Gut and digestive health

Fun facts!

The gut is home to 75% of our entire immune system, know as the GALT (gut associated lymphatic tissue).

It is also has the second most dense part of our nervous system, after our brain.

The gut also homes the complex gut microbiome, which is comprised of approximately 100 trillion (that’s right, trillion) microbes, mostly bacteria but also viruses and yes, even parasites are normal parts of the human gut microbiome!

Because of all of these things, working on your gut health is commonly a first step in improving many health conditions.

Because the vast majority of our immune system and nervous system is intimately involved with our gut, almost all other health symptoms and diseases can be triggered or exacerbated by our gut health and what we eat.

We now know that almost all other conditions can have roots in a disrupted gut. Everything from heart disease and diabetes, heart disease, mental health issues, hormone issues, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, skin conditions, brain fog and conditions such as POTS/dysautonomia, CFS/ME/FM can be created or influenced by our gut.

IBS isn’t any one condition, but an umbrella term for most gut and digestive ailments that are not autoimmune-inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Symptoms can range from constipation to diarrhea, and include bloating, abdominal pain and reflux.

But remember, this term is descriptive of your gut having symptoms (it’s irritable!), not diagnostic of what the underlying causes are.

If further testing such as a colonoscopy or small bowel imaging study show you have inflammation in your small or large intestine, then you would be diagnosed with IBD (Inflammatory bowel disease). IBD includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and a broader spectrum of inflammatory bowel conditions with characteristics in between the two.

These are autoimmune diseases, where our immune system mistakenly attacks our own gut tissue. Imbalances in the gut microbiome, to foods and with the gut nervous system can be both triggers and exacerbators of IBD.

Unlike IBS where addressing the gut microbiome, diet and stress almost always is able to resolve the condition, if you have IBD, you will always have autoimmune antibodies against your gut.

Functional medicine’s goal for both IBS and IBD is to not only get you symptom-free, but to also help you feel truly well overall. Which medications alone often fail to do.

Leaky gut, or more formally called “intestinal permeability,” is when the junctions between the cells of our intestine get wider (or “leaky”) in order to allow in more immune molecules in response to a perceived problem in the intestines.

Importantly: If you have leaky gut, it is due to other causes. So don’t just treat leaky gut with supplements and regimens, get to the root causes!

Causes of leaky gut include:

• Gut microbiome imbalances (too many bad microbes, too few good ones)

• Gut microbiome infections

• Food reactivities (both intolerances and/or allergies)

• Stress. The gut is the 2nd most innervated place in the body after the brain, and directly communicates with the brain! Stress involves molecular responses from the hormone, immune and nervous system, and these greatly affect the gut in many people, though some of us are more sensitive to this than others, we are just wired that way, and so it becomes even more important to work on stress reactivity, trauma and stress resilience.

Besides gut conditions, intestinal permeability is linked to many other health conditions. Researcher Alessio Fasano, pioneered research to identify the molecule, zonulin, that is responsible for cueing intestinal permeability. His further research demonstrates that leaky gut is either or both the cause or a result of possibly every other health condition.

InHealthRVA combines an in-depth interview of your health & medical history along with advanced lab testing to put together a picture of what is going on and what to do about the often multiple causes of your gut issues..

We utilize advanced gut microbiome studies to look at the large intestine gut & microbiome health, SIBO and organic acids testing to get a complete look at your gut health and function.

With this data, we are able to make targeted nutrition, lifestyle and gut microbiome nutraceutical recommendations to get to the root causes of your gut symptoms and resolve them.

We work with you through multiple follow up appointments to peel back the layers and to support you reaching your full gut ealth potential!

Rarely. Despite its popularity, we do not find food sensitivity testing to be clinically useful.

Why? Because if you have food sensitivities, it is due other reasons, such as leaky gut (aka intestinal permeability), which can be caused by gut microbiome imbalances or outright infections or gut nervous system issues.

Identify and resolve these issues in order to limit and possibly reverse food sensitivities.

Second, anyone who has gut or inflammation-related health issues (anywhere in the body), benefits from being on a hypoallergenic, whole foods diet, such as Ancestral eating or Paleo.

Once you are well, we are able to identify what food is causing what by rotating in foods one at a time to test their individual tolerance. If you react from this place of wellness, we know it was just that one food. No further testing needed.

We have found almost universally that by testing and treating gut microbiome and digestive imbalances, healing the gut through a whole foods diet and addressing underlying stress and trauma is the best method to healing food intolerances and leaky gut.