Hannah Aylward (00:00.909)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of Han. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else works.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out. And I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting. Hello, my dear and welcome back to the nutrient dense podcast. I’m excited to jump in today because today we’re going to be discussing leaky gut, the what, the why, and the what to do about it.

When I pulled my community about what they wanted to learn from me the most, leaky gut really came up as one of the leads. So I think it’s because it’s commonly discussed. We kind of know the terminology. I feel like it had a big uprising in the functional medicine space or the holistic health space a couple of years ago, and it’s kind of kept its popularity. So we’ll dive on in to everything that you need to know about leaky gut. So what it is, what causes it.

common signs and symptoms, what it kind of creates in the body and then what you can do about it. So let’s just dive on in. The gut really houses about 70 to 80 % of the cells that make up our immune system. And I always like to point this out because when we have issues with the gut lining, we’ll get that chronic inflammation because in the other side of that gut lining is the majority of our immune system. So it’s not really a surprise that our gut health is directly linked to our overall health.

our ability to fight off disease, inflammation levels, our ability to fight off possible invaders. And, you know, about 90 % of all chronic disease can be linked back to the gut microbiome in some way. You know, my understanding of that is partially because of that increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut that can occur causing that kind of systemic inflammation and activation of the immune system.

Hannah Aylward (02:24.28)
when we have that breakdown of the gut barrier. So leaky gut or the more technical term is intestinal permeability or increased intestinal permeability. It’s very common. It’s like I said, it gets a lot, a lot of press. You’ve probably heard about it, but what I do want to voice at the very beginning of this is that leaky gut is not the cause of all your gut issues. It’s not the cause of every gut issue out there. It’s more like it comes alongside these other gut issues that we have. So I want you to think about it in the sense that

Our gut microbiome, our gut function, our gut health overall, it’s a big ecosystem. So all of these things are impacting one another, which is also why it’s really not as simple as taking an L-glutamine supplement or getting put on a quote unquote leaky gut protocol. And that’s because leaky gut protocols, if they’re focusing just on maybe like a probiotic and then an intestinal barrier supplement, so something with like glutamine or maybe it’s got zinc in it,

Maybe it has vitamin A in it, aloe, marshmallow, these things are pretty common in these types of formulas because they can help the gut lining. But we’re really missing the mark if that’s the only thing that we’re focusing on because we have to pay attention to everything else that’s going on in our GI tract that kind of is, that’s basically like creating our gut health overall. So it’s not just about your gut barrier or your gut lining, but we will get into that bit of all of it today.

So what happens when we have leaky gut? What does that really mean? So we’ve got our gut lining and the lining of our digestive tract is really a single cell layer thick. That is really what I’m talking about, this cellular layer. We also have a mucosal layer of our gut lining, but the cellular layer is just a single cell layer thick. And these cells form a barrier between our bloodstream, our immune system and the outside world.

that comes in multiple times a day through what we eat and what we drink. Once again, the body knows what it’s doing because it essentially puts the majority of our immune system right outside of our gut lining. And we’re getting the biggest exposures from the outside world that would potentially be threats inside of our bodies through the food that we’re eating. are like directly putting the outside world inside of our bodies through the things that we eat and drink. So brilliantly, our body put a large portion of our immune system

Hannah Aylward (04:48.063)
in the gut itself to help protect us from these possible invaders that we’re literally putting inside of us. Then we also have our skin barrier, right? And that’s really important. And that protects us from the outside world as well. In a healthy system, these cells are very closely locked together, forming what are called tight junctions. So you can think of like a brick wall and how there’s all these different bricks and they’re all like sealed in nice and tight, right? You’ve got the, honestly, I don’t know what that’s called. Is it grout?

I have never built anything in my life, but you have, they’re all nice and like cemented. don’t know. Someone will have to correct me on this. They’re all together, nice and tight or else the wall would fall. That’s the point of all of this, right? In a nice, healthy gut microbiome that these tight junctions, these cells are nice and tight and connected.

These tight junctions are really what are forming a protective barrier in the gut, making sure that everything we eat is properly processed. And when these tight junctions break down or they get leaky, we develop what is called leaky gut syndrome or increased intestinal permeability or gut barrier issues. We can toss around all those terms. So with space in between these tight junctions, bacteria, undigested food proteins, toxins, waste that are not normally absorbed,

leak out of the intestines and into our bloodstream. What’s on the other side of that lining, right? We’ve got the majority of our immune system. So this is what triggers inflammation in the body, which can lead to a lot of the symptoms that accompany leaky gut, including things like bloating, gas, cramps, fatigue, but also things like joint pain, rashes, acne, eczema, increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut, very, very prominent in chronic skin issues. see a lot of that as well. And

other autoimmune conditions too. you know, we have a lot of inflammation of the gut lining when it comes to IBD. And then we have a gut permeability component to other autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis or Hashimoto’s. So there’s really three main pieces to leaky gut. And we want to look at that mucosal layer that I mentioned, and then that epithelial cellular layer that I was just talking about. And then we also have to look at our gut microbiome because that is more so the bacterial component of all of this.

