Transcription of Today's Episode:
Hello, I'm Dr. Martin Jr., and this is the Doctor Is In Podcast. This is episode 123. On today's episode, I'm going to be talking [00:00:30] about four hidden signs that most likely indicate that you have leaky gut syndrome. Now as you could tell, I'm doing this episode on my own. My dad, we sent him away to do some top secret research. Just kidding. He's actually enjoying some vitamin D right now. Some well deserved rest, and he'll back with me for the next episode. Today my dad and I we've been talking quite a bit lately about leaky gut and the reason for that is we're [00:01:00] actually creating a program specifically to help with leaky gut.
We've been doing a lot of talking, a lot of research and going over a lot of notes that we've compiled over the years so that we could put together a pretty cool program. One of the things that surprise a lot of people when we talk about leaky gut, and I'll talk about what leaky gut is in a second just in case you're new to us and you haven't heard us talk about this before, but most people do not realize that [00:01:30] leaky gut is not always associated with digestive symptoms.
In fact, I would probably venture to say that majority of the people that have leaky gut syndrome don't actually have any digestive symptoms, which sounds kind of funny because we're talking about a disorder of the gut, yet the person may not have any gut symptom. That's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the four hidden signs that have nothing to do with digestion that indicate that you have leaky gut. First of all, before [00:02:00] we get into that, what is leaky gut? Now you can go back and listen to some of the previous episodes that we've done on leaky gut to get a better explanation. My dad is one of the definitely foremost experts in leaky gut, especially treating leaky gut.
However, the name leaky gut is actually one of the better named disorders in healthcare because the gut is literally leaking into your bloodstream. You think [00:02:30] about that for a second. All the bacteria, fungus, mold, toxins, viruses, all those things that get into our digestive system that are supposed to be contained in our digestive system and actually dealt with there managed to get through some holes in the gut lining and end up in your blood supply. Now there are a lot of reasons why your gut becomes more permeable, meaning more leaky. There's a lot [00:03:00] of different reasons for that. We've talked in the past about antibiotics.
They kill your good bacteria and your good bacteria kind of plug those holes, but there's a lot of other reasons why so many people today have leaky gut. Probably the most common reason outside of antibiotics is stress. The funny thing about stress is your body perceives stress in so many different ways. We think of [00:03:30] stress. We think of emotional stress. We think of pressure. We think of all those things. I mean nowadays we are under a tremendous amount of stress compared to before. We're always plugged into something. We don't give our brains a break in any way. I mean there is definitely a lot of more that as well.
However, our body also perceive stress from stuff like diet, exercise, physical, emotional. There's a whole aspect to stress [00:04:00] that we may not be aware of. However, one of the things that stress us, so when you are under stress and your adrenals are under stress, they secret cortisol, which is your stress. It's one of your stress hormones. You secrete cortisol. Well, first of all, the primary purpose of cortisol, you may not be aware of this, is to actually raise your blood sugar levels. It actually causes your blood sugar levels to spike. The reason for that if you think about it, one of the functions of your adrenal glands is that fight [00:04:30] or flight, right?
When your body is in that fight or flight, you're either going to fight something or you're going to run off, both of those require a fair amount of energy. As a result of it, so when you secrete cortisol, your blood sugar levels actually rise a little bit to give you the energy you need to fight or flight. One of the long standing problems with elevated cortisol is it actually starts to mess up your blood sugar levels and it actually starts to raise your insulin as well. Cortisol and [00:05:00] insulin are very ... They're joined at the hip a lot of times. They're very tightly connected.
When we see people coming in with high cortisol, they generally have issues maybe not so much with blood glucose because that's so tightly regulated, but they may have issues with chronically elevated insulin as well, which causes a whole bunch of problems. Going back to the effect that cortisol has on the gut, see, cortisol ... One of the other things that happens when you're secreting cortisol over a period of time [00:05:30] is it actually creates this low grade inflammation throughout your whole body. One of the side effects of that is that inflammation actually irritates the gut lining and that can increase the permeability or increase the leakiness of your gut.
