Dr. Trisha Pasricha

Leaky gut started as a very sound scientific phenomena in neurogastroenterology.

This is what we study.

What we study is increased intestinal permeability.

And that's where this idea of leaky gut first started.

So increased intestinal permeability is simply this.

Our guts are aligned with these cells on the surface, and those cells are usually pretty tightly close together.

But different things happen throughout the day that cause the junctions between those cells to just slightly open up.

When they open up, other cells can travel through back and forth.

Chemical signals can move.

That's happening to all of us.

We have increased intestinal permeability multiple times during the day.

Stress can do it, what we eat can do it, infections can do it.

This is happening all the time.

There are very few known from start to finish situations where we can, at this point, conclusively say part of the problem and the mechanism was the increased intestinal permeability in this medical condition.

So for example, one of those is liver fibrosis, liver disease.

alcohol increases intestinal permeability, and then those chemicals and toxins hit your liver and cause damage.

That's probably one of the cleanest stories in GI that we have for what increased intestinal permeability does.

It has been implicated in irritable bowel syndrome, and there's some emerging data there.

However...

When you go on social media, you'll hear these people who will say, do you have brain fog?