Hannah Aylward (07:02.147)
but that’s influencing the health of our gut lining. And that’s why I said, all of this is working together as an ecosystem. No part of the GI tract or your digestive system operates in a silo. So if we have a breakdown anywhere down the chain, we are gonna run into issues and that one issue is gonna essentially cause another issue. So an example of that would be someone that has SIBO, right? If someone has small intestinal bacterial overgrowth,

you basically always have leaky gut too, because we’ve got a lot of overgrown gut bacteria that are causing inflammation in the gut lining and breaking down that gut lining or that gut barrier. So we’re going to have kind of that overgrowth picture, that dysbiotic picture accompanied by leaky gut, accompanied by inflammation, because these things all influence one another. So in the case of SIBO, it’s never just SIBO. There’s also usually an intestinal permeability component.

but there is also usually a mal-digestion component because we have to ask how did we get that overgrowth in the small intestine when a lot of our gut bacteria are supposed to be in the large intestine. And I can do a deeper dive on SIBO specifically, if that’s what you guys want, just kind of let me know either on social or you can comment it below here below this episode too. Let me know. Cause I can do a deep dive on SIBO specifically, but these things are all impacting one another. We have to ask,

what allowed for the slow motility that’s occurring in SIBO that essentially allowed for the overgrowth to occur where it’s not supposed to. So SIBO is really a gut motility issue, but we want to take it a layer or three deeper and ask, well, what’s slowing down our gut motility? Is it low stomach acid? What’s causing that? Is it a gut infection?

So we want to always dig deeper here. And this is really how we get clients like really good results because most people don’t do this. And we see a ton of clients and sometimes they’ve seen like the top, you would be shocked if I name dropped, you would be shocked. The top like, you know, gastroenterologists that specialize in SIBO, but no one’s looking at the full picture. Someone comes to mind and we tested her to see what else was going on. Cause she had SIBO that wouldn’t go away, wasn’t getting better, et cetera.

Hannah Aylward (09:14.071)
So we did additional testing on her and not just a SIBO breath test. We ran functional stool testing and she also had infections. She had a parasitic infection. She had an H. pylori infection. She had overgrowth in the large intestine. So there was a lot of other stuff to address and by working with us, she was like, this is the most progress I’ve ever made in this condition. So there’s just a lot more to the story, right? My point in sharing all of that was all of these things are connected and not like

these little aspects of your digestive health and your gut health don’t exist in a silo, right? So we wanna make sure that we are addressing all of these things when working to get you feeling better and fully overcome those chronic digestive issues. So taking a look at this mucosal layer of the gut lining, now this mucus layer is the first layer of protection in our gut. And our intestines are a single cell layer thick, essentially with this mucosal layer on top. And your intestines are really like one long tube.

What we need from our food should be passed through the intestinal walls through tight junctions. So this lining is semi-permeable in nature and into our bloodstream to nourish the cells throughout our entire body. But there is this mucosa layer that sits atop the cellular layer in the gut and it has its own proteins, its own defense molecules and immune proteins that are protective. essentially like a nice robust mucosa layer of the gut lining also helps to kind of reinforce

this barrier of our gut lining, that’s cellular epithelial layer. Then we have our cellular layer. And once again, that intestinal cellular layer is a single cell layer thick. So you can kind of conceptualize like just how vulnerable that might be. Literally a single layer of cells on your gut is what protects your entire body from exposure to unnecessary compounds. And it’s extremely vital to maintain this barrier function efficiently, right? We want a nice strong barrier here.

So in the case of leaky gut, tight junctions can be damaged, reduced, or there’s essentially more space. They’re not so tight anymore. And then we get this passage of unnecessary components into the system from the gut, which is then stimulating that immune system response and driving up inflammation. So there’s so much conversation in the functional space about inflammation and inflammation being the root cause of disease.

Hannah Aylward (11:30.093)
And then people say leaky gut, all of this stuff. I’m like, y’all need to dig deeper, right? So when we’re talking about inflammation, yes, is inflammation present in a lot of disease states? Of course. But what’s driving that inflammation? Cause that’s what we actually have to address. We can throw all the turmeric that we wanted it, all the curcumin that we want at the inflammation, but that’s not actually going to fix the issue. If we have like a gut infection that is essentially contributing to leaky gut, that’s causing that chronic immune response and inflammatory response.

I hope that makes sense. So we always want to take it a layer deeper. I like to say we take like a root cause approach to a root cause approach on my team. And we like to dig a lot deeper. I don’t think there’s another way. I think we have to do this to get people feeling better. So that’s what we do. And this is what we’ve learned really over the years. So we have that mucosal layer and then we have that cellular layer. And then we have this microbiome piece, which is like these trillions of microorganisms that make up our microbiome, right? That are influencing the state of our gut barrier.

There are more bacteria in the gut than there are cells. So like our body cells. So it’s crucial to really maintain a healthy bacterial makeup. The health of our gut microbiome could literally not be more critical to disease prevention, to immune system health, to preventing IBD, autoimmunity, and to helping you enjoy your life without struggling with a ton of chronic digestive issues. I mean,

I got into this work, this deeper gut work, because I very quickly realized if I helped people with their gut health, I could essentially help them with everything because almost everything stems from the health of our gut. So I was like, this is the best way that I could help people. Taking a root cause approach to your gut health, like essentially focusing on your gut health is a root cause approach to like every other condition, right? It’s involved in PCOS, Hashimoto’s.

dermatitis, eczema, acne, IBS symptoms. I mean, it could not be more important and it gets me really jazzed up. So we want to make sure that we are supporting a healthy gut microbiome too. Once again, like there’s a couple components of this and not all gut issues are due to leaky gut, right? Leaky guts essentially like this result of other things gone wrong. So we have to ask,

Hannah Aylward (13:46.903)
what is actually contributing to the breakdown of that gut lining. What’s degrading the mucosa layer? What’s damaging the epithelial layer? What’s actually causing this? Because that is how we’re really gonna overcome these symptoms and heal more at that root cause level. So slapping like a leaky gut protocol on someone’s digestive issues is quite lazy and it usually won’t get us the results that we’re looking for. I watched someone very near and dear to me go through this.

recently and I advised him against it, but he didn’t listen to me and that’s fine. Everyone’s on their own journey. I’m not here to, you know, shove my beliefs down anyone’s throat. That’s definitely not it. So I let him do his thing. I said, this is not the approach I would take just FYI, but you know, if you feel good about it, then go ahead and do it. He bought this like $400 kit that was recommended to him by a quote unquote functional medicine doctor. And cause they all practice differently, right? All functional practitioners kind of practice differently.

