Episode 349: How Leaky Gut Triggers Autoimmunity: The Link Between Gut Health, Hormones & Chronic Inflammation
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Leaky gut is more than just a buzzword—it’s a key player in autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s, PCOS, and even menopause-related health issues. Your gut barrier isn’t just about digestion; it directly impacts your immune system, hormone balance, and inflammation levels. When this barrier becomes compromised, it can trigger widespread symptoms, from brain fog and joint pain to thyroid dysfunction and insulin resistance.
In this episode, we’re diving deep into the gut-hormone connection, exploring how intestinal permeability contributes to autoimmunity and why healing the gut is just one piece of the puzzle. We’ll break down the science behind leaky gut, discuss its impact on thyroid and hormone health, and share strategies for restoring gut integrity using functional medicine. If you’re a practitioner or someone struggling with chronic symptoms, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss!
In this episode:
GI Tract: The Body's Barrier [01:26]
Inflammation: The Good and the Bad [06:02]
Understanding Leaky Gut Symptoms [08:11]
Autoimmunity and Holistic Healing Insights [12:25]
Hidden Autoimmune Cause of Hypothyroidism [15:39]
Gut Bacteria, Dysbiosis, and Health Impact [20:34]
Gut Health's Role in PCOS [25:14]
Menopause: Gut Permeability and Bone Health [26:30]
Aging and Senescent Cells Explained [30:31]
"Diet's Role in Gut Health" [35:52]
"Optimal Gut Healing Supplements" [40:10]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™ (Next cohort starts in April of 2025)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Senolytic (get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
Kion Aminos (Get 20% off monthly orders and 10% off one time orders)
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Erin Holt [00:00:00]:
I'm Erin Holt and this is the Functional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that, I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the fantasy that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do and that's why creating a new model is my life's work.
Erin Holt [00:00:37]:
I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Functional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same. This show is for you. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing, please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course, keep coming back for more. Hello my friends, today we're going to talk about leaky gut. It's been a minute. So a couple of weeks ago we spoke about the hormone gut connection. In that conversation we really focused on microbiome diversity and why that was so critical to overall hormone health.
Erin Holt [00:01:26]:
Today we're going to look at another part of the gut, which is your small intestine barrier. There is a very strong link between what's going on here at this barrier and what's happening with the rest of your health, including your hormones. So let's talk about leaky gut today. Before I get into that quick announcement, Functional Nutrition Academy is currently open for enrollment. It only happens twice a year. And not only that, at the time that this is being published, we are still technically an early bird enrollment, which means that you can access tuition for $1,000 off. It's the only discount we run on tuition. And so if you know that you want to join our next cohort, definitely join this week and save yourself some money.
Erin Holt [00:02:15]:
So this is our 14 month practitioner academy. If you are looking to learn as much as you possibly can about functional medicine and functional nutrition and level up your practice, it is the school for you. Okay, let's get into it. Let's talk about your barrier system. So we have multiple barrier systems in the body, one you might be very familiar with. Is your skin. So it is essentially, you think about the skin, it's keeping the outside world out and the inside of your body in. Now, the lining of your small intestine is also a barrier system, and it's very similar.
Erin Holt [00:02:51]:
Our GI tract, that tube that runs from the mouth all the way to your bum, is technically like outside of your body. I recognize it's housed inside of your body, but it's really keeping the outside out. So we take in food and as we do this, we have a lot of chances of encountering foreign substances in bringing that into the body. And so there's a really strong barrier system here to make sure that we're only taking in the certain things that we need, like nutrients from food, but we are keeping out things that we shouldn't be exposed to, like different bacterias or parasites that might come on the food that we eat. So there's a lot of mechanisms in place to make sure that the good stays in and the not so good stays out. And then of course, we are pooping out any waste products as well. So we have to have a really strong barrier system to make this system work really well. And that barrier system is the lining of your small intestine.
Erin Holt [00:03:52]:
And that lining is only one cell thick. So it's pretty thin, all things considered. The type of cells are called enterocytes or epithelial cells. It's the epithelial layer and essentially a healthy gut is going to break down food into smaller and smaller and smaller bits. That's why we always talk about digestion as a top down process where every step of the way things have to work really well. So we spent a lot of time talking about the importance of hydrochloric acid, your stomach acid, the importance of digestive enzymes, the importance of chewing your food. All of this is super critical in starting to break down the food. And then we have chemical ways to do that as well.
