Oh, I know that… I’ve seen the pictures from my colonoscopy. They were fairly superficial, but bloody openings in the lining, which looked like a very fresh deep-ish scrape of the skin. I’m not saying feces is leaking into my body cavity and festering, as in a ruptured appendix. I’m talking about bacteria and large particles having a relatively easy (compared to a healthy intestinal tract) pathway into my bloodstream via these ulcers. Blood seeps out of the bloodstream via ulcers into the feces, therefore why shouldn’t small amounts of feces mix into the bloodstream via the ulcers?
That’s the connection I see to leaky gut – increased intestinal permeability.
Well, this wackdoodle site doesn’t claim that colds and other diseases of the upper respiratory tract are coming from the gut, does it? Because the gut and the lungs aren’t really connected, except by the mouth. And that’s taking the long way around.
I’m sure that it does say that in one way or another. They may couch their language with something like “if your immune system is weakened by what you eat, you’ll have trouble fighting off the flu, but if you eat the right things, you’ll never get the flu.”
I talked to a very nice Indian (as in, from the sub-continent) man a couple of months ago who assured me that eating ginger everyday would prevent the cold, flu, cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s, make me live to 95, and that he hadn’t been sick a day in his life because of ginger.
I’m not sure whether this ginger fixation is related to GAPS specifically, but the woo-world has been substituting X into that equation for a very long time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s snake oil or magnets. It’s all BS by another name.
(Which is a shame, because I think the study of gut flora is going to be quite enlightening from a real scientific standpoint.)
Well, I’m not a doctor, but my undergrad was in physiology.
Are you denying that large molecules and bacteria could enter the bloodstream via large, bleeding sores? Especially when the sore is in constant contact with said bacteria and particles? These bacteria and particles entering the blood is supposedly what produces the symptoms of leaky gut, right?
A membrane is overly permeable when its openings are too large, thereby allowing larger molecules to pass through. The holes/gaps in a healthy intestine’s membranes are generally too small to allow blood cells to pass through. An ulcer is a gigantic hole in a membrane, big enough to allow something much, much bigger than a single blood cell to pass through. Bacteria and viruses could therefore easily pass through the ulcer hole as well.
It’s a different mode of entry into the blood from what is proposed for leaky gut, obviously, but it seems to me that the end results would have a lot in common.
Again, I’d expect ulcers to be sores on the inside surface of the intestine. They are not holes through the tissue, because that would be deadly. There is no reason to expect that damage to the inside lining would allow permeability through the lining. In fact, it may reduce it because molecules make it through the villi and damage to the villi would make it less likely to provide a pathway. (in fact, that’s why celiac disease creates digestion problems.) Villi are on the inside of the small intestine, for the most part, and you’re talking about the large intestine, so that’s another reason to suspect lowered permeability rather than higher.
I’m not a doctor either, which is why I’m being cautious about my statements, but I have spent a lot of time studying the effects of villi and digestion.
Yes, there is lower permeability on the inflamed (but not ulcerated) areas of the colon – hence the diarrhea (since the main thing typically absorbed in the colon is water). But again, if blood mixes into the contents of the colon, what’s stopping the contents of the colon from mixing into the blood somewhat via these pathways?
The serious science idea is that an intact intestinal mucosal barrier keeps the wide variety of substances inside the gut from having direct contact with the highly immunoreactive submucousa. In Crohns there has long been documented increased permability that appear very early in the process and that may play some role in triggering the inflammatory response that leads to frank ulcerations, which result in even more loss of mucosal integrity. The microbiota appears to play a role in regulating both the permability and the inflammatory reponse. Dysfunctional permability is also thought by some serious researchers to play an etiologic role in a variety of other autoimmune disorders such as Type I DM.
So again, the grain of truth is there. Diet can, over time, have a significant impact on the gut microbiota and on the products the microbiota produces (such as butyric acid and other short chain fatty acids - SCFAs). They in turn have significant impact locally on inflammation, in more distant sites through those compounds acting on distant receptors, and secondarily by way of immune responses created by exposed submucosa.