So we bought this kit and he took it and it didn’t really resolve the issues. And then I ran functional stool testing on him and he had a ton of overgrowth. He had all of these histamine producers and all of this bacterial overgrowth that was contributing to the symptoms. He had like sluggish liver, liver stagnation. He had, I’m trying to remember everything that was present. There was a lot going on. Now this leaky gut protocol did not address any of these things. So then he brings the results to the doctor. He’s like, I’m working on this with someone else, just FYI.

And the doctor’s like, had I known all of this was happening, I wouldn’t have given you what I gave you. And I’m like, well, isn’t that funny? Maybe we should have dug into that a little sooner and no hate to this practitioner. He’s helped tons of people. It’s all good. I’m just like that frame of mind, that like thought pattern doesn’t make sense to me because before we’re like just throwing this kid at it, of course we want to know what’s going on. Cause I know very well that if there is a bunch of gut dysbiosis present, I mean, this is not going to fix it. It’s, it’s just not.

this gut lining supplement and enzymes or whatever. And that doesn’t mean that they’re like useless. It’s just that it’s not going to get him feeling fully better. And it didn’t. So could have saved him 400 bucks. However, you know, life, life moves on and money always comes back and it’s always in circulation and it’s all good. So, you know, we dug deeper than we were able to get him some more answers and things started to make a bit more sense too. So just be mindful of people that are like, yeah, it’s just leaky gut. Like, let’s just do this.

Hannah Aylward (16:07.471)
like generic protocol. So there’s a lot of like kits on the market and it’s this like gut healing protocol or this like, um, gosh, I just had a call with a prospective client who ended up starting to work with us the other day. She was like, I’m going to do this gut cleanse from this website. And I’m like, what is it? So I took a look and I’m like, this is not, this is like one 12th of what we need to do. And that’s not to overwhelm you or anything. You know, we handle that so you don’t have to stress about it when you work with us. Like we’ll take that off your back.

we know what we’re doing so you don’t have to figure it out all out on your own. but it’s just interesting to me how they like put together these kits and then they call it gut resets or gut whatever. And I’m just like, this isn’t really it. This is like a fraction of what needs to happen. And this could help a little or it could literally not help at all. So that’s my soap box. I’m going to get off of it now, but I just wanted to make the point that there’s so much more to the picture than just leaky gut. However, your gut barrier function.

and your intestinal permeability, this leaky gut, it does play an important role in your health. We just have to dig a little deeper to understand why it’s there in the first place. So let’s just take a look at the clinical picture of someone with leaky gut. What are we looking at? We’ll see chronic fatigue. We’ll see a lot of food sensitivities because think about it. We have the majority of that immune system on the other side of that gut lining and that immune system’s essentially going, this

Is this friend or is this foe? What’s passing through this gut lining that’s now hyperpermeable? Is this friend or foe? Should we mount a big like cytokine immune system response from what’s passing through or should we not? Now we have more stuff passing through the gut lining in the case of leaky gut. So we are going to essentially be reacting to all of these foods that we’re eating. And this is where

It can feel very defeating because you’re like, I’m eating all this healthy food. I’m eating these like good proteins and veggies and I’m so bloated and I’m constipated and I’m in pain and like, what the heck is going on? I feel like I have more and more food sensitivities. Food sensitivities are the result of underlying gut dysfunction, microbial imbalances, intestinal permeability, maldigestion. They’re really just the result of that kind of stuff. And I have another episode on all of that. They’re not the cause and

Hannah Aylward (18:24.653)
We honestly, like in my opinion, we don’t really focus on them too, too much. Eliminating the big hitters can help people in the short term as we work on all the underlying stuff. But part of this, you know, the person that has leaky gut, they will tend to have a lot of food sensitivities and reactions because those things are flowing through the gut lining, activating that immune system response. And then, you know, the way that the immune system works is the cytokines.

alert other, you know, bits of the immune system all over the body. So they’re not, they’re usually not just digestive issues. We’ll see them in, you know, joint pain. We’ll see them as migraines. They’ll become systemic, right? That’s my point. So it’s not just like bloating. It can be many things. So like I said, fatigue, food sensitivities, then we’ll see, course, bloating, diarrhea, constipation. We can see joint pain. We can see headaches and migraines, psoriasis, eczema, hives.

We can see brain fog and memory issues. We’ll see depression, anxiety, other behavioral or mood issues. Liver issues can also be a part of this. And then autoimmune conditions, because there is essentially a part of what creates an autoimmune disease. One of the pillars of that is increased intestinal permeability because we have that chronic activation of the immune system. So regardless of whether the autoimmune disease involves the gut, like it could be Hashimoto’s.

it could be another kind of autoimmune disease. Even if there aren’t a lot of digestive issues present, we have to look at the gut because of that intestinal permeability picture. I mentioned Hashimoto’s just cause we see quite a bit of it in our clients, which is not a surprise because it goes hand in hand with IBS. We tend to see a lot of other like infections and, things like that and Hashimoto’s cases too. So anyway, I can do a whole thing on Hashimoto’s if you guys want, let me know. I’ll do a whole episode on it. So those are kind of some of the common symptoms of like what we’re looking at when someone has leaky gut.