Erin Holt [00:04:33]:
But essentially the process of digestion is taking all of this food and breaking it down into low molecular weight particles that are small enough to get through this barrier system. So the barrier system should only let those nutrients in, essentially, but it should keep the rest of it out. And in between the cells we have protein structures called tight junctions. And they essentially hold those enterocytes together and that seals them up. It prevents any leakage. We want to make sure that only the things that are supposed to get into the bloodstream actually get into the bloodstream and the rest of it keeps moving down that tube. So when we're talking about leaky gut the real name for it, by the way, is intestinal permeability. We have a permeable barrier system in the intestine, but we'll refer to it as leaky gut.
Erin Holt [00:05:24]:
Today, when we're talking about leaky gut, we can have issues with those tight junctions where they're not holding the cells together. We could have issues with the cells themselves, but either way, it's creating a broken or a leaky barrier. So the cells or the tight junctions aren't. The structure isn't strong enough to keep certain things out. And so what we can see is that we have either undigested food particles or bacteria components that actually get into the bloodstream. And hey, guess what? They don't belong there. And your body knows this, and your immune system knows this. So what happens is it kicks off inflammation.
Erin Holt [00:06:02]:
Now, we talk about inflammation a lot and oftentimes when we hear inflammation, it's kind of with negative connotation. But inflammation is actually a really good thing. It's a super necessary part of the immune process. But when we have just constant inflammation going on, this constant low grade, unchecked, chronic systemic inflammation, that's where it causes a problem. So these things that don't belong in the bloodstream get into the bloodstream, it kicks off inflammation in it kicks off an immune response because the immune system's like, hey, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here. And so if you think about the lining of the gut, so I don't have a picture to show you right now, so I want you to just picture this. We've got the lining of the gut, we've got those enterocytes, these cells that are lined up, and we have the tight junctions holding them together. Underneath we have something called the lamina propia, which is basically just a thin layer of connective tissue that gives the cells something to anchor into it holds those cells together.
Erin Holt [00:06:59]:
And that lamina propria has immune cells, it has lymphatic vessels. And then on top of the cells themselves is the mucosa layer. We have our IgA antibodies there. We can refer to this as the MALT in the gulch. We've got the mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue, we've got the gut associated lymphoid tissue, which is part of the malt. But suffice it to say that like that little barrier of the gut lining, there is a tremendous amount of immune activity happening right there, right on the scene. And so if anything goes a little disarray, anything goes wonky, anything goes pear shaped there. The immune system is like, on it.
Erin Holt [00:07:42]:
It's Johnny on the spot. And so it's going to start to set off that inflammatory cascade. And since the bloodstream is right there, that inflammation is going to travel through the body as generalized, chronic systemic inflammation. Okay, so I know that that was a mouthful, but people talk about leaky gut a lot. And it's kind of, you know, I've been doing this podcast for over seven years. Seven. Seven years ago, nobody knew what leaky gut is. Now I can be like at a dinner party and people are like, I've got leaky gut.
Erin Holt [00:08:11]:
Like, everyone knows what leaky gut is, but that's actually what a leaky gut is. Okay? So hopefully you could picture that and know what's going on in your body with leaky gut. So essentially we've got this systemic inflammation traveling throughout the body. And when that is happening, it can impact anything. It can impact the brain, joints, heart, skin, blood vessels. Leaky gut can manifest and show up in so many different systems in symptoms. So I can't really give somebody, like, if somebody were to say, like, what is the symptoms of leaky gut? I mean, the list could be a mile long because it truly can show up in any way. It's like asking somebody, what is a symptom of chronic inflammation? Well, that can affect you from tip to tail.
Erin Holt [00:08:56]:
But the big ones, we can obviously see digestive issues. We can see brain fog because gut inflammation can impact brain inflammation. We can see anxiety, pain, joint pain or other pain. Skin conditions, anything happening at the gut can play out through the skin. Immune system dysregulation is a big one. That's kind of why I took time to explain, like, hey, there's so much immune activity happening here. And so with leaky gut, we can see immune system dysregulation. And there is a very strong theory that leaky gut opens the doorway to autoimmunity for this exact reason.