Stress is a massive, massive cause of increased permeability or leaky gut. Somebody who is under stress physically or emotionally [00:06:00] generally has ... I mean absolutely leaky gut issues. There's no question. That brings us to kind of what I talked about at the beginning of this episode, which was a majority of people that have leaky gut have no digestive symptoms whatsoever. In fact, my dad and I were, we refer to leaky gut as leaky gut non-digestive or leaky gut digestive, meaning that's kind of how we look at [00:06:30] leaky gut. Does this person have digestive symptoms or do they not?
For example, if they have digestive symptoms or we like to call it leaky gut digestive, then they can have the typical stuff, bloating, indigestion, heartburn, or they can have an actual disorder like IBS, like Crohn's, like diverticulitis. Whenever somebody has a digestive symptom, it's fairly safe to assume that you have leaky gut. One of the early [00:07:00] stages, so long before IBS settles in, long before Crohn's settles in, long before all these things, one of the first things that happens is an actual increase in permeability of your gut or leaky gut. Just imagine if you have a digestive symptom, then I mean you can skip the material in this podcast because you have leaky gut.
I'll talk a little bit about at the end about how we handle leaky gut in our clinic. No question. If you have a [00:07:30] digestive symptom, it's fairly safe to assume, and if my dad was here I'd ask him if he's every heard of a case of somebody who has digestive symptoms, but doesn't have leaky gut. It's fairly safe to assume that. However, as I mentioned, a big part of leaky gut is actually what we call non-digestive symptom. A person comes in and they have no digestive symptoms. They have no heartburn. They're not getting any indigestion. They're not getting any bloating.
They're not getting any of those [00:08:00] things and they don't have IBS or Crohn's or diverticulitis or any of those other type of inflammatory bowel disorders that you see out there. They come in. They have no digestive symptoms, and then they find out they have leaky gut. You could see the wheels turning behind their eyes because they're like, "Well, it makes no sense. My gut is healthy. I don't have any gut symptoms." Well, here's the problem. The gut is connected to absolutely everything. Even though you don't have a [00:08:30] digestive symptom, it doesn't mean that there are not other effects of that leaky gut that the person is suffering with.
That's what I want to talk about here are four kind of hidden symptoms that people have when they have leaky gut and these are non-digestive symptoms. Let's go through these quickly here just to give you an idea of what we're talking idea. The first thing that strongly indicates leaky gut is skin issues. If you got for example [00:09:00] psoriasis, you got eczema, you have hives or you have any of those other types of things or even adult acne for that, a lot of times adult acne is associated with too much estrogen or estrogen dominance. However, I'll tell you, there are a lot of people that have acne, especially teenagers, adults that is due to leaky gut.
In fact, one of the things that my dad and I talk about a lot that if you have any kind of skin issue, then you absolutely have [00:09:30] leaky gut because there is a strong, strong connection between the health of the gut and the skin. It makes sense, right, because your skin is your largest organ. It only makes sense that if your largest organ is experiencing some kind of issues, that your gut is to blame for it. A lot of times it's amazing also when you correct leaky gut how many times a person's skin clears up. Psoriasis, eczema like we mentioned, it's absolutely amazing how [00:10:00] the skin responds to fixing leaky gut.
That's the first symptom that we see associated with leaky gut that has nothing to do with digestive symptoms whatsoever. Now there are a lot of people that have digestive symptoms for example like IBS and they also have a lot of skin issues. Their skin's breaking out or they got dry skin or eczema and all those kinds of things. I mean they are connected that way obviously as well, but if you have a skin issue, then you have leaky gut. No question. In order [00:10:30] to help your skin get better, you can do some topical stuff and you could take some stuff like DHA. All that's going to help your skin, which will also help your gut by the way.