Now let’s get into the causes because this is arguably the most important thing to understand. We have to know kind of what’s contributing to it. So we make sure to remove that while we’re kind of repairing that gut barrier so we can get better and really stay better. And the reality is that very typically it’s not just one thing. There are a lot of things that can damage that very delicate single cell layer thick gut lining. And unfortunately in modern day, we have to be aware of these things and actively avoid them.

Hannah Aylward (20:43.617)
or we’re really just being constantly exposed. So there’s a lot of things that can break down that gut barrier and your body is so resilient. It is working for you all the time. It’s trying to repair for you all the time. It’s doing this naturally. It’s detoxing naturally. We run into issues when it’s just like too much. It’s been too much for a long time or it’s too much at once. this is also why, you know, I know I’m biased because I work in this field, but don’t ignore this stuff. Please don’t ignore these symptoms that you have.

Don’t like roll your eyes at them or be like, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s like, especially when it comes to women, we tend to just like normalize this stuff and we’re like, we feel like crap, like get used to it. You know, that’s just what happens once you have kids or whatever the story is. Don’t ignore these symptoms. They are important. And over time they’ll likely turn into something bigger and that’s not to scare you, but that’s just the truth. We can’t, we have to listen to our bodies kind of, check engine light, right? We have to listen to when our body is going, Hey,

something’s feeling off, not feeling so great. Don’t ignore it and wait many years before you address it. Okay, so looking at some of the biggest causes of leaky gut or that increased intestinal permeability, we have chronic stress shocker or no, it’s involved in everything. So feeling stressed every day, feeling overwhelmed every day, these living in a state of chronic stress will essentially contribute to intestinal permeability because stress

wrecks havoc on your gut health, stress hormones like cortisol and epinephrine break down the tight junctions that hold the cells that line the digestive tract together. So there’s some really interesting research too. I believe, I don’t want to butcher it right now, but I believe it was showing that people that have been in abusive relationships or unhappy relationships have intestinal permeability. Like they’re at higher risk for intestinal permeability because of the chronic stress that they endure. So

You don’t just digest the foods that you’re eating, right? You digest the information that you take in, what you see on social media, what you watch on the news, who you surround yourself with, what relationships you engage with. Be mindful of this stuff because when it comes to our health, we’re digesting all of this. Our brains and our bodies are taking in all of this and

Hannah Aylward (22:56.831)
Life can be a little rough sometimes. And this year was, you know, I feel like things are a little intense. So just like be mindful and protect yourself and set up boundaries. So you’re not in this chronically reacting and responsive and like hyper reactivity state that eventually just like wrecks your gut. So the chronic stress, this could be overflowing inbox. It could be eating on the run. It could be, um, feeling like you could never get ahead. You’re always behind. It could be deeper things like childhood trauma. It could be perfectionism.

It could be like running late for an appointment and being stuck in traffic, whatever it is, you know, we want to be mindful and aware of our ability to exit this stressed out state, this chronically stressed state and kind of come back to a state of regulation. If you feel like that’s very difficult for you, this is absolutely something that we want to work on because of the fact that this chronic stress really essentially directly causes increased intestinal permeability or leaky gut. It also is going to mess with everything else. It.

causes shifts in your gut microbiome. It also decreases your ability to digest your food. mean, I could list out many things. It decreases gut immunity. It’s gonna cause gut issues over time. So this really shouldn’t be an afterthought. This nervous system support and regulation should really be a number one priority for most people, especially if you’re juggling a lot, which everyone I know is juggling a lot. So I’m talking to you too. Okay, then we have things like conventional foods that are genetically modified, things that are heavily sprayed with glyphosate.

Glyphosate was originally put on the market as an antibiotic. What antibiotics do, they wipe out our gut bacteria. Things like heavy alcohol use, that can cause gut dysbiosis, that can also cause increased intestinal permeability. An occasional glass of wine here and again, don’t worry about it too much. I’m talking like, you’re one glass of wine that you started having once a week and now you have every night. We wanna make adjustments to that.

then we have things like gut infections and gut dysbiosis and dysbiosis is really just when we have an imbalance in our gut bacteria and then we can get a nice slew of different gut infections. And I’m telling you, they’re more common than you’d think. A lot of people are like, no, I don’t have that. And I’m like, let’s run the labs and let’s see. So some of these are pretty common, infections like helicobacter pylori or like parasitic infections, like giardia and things like that. see them in clients, honestly, all the time. So these.

Hannah Aylward (25:19.837)
gut imbalances are essentially going to contribute to the breakdown of your gut lining. Once again, the dysbiosis leads to increased intestinal permeability, which leads to inflammation. If you’ve got one of these things, you have all of them because they all kind of coexist and feed each other. So we want to look at gut infections and gut dysbiosis, which is once again, also why slapping L-glutamine or collagen on the situation, it’s just not going to do it. We’re missing a huge piece of this puzzle.

Then we have things like medications, antibiotics, EPIs, NSAIDs, like ibuprofen, birth control. Birth control is known to cause inflammation in the gut lining. It can increase your risk for IBD. If you have been diagnosed with IBD shortly after starting birth control, please go talk to your doctor and explore other options. Then we also have sluggish thyroid function. This essentially slows down digestion. like hypothyroidism.