Erin Holt [00:09:35]:
So leaky gut essentially makes the immune system overzealous. It's on red alert because things are constantly accessing systemic circulation that doesn't belong there. And so the immune system's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's flagging and tagging everything. It's got an appetite for destruction, if you will. And so it begins over time to start struggling with distinguishing friend from foe. And this is what is known as loss of self tolerance. So we lose the ability to understand, is this us or is this a foreign invader, which is really the underlying mechanism of autoimmunity.
Erin Holt [00:10:17]:
The immune system starts attacking your own cells or tissues as though it were a foreign invader. And this gut component of autoimmunity is really missing in the conventional approach to autoimmunity. It's not missing in functional medicine, which is beautiful and why functional medicine, I believe, offers a lot more solutions to autoimmunity than conventional approach does. That's speaking as an autoimmune patient who went through both but. And also this is where I see autoimmunity really oversimplified in the functional medicine space. Because reversing autoimmunity isn't as straightforward as healing leaky gut. So we know that leaky gut can essentially open the doorway to autoimmunity in a lot of cases. We know that there is a major and massive gut component to the autoimmune process kicking off and continuing.
Erin Holt [00:11:18]:
And also reversing autoimmunity isn't as simple and straightforward as just healing leaky gut. And I don't want that to be missed in this whole conversation. It's part of the puzzle, but it is part of the puzzle. Okay? And for all these reasons, this is exactly why I'm teaching a four day practitioner training on autoimmunity. For my practitioners. Autoimmunity in the whole patient. It's a four day deep dive into labs, clinical clues in functional care strategies. I've never done this before.
Erin Holt [00:11:51]:
I'm very, very excited. It's going to be Monday, March 10th through Thursday the 13th. There will be a bonus Q and A on Friday the 14th. We're keeping it super affordable, under $300. And each day we're going to hit a new topic with all autoimmunity. So day one will be about decoding autoimmunity, clinical clues and lab markers and early screening to look for. I really, really, really want practitioners to understand the landscape of autoimmunity and what the autoimmune patient is going through. Second day will all be all about gut health and autoimmunity.
Erin Holt [00:12:25]:
And I'm going to really speak into why leaky gut is a huge component. But sometimes just healing leaky gut isn't going to solve the problem that is autoimmunity. Fixing the stool test isn't gonna solve the problem that is autoimmunity. We have to understand that it's a piece, but we also have to understand all the other pieces as well. Day three will be the hormone and autoimmune connection, understanding the link between endocrine health and immune dysfunction. And then day four, Obviously I'm most excited about this one, because this is really working with the whole human. We're gonna look into mindset and subconscious patterns in autoimmunity because this is a piece that even functional medicine really misses the mark. So can you hear my excitement? I'm so excited to be able to do this.
Erin Holt [00:13:09]:
This is a live training, so I'll get to see some of your faces. Hopefully live over four days. We can spend a week together. Isn't that great? So we will link all of that up in the show notes, obs, but definitely don't sleep on this, like get into that program. I've never done this before. I certainly never done a practitioner training at this cost, which is low. So take advantage of it because I don't know if I'll do it again. But if it's a great turnout, then I will definitely do it again.
Erin Holt [00:14:34]:
So I will say just, you know, whether or not you do that, that training autoimmunity is absolutely exploding. This is not going to go anywhere. This is not a problem. That's just going to go away. So I do believe as practitioners and coaches, I know we have a lot that listen to this show, whether you're functional or otherwise, we need to be prepared to help this population, because this is a population that is dramatically underserved, both conventionally and functionally. Okay, so I, I said we would talk a little bit about the leaky gut hormone link. And so I wanna speak into hypothyroid just a little bit because if you are a practitioner, you probably do see a lot of hypothyroid in practice, or you might be someone who yourself struggles with hypothyroidism.
Erin Holt [00:15:39]:
And what is not as known as it should be is that there is about a 90% chance that true hypothyroidism is actually caused by an autoimmune mechanism. Hashimoto's thyroiditis is one of the most common autoimmune diseases and it is a huge driver to hypothyroid issues, which is a big deal. This is a condition, Hashimoto's that we've historically viewed as an endocrine problem, an endocrine disorder or a hormone problem, because it's the thyroid gland that is affected. The thyroid gland is obviously an endocrine gland because it produces hormones, thyroid hormone, but it's actually autoimmune in nature. So Hashimoto's is really, it starts off as an immune dysregulation and then eventually over time, it creates an endocrine or a hormone fallout. Now, the conventional approach here is to only address the endocrine piece. So only address the thyroid. But in order to do that, we basically have to wait for things to get so bad that your thyroid gland stops producing hormones and then the treatment strategy is to just replace the hormone production through synthetic hormones.