However, you've got to definitely address the underlying cause, which is leaky gut. That's one thing. Here's another one that's extremely common in leaky gut and that's joint pain, arthritis. Now we've said this before, but there are two main causes of joint pain outside of injury. If you have an old injury, [00:11:00] you blew your knee out or you hurt your ankle a long time ago and you have a true wear and tear type of an injury, that's different. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the average person who has arthritis and didn't hurt their knees or didn't hurt their elbows or didn't hurt their shoulders. That is extremely common.
Now there are two reasons why that is in our opinion. The first, diabetes of the joint. Now [00:11:30] this is an episode we're going to do upcoming. We strongly believe that one of the symptoms of diabetes ... Now a person may not be a diabetic, but their joints can be diabetic. Diabetes of the joint is increased wear and tear. The joint almost like breaks down faster because it's diabetic in a sense. That's one. Insulin is a cause of joint pain for a lot of people. The second reason for joint pain is your gut. There is a [00:12:00] strong connection between the health of your gut and the health of your joint. In fact, in research they call it the joint-gut axis.
There's a connection between the two. You can have inflammation in your joints. I mean it makes sense, right? If you have leaky gut and there's junk getting through your bowels into your bloodstream that's causing inflammation, that's causing these things, it only makes sense that your joints are going to suffer as a result of it. If you have joint pain and you haven't injured yourself in the [00:12:30] past, and you've got arthritis and you're like, "I don't know why I have arthritis or I don't know why my joints are aching all the time," there is a very good chance that you have leaky gut syndrome.
Again it's amazing how many people tell us that their joints feel better once they fix their gut or this is another thing that we get a lot of. They come in. They start fixing their gut and they're like, "Hey, you know what? I noticed that I'm not achy anymore. Is that connected?" Absolutely. It's absolutely connected. That's the second thing. Here's another one, another [00:13:00] hidden symptom of leaky gut, and this is your brain. If you have any type of brain issue, fogginess, dementia or early signs of Alzheimer's, then you absolutely have leaky gut. As I mentioned, there's a strong connection between your skin and your gut.
There's a strong connection between your joints and your gut, but there is an even stronger connection between your gut and the health of your brain. In fact, [00:13:30] my dad and I have been saying for years, leaky gut, leaky brain, but research has now shown that good bacteria plugs those little holes in your blood brain barrier. When you have leaky gut and you have an overgrowth of bad bacteria, your brain absolutely is affected. In fact, studies have shown that in people with Parkinson's, a high percentage of people with Parkinson's have fungus in their brains. How do you think that gets there?
That gets there because their gut's not doing [00:14:00] its job and that barrier to the brain is not doing its job because the probiotics, the good bacteria, have been overrun by bad bacteria. Brain is a strong, strong indicator that your gut is off. Let's flip that over for a second. If you want to age well in a sense that you want your brain to be protected, then there are two things you have to do. Keep insulin low because your brain could be diabetic. There's type 3 diabetes, which we call it diabetes [00:14:30] of the brain. There's also leaky brain. Those are the two massive areas of brain protection.
If you want to have a healthy brain as you age, make sure you keep your insulin low and make sure also that your gut is healthy. Because if your gut isn't healthy especially over a long period of time, your brain will pay the price for that. That's the third one. We talked about skin. We talked about joint pain. We talked about your brain. Here's the fourth one, and this is a big one for women, also men, if you [00:15:00] have estrogen dominance. You maybe thinking how in the world is estrogen dominance connected to your gut. Well, unfortunately it is.
Now what's interesting is that over the last probably year or so, there's been a lot of research into your microbiome, which is basically the name that's given to your bacterial content in your body specifically like your probiotics. Now what's fascinating is that they're actually starting to refer to your microbiome as another organ [00:15:30] because without it, you're dead. You can't live without it. Just like any other organ pretty much in your body, you need it to survive. Your microbiome plays a massive role in everything from digestion to brain health, to skin health, to joint health, to heart health, but also your hormones.