Hashimoto’s slows down digestion and that can lead to a lot of issues, constipation, excess toxins in circulation since we’re not eliminating them, since we’re not moving the bowels, that can lead to more dysbiosis. So it’s all really connected there. Then we have not sleeping enough, which is a big one too. So our gut microbiota changes when we don’t get enough sleep. Sleep deprivation can actually alter the composition of our gut microbiota, which can lead to inflammation and our gut and gut barrier damage. So

Health is holistic, right? Like it’s not gonna be one supplement and it’s not gonna be one little tweak. And that doesn’t mean you have to feel overwhelmed by it. Like we can make things super simple and actionable. That’s the, my, feel like one of my biggest skills. I’m like, I can take all of this really high level education and information and I can distill it into like, these are the five things you need to do today. I think that’s one of my biggest talents in this life. So that, that’s not, you know, to overwhelm you or be like, my gosh, there’s no hope. It’s more so just like,

let’s take a look at this stuff. It’s not just about eating leafy greens, right? We want to take all of this into consideration. Hopefully, you know, you’re also having some light bulbs go off and understanding why previous quote unquote gut healing protocols, like maybe didn’t do it for you. And it’s not cause you’re broken and it’s not because you can’t get any better. And it’s not because there’s something so wrong with you. It’s just because like you haven’t been given the right strategy to address all of these underlying, you know, root causes.

Hannah Aylward (27:41.321)
there’s a lot of nuance to all of this. And we really want to take like a thorough approach when we are repairing the gut. Then we have, you know, those highly processed foods, things rich in preservatives, emulsifiers, additives, gums, food dyes, lots of sugar. We kind of know that. So I won’t go too much into that. Like standard American diet is going to get you the standard American diseases, including some nicely gut. So we want to make sure that we’re focusing on having a healthy diet here too.

And then also sometimes like a lack of diversity in the diet. So if you’re eating the same five things over and over again, our gut needs diversity specifically implant fibers to support the proliferation of the gut microbes. So we need more diversity in the diet to help build a nice, healthy, robust and resilient gut microbiome that then protects our gut barrier. So once again, all of those things are connected and

you know, we run so much functional stool testing because we run it on every clients and we see hundreds of clients every year. So we see patterns and we’ll see, we’ll kind of like pick up patterns in clients. And I swear each round of our co like each cohort has a new pattern and or like a specific pattern. Anyway, it’s very interesting. But when I chat with my team about some of this, cause we’ll see as much low good gut microbes and gut diversity as we will see.

infections and overgrowth. And I’m like, what’s going on? Like, why do I feel like no one has the slow acromantia? Why does everyone have low bacterial phyla that make up such a huge portion of our gut microbiome? Essentially like, why don’t we have enough good gut bacteria? And there’s a lot that goes into that antibiotic use. And you know, if we were born via C-section versus vaginal birth, and once again, there’s a lot, but it often includes, you know, when I’m chatting with my team, one of the practitioners is like,

I feel like we’re seeing the fallout of people’s like really neutral bland diets that are lacking all this diversity. We used to eat these things kind of more naturally and then we were like, Hey, can I throw it in the microwave and is it salty? And then we just started eating like bland beige foods and that’s going to negatively impact our gut microbiome over time. So you want to aim for

Hannah Aylward (29:47.673)
many different plant foods in the diet and be mindful, look for colors, look for different fibers. That’s the kind of stuff we want to include to support a healthy gut microbiome. So those are some of the main causes of leaky gut. And once again, I just really want to reiterate that when we have got dysbiosis, that’s going to essentially contribute to leaky gut. So leaky guts never just leaky gut. That’s what I want you to take away from this, right? There’s more to the story. So if you feel like you’ve like

you know, consumed a good amount of bone broth and collagen, you haven’t gotten there, that’s okay. There’s more that we can do. There’s so much more that we can do. And you know, that’s gonna cause leaky gut and then contribute to inflammation. And our immune system is really reacting to these threats. Chronic and widespread inflammation is present in essentially all diseases. It increases your risk for all diseases. And dysbiosis and leaky gut are essentially what are causing this inflammation. So

That is one of the many, many reasons why I feel so passionately about this deeper gut work. And I wish more people would do it preventatively instead of when they’re just like really struggling with their digestive issues. But one day we will get there. And once again, this increased intestinal permeability really creates a lot of food sensitivities and reactions as we’re triggering that immune system over and over again. And at that point you’re reacting to all the foods. So when we’re looking at someone who’s really reactive to foods, there can be many reasons why.

One of them being leaky gut, others being, you know, an overabundance of histamine producing bacteria contributing to histamine overload. it can be a maldigestion picture and it’s often a dysbiosis picture as well. Once again, because all of these things influence one another. None of these like pillars of gut health exist on their own. Everything’s influencing everything else. And then you have your gut influencing every other system in the body from endocrine to cardiovascular to immune. So

when Western medicine takes these organ systems and just like puts them in their little pockets and kind of like disconnects them from each other, we’re really missing out because we know that your adrenals impact your gut. We know your gut influences your thyroid. We know your gut impacts your skin health. I mean, it’s all connected. So that’s also why the work that we do

Hannah Aylward (32:01.309)
with clients is so powerful. And we see symptoms start to drop off, you know, across the board. It’s not just digestive issues, which is also really amazing. We’ve got people, you know, with reduced anxiety levels, decreasing their anxiety meds. We’ve got people getting off of antihistamines. We’ve got people decreasing their thyroid medication. We’ve got people getting pregnant for the first time in three years. So it’s pretty cool. If you, if you can’t tell, I’m very into it. Okay.

