by

I’ve been around my fair share of leaky gut. I think it should go without saying that if you have any sort of gut dysfunction then you have dysbiosis. That is the part that everyone seems to agree upon. Where the disagreement arises is in how to properly correct it.

If you don’t already know, let me explain exactly what dysbiosis is. Your digestive tract is host to billions and billions of bacteria, yeast, fungus, etc; both good and bad. For a healthy gut, it is all about balance. A healthy gut contains a balance of both good and bad bacteria, of bacteria to yeast, and so forth. When that balance exists, then each does its part to keep the others in check.

This healthy balance is somewhere on the order of 80% beneficial bacteria to 20% harmful bacteria. And typically there are the majority of bacteria to the minority of yeast and fungus.

But for many reasons, this balance can be thrown off. In our society, I can say with certainty that the two most common reasons are because of the Standard American Diet (SAD) full of processed food and sugar and the overuse of antibiotics.

SAD Diet

You see, the beneficial bacteria feed on many of the whole food fiber sources in your diet like inulin (plant or vegetable fiber). The harmful bacteria however feed on sugar. So with poor dietary choices, which is most often the case, consisting of few vegetables and an abundance of sugar it is easy to see how the harmful bacteria take charge. This results in a reversal of roles in the gut where the harmful bacteria make up the 80% and the beneficial bacteria a mere 20%. This is one way dysbiosis develops and can easily lead to Leaky Gut Syndrome.

Antibiotics

I think you would agree that antibiotics are very effective at killing bacteria that cause infection. But they are also just as effective at killing beneficial bacteria. When you use antibiotics you are literally wiping the slate clean in your gut. This leaves the re-growth of bacteria up to a rat race. Take into account the SAD diet and the lack of natural sources of beneficial bacteria in your diet and all odds are in favor of the harmful bacteria and yeast. This is why antibiotics are a major cause of leaky gut.

The Great Debate

There are many health practitioners who claim that correcting dysbiosis is as simple as adding a probiotic (beneficial bacteria) supplement to your daily regime. This would be true if the harmful bacteria and yeast were not overgrown. But that is rarely if ever the case, especially when leaky gut is present.

But still, many of the health practitioners do just that. They give you a bottle of probiotic pills and send you on your merry way. You jump with joy as you take them and begin to see signs of relief. You may even claim that your practitioner is a miracle worker. But what happens when you stop taking them? That’s right. Your problems come right back. So you might start another round of probiotics. This cycle continues and continues until you decide to either stick with probiotics permanently or you figure out that there is more going on inside your gut than you might realize.

The problem is that all of those harmful bacteria, yeast, and fungi are still there and still holding strong. The probiotic supplements are only providing you temporary relief but they still don’t have ability to take back control of your dysbiosis or leaky gut.

If you want true results, then you have to first correct the root of the problem. You have to do your part by following a proper leaky gut diet to help starve those harmful bacteria to give your probiotics a fighting chance at survival.

If you want to truly correct your dysbiosis, then you must first create an inhabitable environment for the beneficial bacteria to flourish.

by