www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/features/leaky-gut-syndrome
"A possible cause of leaky gut is increased intestinal permeability or intestinal hyperpermeability. That could happen when tight junctions in the gut, which control what passes through the lining of the small intestine, don't work properly. That could let substances leak into the bloodstream."
So if you look up leaky gut, you should be able to find some good resources.
I will try to give you a little bit of a run down on it from what I think I know, but feel free to check online to see what people say too.
Essentially, healing leaky gut should solve some of the crohn's problems you are having.
ok so basically, when we are 'starving', or nutrients aren't passing through the intestinal wall, a chemical called 'zonulin' gets released, that tells the gut to thin, so nutrients can get through.
If your food isn't digesting properly, especially proteins, and your body is 'starving' for these nutrients, it might make the gut too thin.
There are a few reasons this could happen. One of them is a depletion of enzymes (normally made by the liver) which help digest things, for one, proteins. Missing the right microorganisms in your gut to help you digest things might be a reason, too.
Something called 'oksidative stress' is one thing that can damage enzymes before they digest things. In my case, high levels of copper in my body may have done it, and keep doing it. But during inflammation, the body releases h2o2, which has ekstra oksygen in order to oksidize pathogens, but this can damage important healthy enzymes in our bodies as well.
One thing I do to boost my body's ability to deal with the ekstra oksidative stress is take vitamin c. I usually take a timed release vitamin c, because otherwise, we may pee most of it out when we have too high level all at once. So a lower increased amount of a longer period of time i find works better for me.
Some b vitamins and vitamin d helps me too, I think. Vitamin D is the basis of a lot of hormones and some of the immune system. Many B vitamins are precursors to neurotransmitters we need in the brain.
So, back to leaky gut. So your gut is thin, and undigested proteins and other things are getting into your body. Your body is having allergies to a lot of this, or at any rate inflammation to these foreign bodies. So people often become sensitive to gluten and casein, a grain and a milk protein, respectively, that often doesn't get digested fully when we aren't digesting things properly, that may get into the blood stream. So when this is really serious, it can be like celiac disease, and can cause problems with our neurology... basically we are always in inflammation and irritable etc.
Oh, if our blood sugar is constantly high, it is harder for cells to absorb vitamin c, since glucose and vitamin c compete for absorbtion into cells. When cells have more vitamin c, it helps to protect them from oksidizers and things, so you don't get 'scurvy' like cellular damage from inflammation as much.
Here, before I go on, I'll put some links on leaky gut in here... and I will try to read some of these myself too to make sure I'm hopefully giving you good information.
https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-10908/9-signs-you-have-a-leaky-gut.html
https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/gastrointestinal/what-is-leaky-gut/
http://scdlifestyle.com/2010/03/the-scd-diet-and-leaky-gut-syndrome/
https://blog.kettleandfire.com/how-to-heal-leaky-gut-syndrome/
One of the things I learned from being giving a free trial at this advanced protein nutrition place, who normally do a protocol to cure people of cancer, in ottawa, called immune system management, is that one can take supplements of readily digestible proteins/aminoacids, like protein powder, and the body stops starving for these, and some of the other issues start to repair themselves by itself- the immune system can regulate itself properly again, we are getting enough neurotransmitters again, are body is beginning to have what it needs to make more enzymes, to make compounds to detoks metals from the body, to fight off infections; when we have the right amount of histamine, we start becoming desensitized to common allergens, and we have less alergic reactions/ inflammation, partly because our body knows how to manage it, and is telling our body 'we got this, don't worry about this one any more too much'.
At the Immune system management clinic in Ottawa, they would take blood tests, to check my levels of amino acids, and they would adjust a custom formula of amino acids to help balance my immune and neurochemistry so that it was more healthy... which also means detoksing some of the things that were causing the problem in the first place, probably, which for me, was copper! They never tested for copper, so they didn't know that was an issue, but the protocol works, because it helps get the body's own repair systems working again, and the wisdom and knowledge of our own body's to heal itself is much greater than sciences right now (or at least most individual scientists or doctors, taken by themselves... there is just so much to know!)
Now, protein supplements will help, taking enzymes will help, but getting our body back to working properly again rekwires a bit more than our own body working properly again... we need to restore our partnership with the many many different kinds of microorganisms we are living in symbiosis with in our gut... meaning we may be missing some of the ones that we really need, especially if we've had to take antibiotics, and some of the ones that aren't as prolific when we are healthy may be overgrowing (maybe they are helping with certain problems, like yeast helping bind heavy metals, but it is causing so many other problems, its something you want to kind of help your body be able to take over doing better by itself. Which you CAN do.
But to get some of these good bacteria, or gut flora, back, one way to do this is to have 'prebiotic' food, which feeds things in our gut, because we can digest it, but they can, and another things we can do is having 'probiotic foods', that have some of the 'good bacteria' we need in them. Another thing we can do is fast for longer between meals, instead of snacking, and the enzymes and gut fluids will help to kill the bacteria we don't want and promote the ones we do... but you will get hungry! if you are mostly doing a carbs diet... with fast absorbing carbs... so you need something that digests more slowly and absorbs more slowly over time... vegetables and vegetable fibre do this, but fats do this as well. As I've shared with you before, Dr. Mark Hyman has spoken a lot about how one can be healthier on a high fat diet, by choosing healthier fats, etc, and not having too much sugar with it, so that your body switches to a ketogenic metabolism, or basically using fat instead of sugar, which is also great for the brain, like coconut oil and mct or medium chain triglycerides can really feed the brain well too. So check out dr. mark hyman's site and see about some high fat meals that will help you burn the fat on your body off!
http://drhyman.com/
Now, I know I only know a little, and lots of other people, who may not have been eksamining this particular problem, may have created things like recipes, foods, and diets that help people to be well, so another thing you might try, which might help you become well, and enjoy doing it!, is just to see some of the work other people have done on how to eat well to be healthy, because basically, everything we might do with supplements and drugs to be well, there is probably a way our body can do it itself, and the right foods help our body to do it. For instance, fermented foods, like sauerkraut and kimchi (kimchi is really spicy, so maybe not for you at first), even soy has forms of it that are fermented - miso soup is one kind.
so I hope this helps. I haven't read all the links I've posted above, but I plan to look them over, because these things will help me too.
be well.
Michael Goguen
