Have you heard the term intestinal permeability and wondered what that is? Well, you’re likely more familiar with the more colloquial term “leaky gut”.

Leaky gut and intestinal permeability essentially refer to the same thing. However, “leaky gut” and leaky” gut syndrome” are misleading terms.

To help eliminate some confusion, we recently completed a couple of videos on Youtube for you to check out.

Intestinal permeability video 1: What is leaky gut?

If we could, we would eliminate the term “leaky gut” and it’s misleading cousin “leaky gut syndrome”. But, people seem to like the terms and they makes a complex topic more user-friendly. Consequently, we use it in our videos.

In our first video, we talk about what leaky gut is, the 2 types of leaky gut, and how things like dietary fat and gluten(In some people) affect the 2 types. The purpose of this video is to build a foundation to understand the following video.

Check it out here:

Intestinal permeability video 2: Lifestyle factors that cause & prevent leaky gut

In our second video, we cover lifestyle factors that cause or prevent leaky gut. We focus on dietary factors but also include some things we can do other than food.

The basic outline is:

• Leaky gut basics- protective factors, health issues that come with increased permeability
• Dietary factors that prevent permeability
• Dietary factors that increase permeability
• Other factors that increase permeability
• A checklist to prevent “leaky gut”

Check that out here:

Much of the information for this video comes from a paper you can check out here:

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/ajpgi.00245.2020

There are some great graphics in this paper that show how different factors affect permeability. It also covers how each dietary factors affects permeability. As a result, you see how different factors affect permeability in different ways.

Conclusion

Check out these 2 videos to get a better understanding of what intestinal permeability is and how it manifests. Our lifestyle plays a much larger role than most realize!

To clarify, it’s important to point out that most of these things aren’t black and white. Gluten increases permeability in some people but not others. On the other hand, increasing fat intake may increase permeability, but it also helps your body deal with it better.

Most importantly, these things are context dependent. Take a look at the checklist at the end of the second video to see if you’re doing some things wrong. After that, make some changes and see if you feel better.

Ultimately, the goal is to find what works best for you, not what sounds good in theory!!!