"Leaky What??"
Do not be surprised if your doctor doesn’t know the term, Leaky Gut (only progressive medical professionals recognize it as a diagnosable condition).
It refers to a hyper-permeability of the intestinal tract, which allows food and other toxins to leak into the body from the gut.
Quick note about your intestines: They are designed to be a selectively-permeable barrier between your gut and the outside world, helping control exactly what substances enter into your bloodstream. However, with a leaky gut, your gut barrier loses the ability to be selective.
Here’s why that’s a problem: When toxins, food particles, and other bad actors escape the protective confines of your gut, they can then gain access to your bloodstream. Your bloodstream is the superhighway of your body, meaning these bad guys can travel to any organ and system in your body (an occurrence known as “toxic streaming”).
When this occurs, you may experience a wide range of health problems including:
- Diarrhea, constipation, or bloating
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Brain fog
- Skin problems
- Joint pain and stiffness
- And worse…
Leaky gut is often associated with unhealthy inflammation in the body, and conditions like autoimmune diseases, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), Crohn's disease, and even obesity and diabetes.
Although many doctors aren’t even clued in to what leaky gut is, let alone how to address it, it IS widely recognized that some foods are better than others when it comes to helping with gut permeability and encouraging your healthiest digestive tract. This includes foods which can help support your populations of beneficial gut bacteria and create a healthy inflammatory response in the body.
Read on for the best gut health foods that should be in your diet now, and the worst gut-worsening foods to stay far, far away from.
10 Best Foods for Your Leaky Gut Diet Plan
When choosing which foods to eat to help address a leaky gut, you should choose options that help you grow healthy bacteria. Certain foods actually enhance the growth of good bacteria, while other foods encourage them.
Think of your gut like a telephone booth. You can only fit so much bacteria in there before it reaches max capacity. For ideal gut health, you’ll have more beneficial bacteria in your bodily “phone booth” to help crowd out the bad guys. If the ratios are flipped, too much unhealthy bacteria make it hard for your good gut bugs to gain a strong foothold, and can lead to serious health problems (including leaky gut).
See below for 10 of the best gut-friendly foods that should be in your