So we’ve discussed causes and now let’s talk about what we need to do to get feeling better. First thing, first thing that I wanna say here is we have to address our underlying root causes. Now, how do we know our underlying root causes? Functional stool testing and running functional labs really helps us identify what our own root causes are. We can take some educated guesses, but when we’re looking at a symptom like bloating or we’re looking at a symptom like food sensitivities, you heard me list off many different things that could be contributing

to food sensitivities. So the testing helps us narrow that down and it helps us see is gut dysbiosis present, is fungal overgrowth present, how’s the gut immune system, how are we digesting our food, what infections are present, what’s the state of the gut lining? And we can gather that data and then customize things for your needs, which just helps people decrease the amount of time that they’re suffering so, so much. When I found this way of doing things and then kind of created my own way out of that way,

It was night and day for my digestion. I can tolerate so many more foods than I could tolerate before. I didn’t eat gluten and dairy for about 10 years. I couldn’t tolerate apples, sweet potatoes. I mean, it felt like I couldn’t tolerate anything, honestly. And I had so many food sensitivities. And now it’s like, I can basically eat whatever I want. And I maintain a very healthy diet, but I’m not like fearing food anymore. I trust my body way more. I’m not dealing with these chronic digestive issues anymore. If anything flares me at stress, classic.

But it’s like my life is so much easier on the other side after addressing my underlying root causes. So I had some dysbiosis, I had some leaky gut, I had some low stomach acid. I’m trying to remember what else. I had some, lot of liver stuff and I also had some mold illness and some like mycotoxin illness, which was a whole other thing, but very fun. Let me tell you, very fun to go through. And then my cortisol was all over the whack too because I was like perfectionist, over-exercising, under-eating, you know.

Hannah Aylward (34:24.831)
We don’t need to get into the whole story, but I had to take a look at, you know, lot of this stuff to, really get feeling better. It’s so worth it. It’s like truly so worth it on the other side. No question, no doubt about it because my entire life was being negatively impacted by my digestive issues. You want to talk about dating when you have chronic digestive issues. Good luck. And that’s no hate to anyone. I’m speaking from my own personal experience. You want to feel confident in your body. You want to feel sexy in your body. You want to get the right sleep. You want your skin to not break out.

You want to feel good putting on your cute dress or whatever it is. Good freaking luck with these chronic digestive issues. It’s really, really hard. And that doesn’t, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t feel confident, even if you’re bloated, you absolutely should. Definitely. It doesn’t really matter what your body looks like, right? I’m more so talking about like the feeling when you feel like your body is reacting to everything. mean, everything else is harder and it was just impacting everything in my life. It was impacting my relationship so much. was like not dating.

my energy, my confidence, my like stress levels. I mean, it’s, it’s truly night and day. So it’s the good work. So when it comes to healing leaky gut, we have to address these deeper root causes. We’re going to get into some more like actionable things here now, but just understand that adding in a supplement or adding in one, one new food is probably not going to be enough to do it. That’s okay. We want to make a lot of like customizations for where your body’s at now and what it needs. And that’s great.

And then it can be really customized to you and it will help you get a lot better as opposed to like, you know, throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping that it sticks and seeing if maybe this 20th supplement that you’ve purchased this year finally helps something without actually knowing like what we’re looking at and what we’re dealing with. first thing is of course we want to maintain a healthy whole foods diet. So we want to get in our veggies. We want to get in our colors. We want to get in our fruits and veggies, like clean sources of good quality proteins, organic animal proteins.

things like salmon, things that are higher in omega-3s can be really supportive of both our gut bacteria and our gut lining. Foods high in vitamin A can also be very supportive for our gut lining. And then foods higher in zinc can also be very supportive for our gut lining. So we use a lot of beef liver with our clients in more of a supplement form. You can totally eat it if you want. Personally, I won’t do that. So I take it as supplement. But it’s loaded with retinol, which is like the bioavailable form of vitamin A.

Hannah Aylward (36:48.147)
The gut needs vitamin A, the gut lining and our gut immune system needs vitamin A. So that could be a food to add in. And then zinc, which is really high in things like oysters. And most of us are, you know, we’re just not eating those on a daily basis. So increasing your intake of those things can be helpful, but going back to these high quality proteins, right? This can be plant-based sources, but animal sources are really helpful here too. And not only does this help, you know, with just like our overall gut microbiome health and the gut barrier health.

helps to decrease inflammation, but it also helps to balance our blood sugar levels and support our hormonal health too. Really focusing on these nutrient dense foods, whole foods, single ingredient foods, not hyper processed, like ultra processed foods that are in a box that will last on your shelf for a long time. Those things we want to minimize where we can. I think most of us kind of know that at this point though. then fruit is totally fine too. There’s a lot of fear around fruit.

I could do a whole podcast on that. fruit is fine. You know, depending on how you respond to fruit or different fruits, could tell me more about what might be going on in your gut. but always good to stick to fruits in their whole form loaded with fiber ones that are lower in sugar, keeping those in more often things like berries, blueberries, raspberries. those are great, you know, big emphasis on those other fruits that are really sugary. You know, I wouldn’t really recommend eating like a ton of them, but don’t be afraid of them.

You know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say go eat three pineapples in a row. That might be a little much other than that. You’re good. So don’t fear those too much. If you feel like you’re really reacting to fruits and the sugar in fruits, that’s kind of a different conversation. Then we can get more specific here and talk about that mucosal layer and how we can support that mucosal layer. Adequate protein is incredibly important here because it’s associated with increased goblet mucus cell activity. So making sure that you’re getting in enough protein.

pretty much every client that works with us is not eating enough protein. They come in to work with us, they think they eat healthy and that’s no shade to anyone. We love you guys, but they’re under eating protein. They’re usually under eating overall, but they’re definitely under eating protein. We’ve probably had like five people be eating enough protein for their needs. So you want to honestly aim for about a hundred grams a day. That’s a good starting point for most. can definitely customize that more to your unique needs.