Erin Holt [00:16:53]:
And that might be great. That might be lifesaving for a lot of people. I mean, it is. It absolutely is. And this is not a podcast about medication shaming or saying people should not be on thyroid hormone replacement therapy. What I'm saying is that we should have screening tools in place to make sure that we are catching this before it becomes a disaster. And we have those tools in place. That's something we're going to talk about.
Erin Holt [00:17:17]:
I've talked about it here on the show. We'll get into it more in the four day training. But we really should be screening for those things so we can support people on the immune system side of things. We don't have to just sit around and wait until there's gland destruction. We can support people to address the underlying immune dysfunction. So when we see signs or markers of inflammation, whether that's through symptoms or specific markers on blood work that we are routinely screening for, we can say, hey, like there's inflammation going on? What's driving the inflammation? We say all of the time in our practice, okay, it's time to go inflammation hunting. And I'm talking about the unchecked, chronic, low grade systemic inflammation. We can see markers of inflammation.
Erin Holt [00:18:08]:
And then we have to ask as the clinicians, as the practitioners, what is driving this inflammation? Where is the inflammation coming from? We have to essentially like put out that fire in leaky gut is one of those places where we might find the inflammation. So there is a link between gut health and thyroid health. There is a link between gut health and Hashimoto's. If you are a patient who is struggling with thyroid stuff and nobody has talked to you about your gut, well, that's an area that you really should start to pay attention to. It's absolutely what we're doing in our clinical practice with our thyroid client.
Erin Holt [00:20:20]:
At the end of this podcast, I will get into strategies to address leaky gut to start healing up a leaky gut. But if you're dealing with thyroid stuff, you gotta, you absolutely gotta look to the gut as well. Okay, so there's a difference. And I don't hear this talked about nearly as much as I think we should. There's a difference between leaky gut and leaky gut with endotoxemia. So let's talk about what the heck endotoxemia is. With endotoxemia, there is dysbiosis in the gut before permeability.
Erin Holt [00:20:34]:
So remember a couple of weeks ago we really talked about the link between our large intestine, the microbiome, the gut bacteria that are living in our large intestine and how that impacts our bodies and our health and our hormones. And so what we discussed is that dysbiosis is essentially an imbalance of the good and the bad bacteria. And so when we have dysbiosis, it can contribute to intestinal permeability. And when these two things happen together, what we can see is endotoxemia. What happens is that lps, which is a polysaccharide found on the outer membrane of gram negative bacteria, LPS gains access into the bloodstream. So LPS is, it's not supposed to travel beyond the interior of the gut. It's one of those things that's supposed to stay in the tube. It's not supposed to intermingle with the rest of our body.
Erin Holt [00:21:37]:
It's supposed to stay inside of the barrier. And when it does, not a problem, no big deal. We have these bacteria in our guts, even healthy individuals, we've got this lps, and it's not a problem. It becomes a problem when lps, when this polysaccharide gains access into the bloodstream. And that happens when we have dysbiosis plus permeability plus leaky gut. So when the gut lining is compromised, when it is leaky, then bacteria can like squeeze through the cracks and get into the bloodstream and then LPS gets into systemic circulation. And that is an extremely inflammatory situation. LPS is considered an endotoxin.
Erin Holt [00:22:24]:
It's basically a toxin that comes from within. And it's considered this because of its violent inflammatory response. In humans, it actually can just flip on inflammatory pathways like a switch. It's can be used in lab research to basically create inflammation. It is a very inflammatory compound when it is in the wrong place. And so that's why this is known as endotoxemia, because this endotoxin has gained access into systemic circulation. So there's dysbiosis, there's leaky gut, and LPS, this endotoxin gains access into the whole system. And this type of leaky gut, leaky gut in and of itself is pretty inflammatory for the reasons that we discussed at the start of the show.
Erin Holt [00:23:10]:
But leaky gut with endotoxemia, that's like pouring gasoline on the fire. This can have a pretty direct impact on endocrine function, on hormone function. For example, endotoxemia perpetuates PCOS, Polycystic ovarian syndrome. There is a just like there's a crosstalk between the gut and Hashimoto's, There's A crosstalk between the gut and pcos. Hey, guess what? There's usually pretty much always crosstalk between the gut and any type of chronic condition, pretty much always, because the gut just generates so much. So There was this 2020 article in the Journal of Ovarian Research that looked at the role of gut microbiota in the development of insulin resistance and looked at this as a mechanism of underlying pcos. To date, PCOS pathogenesis remains unclear. That's a line from this article, meaning we're not really sure what causes it.
