Dr. Trisha Pasricha

Are you bloated all the time?

Sounds like leaky gut.

And everyone will say, wait a minute.

Yeah, of course I have brain fog.

I am bloated all the time.

I've never heard of this thing called leaky gut.

Is that what this is?

Because these are symptoms, bloating, brain fog, that are notoriously difficult to understand, difficult to treat, difficult to get help for.

And now somebody's offering you an answer, which is leaky gut.

which is the bane, I think, of every gastroenterologist's existence when we hear that brought up.

Not because it's not real, not because intestinal permeability is real, but because that's not the root cause.

People treat leaky gut as the root cause of their problem.

And the second half of that reel will be like, and this is my three-step supplement that will fix your leaky gut.

And actually, what you want to ask yourself is, what is it about my lifestyle that might be increasing intestinal permeability?

Is that thing in any way linked to the problems that I have?

Because I've seen these cases, Mel, where somebody will come in to me having self-treated for leaky gut for a year, and the entire time what they had was celiac disease, which also causes brain fog, which also causes bloating.

And I hate to see us miss a medical diagnosis that we know how to treat, that we can diagnose, because we've sort of attached onto something we've seen on social media.

So leaky gut is a big one for me as a gastroenterologist.

Second is probiotics.

There is this idea out there, you would think this based on the marketing, that every gastroenterologist wants everyone to be on a probiotic, that we all need probiotics for your health, these supplements.