Disordered intestinal permeability

Name(s):

Dysbiosis

Leaky gut syndrome

Increased intestinal permeability

Nature

Dysbiosis is literally that the ecology of the gut is out of balance, with dysfunctional organisms, such as [Candida albicans], in greater abundance than optimal and beneficial organisms, like Lactobacillus spp., in lower abundance. The symptoms of dysbiosis are attributed to "leaky gut", or an increase in intestinal permeability. If otherwise healthy foods do not get properly digested, some of the food particles may pass inappropriately into the blood stream, where they are branded as foreign and undesirable by the body's immune guards. In response to these foreign particles, the body dispatches immune system proteins to attack them. Undigested foods then become part of the overall suppressive load on the immune system. Also, if the intestines are unbalanced (dysbiotic) and "leaky," bacteria and parasites "can overcome the defensive intestinal barrier, pass through the circulatory system (both the lymph and blood) and invade the organs. These circulating immune complexes can then trigger a variety of diseases affecting the connective tissue (collagen) layer of the body, such as arthritis and lupus. This has some support in recent medical literature on mucosal immunity and intestinal permeability, but the matter is not accepted by the medical mainstream.

Background

Leaky gut syndromes are usually provoked by exposure to substances which damage the integrity of the intestinal mucosa. The commonest causes of damage are infectious agents (viral, bacterial and protozoan), ethanol, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Hypoxia of the bowel (occurring as a consequence of open-heart surgery or of shock), elevated levels of reactive oxygen metabolites (biliary, food-borne or produced by inflammatory cells), and cytotoxic drugs also increase para-cellular permeability.

Some practitioners refer to both small bowel bacterial overgrowth and candida-related complex collectively as "dysbiosis". Both conditions are initiated by a disruption of the normal gastrointestinal microflora.

Claim

1. Leaky gut syndromes are clinical disorders associated with increased intestinal permeability. They include inflammatory and infectious bowel disease, chronic inflammatory arthritide, cryptogenic skin conditions like acne, psoriasis and dermatitis herpetiformis, many diseases triggered by food allergy or specific food intolerance, including eczema, urticaria, and irritable bowel syndrome, AIDS, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic hepatitis, chronic pancreatitis, cystic fibrosis and pancreatic carcinoma.

2. Increased intestinal permeability to food antigens can be thought of as a generic explanation of systemic food allergy. The association of Crohn's GIT disease, for example, with psoriasis, arthropathies, sacroiliitis and ankylosing spondyliltis suggests that increased uptake of food antigens may be a pathogenic mechanism of systemic inflammatory disease. The absorption of antigenic molecules that originate from food and/or gut microbes may initiate and then maintain inflammation in target organs.

Broader

Intestinal disorders

Malabsorption syndromes

Narrower

Small bowel bacterial overgrowth