Erin Holt [00:24:09]:
It's kind of like autoimmunity. It's kind of like a lot of these chronic conditions. We're like, what really kicked things off here? How did this start? However, insulin resistance is considered the primary pathological basis for its reproductive dysfunction. So we can see reproductive issues with pcos. So the conventional approach really addresses this part of it. It treats PCOS at the insulin receptor site level with metformin. That is a really go to standard treatment. But.
Erin Holt [00:24:40]:
And also, if we're trying to address the root cause, we can't just treat the insulin resistance. It needs to be addressed. But it's, again, it's a piece of the puzzle. It's not the whole puzzle. You also can't just give somebody an androgen blocker and like, heal pcos. You have to look to the gut, too, as part of the whole picture. So this paper presents a hypothesis. Leaky gut plus dysbiosis may cause leakage of lipopolysaccharides, LPS into systemic circulation.
Erin Holt [00:25:14]:
So we've got that dysbiosis plus the leaky gut, that endotoxemia, that it's driving LPS into the bloodstream, and that activates the immune system, which can interfere with the functioning of the insulin receptor, leading to insulin resistance in pcos. And then insulin resistance goes on to promote the synthesis of testosterone, which meddles with follicular development. And that's what can lead to the reproductive issues. So that whole, like, chain of events is that hypothesis that is outlined in this article. So we can, of course, address the insulin resistance and the metabolic dysfunction that's going on with pcos. And we should, we can block the testosterone, block the androgen, but we also need to swim upstream and look, hey, where did this all kick off? Where did this all get started? And also address the gut. So that is one way that the gut and what's happening at the level of the gut, both the microbiome and the barrier system, leaky gut can impact hormones and impact pcos. As a condition, menopause is another thing that we should really be considering the gut in.
Erin Holt [00:26:30]:
So there's this paper, gut permeability, inflammation and bone density across the menopause transition. Gut permeability increases during the menopause transition because the estradiol levels drop. Greater gut permeability is associated with more inflammation and lower bone mineral density. So we know that there's like a shitstorm going on with menopause, right? But this paper is saying like, hey, guts get more permeal, guts get more leaky during this time because the estrogen levels are dropping. So this is something that we should be aware of that like, hey, with the hormonal changes that are happening through this endocrine transition through menopause, our guts are going to potentially get a little bit more leaky. How do we reinforce that? That's something that we should be thinking about and considering. So what's really going on here? Why would dropping estrogen levels impact gut permeability? Well, the GI tract has the ability to regenerate itself. If you've listened to this podcast at all, you've heard me refer to this as the Wolverine effect.
Erin Holt [00:27:37]:
I love me some superheroes. Wolverine has the ability to self heal. So if he gets injured, he can just heal himself. Maybe you don't watch superhero movies, maybe you're into Romantasy. Maybe you've read 10,000 pages of Sarah J. Maas this past year. I don't know. I don't know.
Erin Holt [00:27:54]:
So if you're into that sort of thing, think about it like Fae. Fae have the ability to heal quick, like really quickly. That's like the lining of your gut. So those cells, those enterocytes, they're always dying off every few days. It's a normal, natural part of the gut lining. Those cells are dying off. You know, they're just kind of normal wear and tear. It's part of a.
Erin Holt [00:28:14]:
Even a healthy individual is part of living L I, V, I, M. Your gut cells are regenerating. But in order to regenerate at an appropriate rate, we need hormones, we need growth hormone, we need testosterone, we need thyroid hormone, we need progesterone, we need estrogen. So any lack of hormone is going to make it more difficult to regenerate the lining of the gut to prevent leaky gut. So that's something that we have to consider. Another thing here that I'll throw into the mix. High cortisol can really impact secretory iga that also has impact on repairing and healing leaky gut. So basically all of our hormones Are need to be in tip top shape to really help with this regeneration process.