Hannah Aylward (39:06.043)
But most women that we see are eating about 50 grams a day, which is simply not enough. So we want to increase your protein intake and make sure that we’re getting in good sources like organic animal proteins, grass-fed beef, organic eggs can be great, wild caught fish, organic turkey is great, all of that kind of stuff. And then you can absolutely add in plant-based proteins too. Things like mung beans, black beans, lentils, all of those are great as well if you can tolerate them.

I also love bringing in animal protein just because a lot of clients with gut issues are very sensitive to a lot of plant foods because they’re higher in fibers. you know, things like beans and lentils, as I say that you might be like, absolutely not. I cannot eat those. They cause so much bloating and gas. And that just tells us that there’s something else going on. They’re not necessarily bad food. You know, they’re just not working with your body, not, not working for or with your body right now. And that’s okay. But if you can tolerate them, they’re great to add in. Then we have things like soluble fibers.

because these increase goblet cell numbers and upregulate secretion of mucin, of those mucous proteins in the lumen or that inner tube of the gut. This is going to be things like fruits and veggies. We’ve got peas, beans, apples, bananas, avocados, citrus fruits, carrots, right? All great sources of soluble fibers. Then we have things like polyphenols. I am kind of obsessed with polyphenols. I think I need to do a full episode on polyphenols. Noting that now.

They’re essentially these plant compounds that are in fruits and veggies and they elevate the amount of mucin and also our secretory IgA. So specifically things like bilberry and erronea berry are very high and they’re great for this. But polyphenols are going to be in those foods that stain and those really richly colored foods, those really richly colored fruits and veggies. Then we have anthocyanins and that’s a group of deep red, purple and blue pigments that are found in plants.

because these help to restore mucin levels in a high-fat diet animal study. So there’s been some cool research. The study really showed that in a high-fat diet, when an animal was consuming a high-fat diet, bringing in these anthocyanins helps restore these good mucin levels. Not all animal studies really correlate with human studies, right? So there tends to be a lot of testing on like mice.

Hannah Aylward (41:21.735)
and things like that. Just because something happens in a mouse does not mean it will happen the exact same way in a human body. So I just want to make note of that. I don’t think that research is worth like totally tossing. Like I think there’s still some value to that, especially when there’s not really any harm in adding in more deep red, purple and blue pigments found in plants. We can’t really go wrong with that. so, so yeah, just kind of wanted to make, make that note. Cause some people might be like, well, I don’t know if that science is right to be using.

I wouldn’t say it’s like totally lacking value, but yes, if something is occurring in a mouse study, that does not mean that a human will respond that same way. Also, a lot of humans don’t respond the exact same way to a lot of things. Well, you find that out once you work with people. So these anthocyanins are going to be found in things like berries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, grapes, cherries, pomegranates, red cabbage.

All these foods are also very rich in polyphenols. They’re also great sources of, you know, different fibers. So you can hit and kind of tick off a few boxes with a lot of these foods. Essentially, it’s a lot of different fruits and veggies. So that’s the way to keep it simple. Then we want to make sure that we’re getting an adequate protein as well. We also, when we’re talking about that mucosal layer, we have to take a look at our stress management because cortisol wears away at our mucosal layer of the gut lining. So stress management is a non-negotiable here.

And it’s amazing how often we will deny that and also avoid that rewiring your nervous system, I think is a much more difficult task than taking supplements and cutting out gluten and dairy. So I really feel for everyone working to do that, your body is going to resist that change. So expect some resistance and start with really like small, simple, actionable things. So I was just chatting with someone in my healing guts and shakeabouts program.

And stress is a big thing for her. She’s got high levels of cortisol confirmed via testing. She’s got these chronic digestive issues. were working with her on her gut microbiome and digestive health and all of that. But I had to bring up the stress component because we already know that’s present. I mean, I would know from just, you know, speaking with her, but she told me as well as we’ve got some, you know, confirmation with testing. So I’m going, okay, well, how can we, how can we address this? How can we take the pressure off of you? How can we set better boundaries in your life?

Hannah Aylward (43:42.03)
And how can we start to help your nervous system feel safe? And that can look like practicing five to 10 minutes of little things like meditation and breath work. The more consistent you are with it, it will get easier. Your body will eventually fall into that more relaxed state with more ease when you have essentially just practice it. It’s just like a muscle. You don’t go into the gym for the first time in five years or 10 years.

I mean, however long you were running in that stress state, which could be forever, you don’t go into the gym for the first time and expect to run a marathon or pick up like a hundred pound weight, you’ll hurt yourself. So it’s, you have to do, you know, small exercises over time and consistently and build that muscle. Same goes for changing our habits and same goes for helping our nervous system kind of reach back into that regulated state a bit easier. This stuff takes consistency and that most of us don’t want to hear.

but that’s the truth. So even implementing five to 10 minutes of breath work or meditation first thing in the morning, right before you go to bed as part of your evening wind down routine, these things can be really, really helpful. And taking little pauses throughout the day. Most of us, once the day starts, it’s like, boom, we’re going and we don’t stop all day. So being mindful of that, where can you implement little tiny breaks throughout the day? Whether that’s just like putting your phone down and closing your eyes for 60 seconds.

could be taking a step outside and getting the sun, like feeling the sun on your skin for literally 60 seconds at a time. It could also be not checking your phone nonstop, not checking your email inbox nonstop. So those are some things that can kind of just help support their nervous system. So that’s a bit about the mucosal layer. Then we have this cellular layer of the gut lining and we can bring in some more strategic things here. So we can increase flavonoids in the diet. These are plant molecules that positively modulate intestinal barrier function.