It actually affects a lot of your hormones, but I'm going to key in here specifically on estrogen dominance. If you have estrogen dominance, which again so many women do [00:16:00] and so many men do by the way as well, it's a very common problem because estrogen dominance is a big issue in men for example in prostate issues, swollen prostates. Again estrogen and insulin are the two biggest reasons why men have prostate issues by the way. Insulin is a growth hormone, so it only makes sense that somebody who has chronically high levels of insulin is chronically growing different things.
One of the things that's affected for men is their prostate, but also estrogen is a big reason why men suffer with enlarged prostate. [00:16:30] They have an estrogen dominance issue as well. Estrogen dominance, if you have a problem with estrogen and that could mean either not enough progesterone, too much estrogen or too much estrogen dominance and not enough progesterone, which is a combination of the two. However, what's interesting is that research has found that there's actually a collection of microbes that are capable of metabolizing estrogens. They actually call those estrobolome, which sounds like a funny name [00:17:00] for that, but that's what they call it.
The estrobolome is an actual collection of bacteria or microbes that basically metabolize estrogens. What they found out is that when you have leaky gut or when you have increased permeability, which is the same thing, it actually affects the estrobolome that you have. That will have an impact on obesity. Think about it. One of the sign of estrogen dominance is weight gain, fat gain because estrogen causes you in [00:17:30] a sense to store some fat. Also, increases cardiovascular disease. Your gut can be tied into heart disease via messed up estrogen metabolism. You can reverse engineer for some people heart disease all the way back to a change in gut bacteria.
It's incredible. Also, think about other things that estrogen do. Estrogen also plays a massive role in bone health, which is why a lot of women struggle with [00:18:00] osteoporosis. Again the quality of your bones can be directly related to the health of your gut. That's why we talk so much about leaky gut, the health of your gut. Those are those four things. Let me recap those quickly. Your skin, joint pain, brain issues and estrogen dominance or if you want to go more of a broad term, hormones. If your hormones are messed up, there's a good chance you have leaky gut as well. Those are four signs that you have outside of digestive [00:18:30] issues that indicate mostly that you have leaky gut.
The question that we get asked a lot of times is all right, so what do I do? I have leaky gut. What do I do for that at this point here? Well, in our clinic we kind of talk about three things that we like to do, which is ... We call it the three Rs and it's not the three Rs of recycling. We call this the three Rs of leaky gut, which is reduce, remove and rebuild. First of all, what are we trying to reduce? Well, we're actually trying to reduce [00:19:00] two things. One, insulin. Elevated insulin and cortisol ... Well, first of all, when you have elevated insulin, you have elevated inflammation levels. You have elevated inflammation levels. You have an irritated gut.
You have leaky gut. One of the aspects of fixing leaky gut is reducing insulin. We find a strong correlation in people with high levels of insulin and leaky gut. Now it's not everybody, but as a rule of thumb for a lot of people it is. We have people reduce [00:19:30] insulin, which is why by the way ... There was a big study done last year that shows a 80% basically almost reversal rate of Crohn's when people eliminated a lot of foods that effectively brought down inflammation, but also brought down insulin. We're big fans of for gut health reducing insulin. High spiking levels of insulin over and over again is very hard in the gut.
That's the first thing. Not only reducing insulin, we also talk about reducing inflammation. We want to bring down [00:20:00] that inflammation, and there are different nutrients that you could take that help with bringing down inflammation. We use stuff like our Navitol, which is a pine bark curcumin. It's fantastic for that. DHA as I mentioned is awesome for bringing down inflammation of the gut. Those are some of the things that we do, but if you have high cortisol, that's something that has to be reduced, right? Somebody comes in and you could trace kind of back their leaky gut all the way to elevated cortisol.