Erin Holt [00:29:02]:
So what we're seeing here, hormone imbalances can contribute to leaky guts, and leaky guts can contribute to or exacerbate hormone imbalances. There is this connection between gut dysbiosis, leaky gut and hormone function that we just have to be aware of. In just a second, I'm going to explain some strategies for healing leaky guts. But if you're a practitioner listening, this is kind of the type of complicated web that your clients will most likely come to you with. So you do want to understand this and be prepared to be method man. You know, be prepared to hit your clients from every angle. That's how I used to describe functional medicine. I used to travel around and teach workshops back in the day when like, people didn't really know what functional medicine was.
Erin Holt [00:29:53]:
So I had to explain the functional approach. I'm like, I'm just kind of like method man. I'm just hitting you from every angle. But that's kind of what we have to be prepared to do in the functional space. So sometimes you have to treat the gut dysbiosis, sometimes you're working on hormones. Oftentimes you're doing it all together. You know, depending on the person and what's going on, you might not be able to get them fully back into self healing mode until we've got better hormonal health coming back online. And so in that situation, it really makes sense to supplement with some gut healing supplements and methodologies.
Erin Holt [00:30:31]:
Like I said, I'll talk about that in a second. Because oftentimes we're working with multiple things at once. This is just like the nature of being in practice. And if this is your passion, if it's what you're looking to help people do, that's what we teach you in FNA.
Erin Holt [00:32:12]:
Okay, so how to heal a Leaky gut. Now this. You know I'm never going to give a straightforward answer because guess what, I won't lie to you. I do want to make things simple and not overwhelming, but I also don't want to lie to you in the reality of the human body is that we're complex. It's a beautiful thing. We've got all these systems and they're all talking to each other and they're all impacting each other. One thing I will say, I was just with my best childhood friends, we went on a little retreat to the Cliff House in Maine, which just strong recommend if you can get yourself there. If you're local ish, it's worth the drive.
Erin Holt [00:32:51]:
It's beautiful. So I was talking to my friend who was having a lot of digestive issues like out of nowhere, out of nowhere, just her bowel patterns completely changed and long story short, she's totally back to normal now. And so I asked, what did you do? She did start taking colostrum and that seemed to help. What she also did was she started sleeping better. So she was really stressed out and that was impacting her gut. She was really stressed out cause she wasn't getting enough sleep. So what she started to do was go out in the middle of the day and go for a walk without any sunglasses. She got the natural light exposure that really reset her circadian rhythm.
Erin Holt [00:33:34]:
That got her sleeping better. And then in addition to that, she started taking colostrum. Those were the main changes that she made. She feels less stressed out, she's sleeping better, she's taking colostrum as a supplement every day and her bowel habits just went back to normal. So like I'm talking about multi systems at once, but it doesn't have to be as like a really intense or complex strategy or plan to start feeling better. She just goes for a walk in the middle of the day and she takes one supplement and that's it. It's not always that simple, but when I'm talking about multi systems at once, I think that's when we can like hit overwhelm and we're like, forget it, I'm tuning out. It's too much. We just want to make sure that the strategies that we're using are impactful given what's going on
Erin Holt [00:35:32]:
So with leaky gut, we do want to figure out why the gut is leaky in the first place. That's really the best way to heal leaky gut is to address the underlying mechanism that's causing the leaky gut. Because there are a lot of different drivers of a leaky gut. There's a lot of things that can contribute to it. So I'm gonna walk you through some of the different mechanisms that can impact gut permeability. Diet is a big one. So processed foods, high sugar consumption, glyphosate exposure. You know, I've been talking about this stuff for literally 15 years and all of a sudden it's like super politicized. But I'm just gonna keep saying the same thing that I've been saying for years and years and years. A diet high in processed food is not like, for some people, there are specific food triggers, gluten and casein. So the proteins within gluten, the proteins within wheat, and some of the proteins within dairy can be inflammatory for some people. And so that can be A driver for some people for leaky gut.
Erin Holt [00:36:33]:
Alcohol consumption. Alcohol is going to make your gut leaky. I'm sorry, there's just like no two ways around it. It just is what it is. Certain medications, antibiotics being a big one, can certainly contribute to leaky gut infections. So bacterial overgrowths in the gut, yeast parasites, H. Pylori infections, can contribute to leaky gut. So in our one on one practice, we are simultaneously addressing these things while creating support to heal the lining of the gut.