This can be really helpful to increase our intake of flavonoids in the diet. And these things are just commonly found in, you know, plants, different plant foods. So overall, we want to increase our intake of good quality fruits and veggies. Then we have increasing butyrate producing foods. So butyrate is a short chain fatty acid that positively modulates intestinal barrier function. So butyrate is really the main fuel source for the colonocytes. It helps to essentially seal up the gut lining.

Hannah Aylward (46:02.442)
in the colon or the large intestine. Now, in order to produce butyrate, we have to eat essentially enough fiber. Our gut microbes eat up this fiber and then as a result, we produce butyrate, which is a short chain fatty acid. So we want to eat these prebiotic rich foods. Fiber rich foods found mostly in plants, in plant foods. We want to eat these up, our gut bacteria eat them up, and then they produce these postbiotics that are short chain fatty acids, including butyrate. So

how we work with clients is we’re working a lot to kind of repair the digestive function and eradicate infections and clean up the gut microbiome. And we’re also supporting the gut lining throughout the process by focusing on what our clients are eating to fuel their good gut bacteria and then therefore fuel the short chain fatty acid production and support the gut lining. Then of course, avoiding, you know, certain things like really high fat diets,

food additives, unnecessary medications, and then gluten can be a big issue for some people. So there is some research showing that gluten can essentially increase intestinal permeability. I do think that people have different ways of responding to this and different like abilities to repair after this. So for some people, you can repair quickly, especially if you don’t consume a lot of gluten and the rest of your gut’s in a good spot. So for me personally, when I eat gluten now, it doesn’t really impact me that much.

because I’ve done so much work on my gut and I’ve done so much work on my nervous system, I’m kind of in a good spot. My body can repair. Now, if I had a lot of gut infections and gut dysbiosis and I was chronically, chronically stressed and I had a lot of inflammation and I was eating a lot of gluten, my gut lining wouldn’t be able to repair. Because your gut lining is self-repairing and it is repairing all the time. But if we’re continuing to aggravate it over and over again, in the case of dysbiosis or in the case of consuming a lot of gluten, we can run into some issues there.

Then we have certain nutrients that can support the gut lining. So L-glutamine I’ve spoken about already. Butyrate is another big one. So L-glutamine more so helps the gut lining in the small intestine. Butyrate more so helps the gut lining in the large intestine. It helps to seal up those, the space between those tight junctions. Then we have things like licorice root and aloe vera. These can be really helpful as well. Once again, I just want to reiterate, adding these things in, you know, if there’s deeper stuff going on, which I would venture a guess there is, is not

Hannah Aylward (48:28.908)
gonna be enough, but aloe vera and licorice, like they can be very soothing and kind of calming. So they can be great to add in if well tolerated. Then of course we have addressing root causes, supporting the production of our good gut bacteria, optimizing digestion because everything is connected to everything else within the GI tract. So if we’re not digesting our food efficiently, we’re going to be essentially creating dysbiosis in the gut.

because we’re not breaking down our food well enough and we’re overfeeding these bacteria, that’s then going to contribute to that leaky gut. So we have to take a top down approach. Digestion is a north to south process. And you’ll probably hear me say that a lot. This is why throwing a probiotic at it is not enough. This is why taking collagen isn’t really enough for someone that’s struggling with these chronic digestive issues. And once again, that’s not to overcomplicate it. It’s more so to help you feel like, okay, I just haven’t done this other stuff.

No wonder I feel this way and we can help, know, so don’t lose hope. You’re not broken or anything like that. There’s just kind of more to the story. Your guts really this ecosystem and everything’s working together. And this is why I just preach that a single supplement, cause a lot of you’ll just see a lot of it being sold around, especially like the internet, the interwebs, like Instagram and Tik TOK and influencers and all that kind of stuff and no hate everyone’s doing their thing, but one single supplements just not, it’s just not going to do it for most.

And if your digestion is like in a pretty good spot, your guts in a pretty good spot, then sure, adding in one thing, you know, could help, but it’s not going to really truly move the needle for most people. And then as I mentioned earlier, you know, we have to take a look at the stress. We mentioned it with the mucosal layer. It’s also going to impact our, cellular layer of our gut lining. So we have to take a look at the chronic stress, hormone roller coaster, making sure we’re helping our body feel safe. And how do we do that?

How can I help my body feel safe on a day-to-day basis? That could be breath work in the morning. That could be eating enough. That could be replenishing nutrient deficiencies. And then these chronic like gut issues and the inflammation in the gut and the gut dysbiosis and infections, that stuff is causing you a lot of stress. So addressing that will really help to decrease your stress as well. So once again, it all works together, which is very exciting.

Hannah Aylward (50:46.284)
So essentially there are a lot more aspects to your digestive system than just that lining of the intestines. And it’s really important that we don’t overlook these other things like our digestion, our ability to actually digest our food, our gut microbiota, our nervous system, our gut brain connection, all of that kind of stuff, right? So just because you’ve got gut issues, don’t just assume you have leaky gut, you probably do, but there’s also probably some other stuff that’s essentially causing the leaky gut that no amount of L-glutamine will.

get rid of or heal. Addressing these other underlying root causes can actually help to heal and repair the leaky gut and that increased intestinal permeability. So I hope that was helpful today. We have some good action tips, like action steps that we can put into play. We have a better understanding of our gut microbiome and our digestive function as a whole. And we have a better understanding of leaky gut and increased intestinal permeability.

and food sensitivities and our immune system and inflammation levels and how it all kind of works together. So I hope you found something valuable in this episode. Thanks for hanging out with me today. And I would love to hear your feedback and what was kind of your aha moment in the comments below. And I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and come back next week for a new episode. See you then.