You want to bring down that cortisol, which we use a product that we created called Cortisol Control, [00:20:30] which brings help down cortisol naturally. There are different ways you can do that. That's the first thing. You reduce insulin, you reduce inflammation, and if it's cortisol, you bring cortisol levels down. The second thing is you remove. Well, what are you trying to remove? Well, in our experience, people that have leaky gut are generally also allergic to a food that they don't even realize. Again this is another thing here, we could do a whole episode on food allergies and we kind of did a little while ago. A lot of symptoms of food [00:21:00] allergies are again non-digestive.
You may have a sensitivity to a food and not be getting any digestive symptoms whatsoever. Now sometimes they'll cause actual stomach pain. IBS will kind of show up and you get this pain, you get the changes in bowels and stuff like that. However, the idea is to ... Not everybody has this, but if you have an allergy is to identify it and remove that from your diet to allow the gut to heal, to help get rid of that chronic [00:21:30] inflammation that's being caused by that food that's irritating the gut. That's the second thing. The third thing then obviously is you have to rebuild the gut. We do that a certain different number of ways.
Obviously you can't talk leaky gut without probiotics. That is the single most important thing that you need to take for leaky gut. If you want to fix leaky gut, you need probiotics and you need good probiotics and you need the right kind of probiotics. That's first and foremost is you need a good probiotic. Second, [00:22:00] we like digestive enzymes. Interestingly enough, we just keep came out with a brand new digestive enzyme formula that we kind of created and formulated to help specifically with leaky gut. Not only is it a tremendous digestive enzyme, we also threw things in there like oil of oregano and a few other things to help specifically deal with the effects of leaky gut.
Enzymes play a big role in healing leaky gut. Makes sense also because if you don't have enough digestive enzymes or if you're not breaking down food properly, [00:22:30] that's going to lead to chronic inflammation as well, which can irritate the gut and just make things worst. Enzymes are a big part of that as well. We also like Bone Broth Protein a lot because it has natural stuff in there that helps rebuild the gut. It's got a lot of glutamine, which is very good for gut health. Also, you could also take L-glutamine on the side if you want because again that's very, very good for helping heal the gut.
We also like stuff like mucilages, stuff like slippery embark, marshmallow root extract. [00:23:00] Those kind of things again help coat the gut. It helps heal the gut. Then dealing with inflammation either our Navitol, which is a pine bark extract. We like curcumin as well a lot. It helps a ton with inflammation. Then DHA is a big aspect of healing the gut as well. We're big, big fans of DHA. Again let me recap. You want to reduce insulin, reduce inflammation and if cortisol is high, you want to reduce cortisol. You want to remove the allergy. The more common allergies are things like dairy, [00:23:30] wheat. Eggs is a big one. For example, myself, eggs is the trigger.
Unfortunately I would love to be able to eat eggs all the time, but I just can't do it, which makes it difficult as well getting protein in. I have to focus on other areas to get protein in just because of that. You want to remove the allergy and then you want to rebuild your gut. Those are the three Rs of fixing leaky gut. Again you really can't skip any of those steps because [00:24:00] they all play an important part in getting your gut healthy again. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I again apologize. I tend to talk fast when I get excited. It's always funny when I'm presenting something. I can also see the audience looking at me and I'm kind of speeding up.
It feels like I'm an auctioneer. I appreciate you listening to this episode. If you have any questions, you can email us at info@martinclinic.com or if you're not a newsletter subscriber, head over to martinclinic. [00:24:30] com and sign up for our newsletter. We talk about a lot of these things a few times a week. We send out three emails a week, which a lot of people enjoy the fact that we break down studies. We give practical tips. We like to share these things with you as well. If you're not a newsletter subscriber, head over to our site and do that. Again if you get a chance, my dad does a Facebook Live every Thursday morning. He has a blast with it.
We get a kick out of it in the office because there's always every week at least one technical difficulty. [00:25:00] The camera's upside down or backwards. We get a kick kind of watching it, but he answers a lot of questions. We get a lot of viewers on there. It's a great way to ask your questions as well. Again thank you for listening and be sure to tune in next week.