Erin Holt [00:37:02]:
But we can't just. Without removing the infection, it's going to be really hard to heal up the gut long term. So we kind of have to do both bacterial patterns in the gut. So if we're seeing low beneficial species, the good guys in the gut, they're really part of making that gut barrier healthy and strong, Especially those keystone species like Akkermansia. I talked about the mucosal layer. Akkermansia is a big key player in that. So for seeing low beneficial species that can contribute to that can be part of a leaky gut picture. We talked so much about microbiome needing diversity.
Erin Holt [00:37:37]:
This helps to keep the lining of the gut healthy and strong neurodegeneration. So we can see the gut breakdown with that as well. High A1C. So glycolated end products, high A1C, high blood sugars can break down the tight junctions between the enterocytes. So like you can take all the leaky gut supplements you want, but unless those blood sugars come down, it's going to be really hard to resolve leaky gut. And then we also discussed briefly the hormone deficiencies or hormone imbalance. High cortisol, high catecholamines, stress hormones that are elevated, can cause the breakdown of the gut barrier. Cortisol is catabolic, so it can break things down if it's left too high for too long.
Erin Holt [00:38:25]:
One of the things that it breaks down is your gut. So we want to obviously keep our stress in check. You know, that's a huge critical component to a leaky gut. That's why I referenced my friend. She had to realize what were the triggers, the driving factors for her stress response, resolve those things and then her gut kind of settled down. So what are things that you could do to support your gut? Oftentimes it involves changing the diet if you are eating any of those triggers. Removing your own food triggers can be helpful if there are overgrowths in the gut, using herbal antimicrobials to address those overgrowth. So we really want to work on the underlying factors.
Erin Holt [00:39:06]:
If you've got stress, you got to figure that out. I say it like it's so easy. I don't know. I have hundreds of hours of podcast episodes on how to address stress. So go back. Go back in time and listen to those. And then as far as supplements go, there are some supplements that can be really helpful, but I led up all to all of this because you can't just use supplements to address leaky gut. I think that's where people go on these, like, really complex gut protocols, and they're like, I'm not feeling any better.
Erin Holt [00:39:33]:
Because you do have to address the triggers. You do have to address all of the other things that I've talked about, and then you can add these supplements on, and that's where you can really get back into that self healing. I would say that if you are going through a menopause transition and you notice, like, gut stuff, like, kind of starts to flare up, bring some of these leaky gut supplements on board to support you, knowing that there's a likelihood that you might end up with leakier gut. Okay, so glutamine. L glutamine is a big one. It's an amino acid. It's like the one supplement that you hear the most about when we talk about leaky gut. And that's because it's the primary energy source, this amino acid, for those intestinal cells.
Erin Holt [00:40:10]:
So we're giving the cells the exact fuel that they need to regenerate and heal and repair themselves. The dose is pretty high, so up to 15 grams a day. And so some of the issues with the leaky gut supplements, like the leaky gut powders that you can buy, is that there's not enough glutamine to really get this job done. So I would say anywhere between 5 to 15 grams per day of L glutamine is what you should be shooting for if you want to benefit from healing and repairing colostrum. I talked about that one before. I know it's like wellness influencers like Playground is talking about colostrum. But I will say that there's a fair amount of research to back up its ability to support the lining of the gut. This is especially true in combination with zinc.
Erin Holt [00:41:05]:
Carnosine, which is another leaky gut. Go to that form of zinc can be really helpful. Dgl, aloe vera, both of these can be really soothing and healing for the lining of the gut. Turmeric can also be as well as omega 3s, and fish oil can be really good for the lining of the gut. So Those are some of like the basic go to that can be supportive for healing the gut. But like I said, you know, and this is the big takeaway here, it's we really want to treat leaky gut. Like we treat everything, which from a whole person approach, it's very rare that we're just going to sprinkle some supplements on a leaky gut and somebody is going to like, you know, miraculously recover. It's usually multi pronged approach, like with anything in the human body.
Erin Holt [00:41:49]:
But I hope that helps you understand leaky gut. If you do feel like your gut's a little leaky, these are some things you can support yourself with. There is a link between your gut and your hormone health, just like there's a link between all the other systems in your body. And if this is something that you want to learn more about, come join me in fna. And if you really want to drill into the autoimmune specifics, I've got that four day training coming up. I would love to get some face time with you. Join me on a zoom. It would be nice to meet some of you guys.
Erin Holt [00:42:17]:
I was going to say in person, but you know, close enough. It'd be nice to see some faces. And then if you do join FNA during early enrollment, you will get access to that four day autoimmune training for free. All right, friends, I will check you next week. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.