studied 54 patients with irritable bowel syndrome along with 22 controls. They found that those patients with higher pain intensity and higher levels of diarrhea also had greater levels of leaky gut