*Some *of the GAPS dietary advice makes good sense and from what we do know *might *actually positively impact those items; some of the dietary advice seems likely to be not helpful at all. The claims that it is the answer to all that ails, instead of interesting research and some speculations is where the woo takes over.
Because it’s not two equal pathways. They are very different. As DSeid says, the entire digestive tract is designed carefully so that only certain types of molecules can get through in certain places. It’s a one-way filter. There is no pathway for feces to pass into the blood except through a physical tear. And that’s deadly.
Besides, the blood that is coming into the feces is from the blood vessels inside the walls of the lining. It is not seeping through from the rest of the body. That can only happen through a physical hole. And an ulcer is not a hole. It is a scrape, like rust on the body of a car.
I’m not sure why you thought I was suggesting that it was seeping through from the rest of the body. It’s coming from the blood vessels in the colon, of course. But why do you seem to be suggesting that the blood supply of the colon is completely isolated from the blood supply of the body?
The whole purpose of the intestines, is of course, is to absorb chemicals into the bloodstream, which would make the body very vulnerable to unwanted chemicals and invaders if not for the mucosal barrier as the first line of defense, followed by the extremely concentrated immune system cells in the submucosa (as DSeid brought up). So there are lines of defense, but at least one of them in my case (mucosa) has been partially compromised.
Clearly, invaders are able to make their way past the defenses of the intestines sometimes, into the bloodstream – HIV being a very well-known one. It’s small tears that form in the rectal lining that make one susceptible to HIV via this route – an intact lining would be a barrier against it.
These typical rectal tears that facilitate HIV infection are not tears all the way through the rectum… from what I understand, they’re generally no deeper than the ones in ulcerative colitis… generally less so. My friend, a doctor, described them to me as “micro-tears.” And they cover a much, much smaller area of the colon than the ulcers in my situation.
I think what happens is that people see research such as this and then try to simplify it into a “diet” or an all encompassing theory, usually with an item or items one needs to purchase.
It seems to be one of the latest in a long series of special diets, supplements and treatments given to (or inflicted on) autistic children based on enthusiastic testimonials from supporters. Whether this diet will have any more staying power than the other highly touted remedies or fall into the GAPS like they have, remains to be seen.
I’m also :dubious: about the proposition that at least this diet is an improvement on the typical Western diet that overloads on calories, fat and sugar. You could say that about the majority of fad diets, even about periodic fasting. It doesn’t make them healthy in the long run or efficacious in healing all manner of diseases. They serve as a potential distraction from getting effective treatment and an excuse for not eating a balanced healthy evidence-based diet.
This has not been at all true for me. Until two years ago, when I changed my diet to what is basically the much-mocked “primal” way of eating, I used to get colds 3-6 times a year, and usually once a year a cold would develop into a respiratory infection that required antibiotics. I also had pretty severe seasonal allergies. Since changing my diet, I’ve not been sick a single time. I no longer have allergies. I also no longer have sugar cravings, but that’s a different subject. Many, many people report the same results. Primal isn’t the same as GAPS, but it isn’t that different, Gaps is just somewhat more strict. I don’t doubt that it can improve general health in a lot of people. Certainly anyone that regularly includes processed food in their diet would most likely feel much better.
I’m not saying this diet is going to cure all disease, and I don’t know much about the claims that it makes. But looking at the above description, I’m not seeing anything that looks unhealthy about it. Certainly it’s a hell of a lot better than the standard american diet.
I just want to thank you as that was the exact kind of thing I was looking for.
And remember, everyone, the question was not whether or not the GAPS stuff is “woo”. I knew that from the get-go. It was about its origins and a response to it.
Thanks, all who answered.
Oh, and I don’t see harm in the GAPS diet. It’s just woowy, but not harmful like the anti-vaccine stuff.