Leaky Gut Syndrome

I got the results of Nathan’s bloodwork and spoke with his DAN doctor about them, who told me ALL of his symptoms are classic leaky gut symptoms. So, what is leaky gut, you might be wondering:

Leaky gut syndrome describes a condition of altered or damaged bowel lining, caused by antibiotics, toxins, poor diet, parasites or infection can lead to increased permeability of the gut wall to toxins, microbes, undigested food, waste or larger than normal macromolecules.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaky_gut_syndrome

He explained that all of the food allergies that I mentioned yesterday are because of the leaky gut. I did notice that he was allergic to all of the things that he eats the most. So the doctor explained that the proteins in the foods that he eats leak into the blood stream through the damaged intestine wall, and the body then produces antibodies and attacks them thinking they are foreign invaders.

So it’s not about “curing” his allergies or about avoiding the substances – it’s about fixing the leaky gut so that the proteins won’t leak out any more and then the food allergies will resolve themselves.

What was interesting is that in the blood work that his pediatrician did, she looked for IgE reactions to certain foods, and guess what? Everything that was in the IgG test was also in the IgE test: Corn, Cow’s milk, egg white, rice, walnuts, wheat . So the two tests matched (although in the IgG test we looked for reactions to many more foods). The DAN doctor told me not to worry about the dietary issue but to instead focus on helping him rebuild the intestinal walls.

In the blood work we also saw evidence of low cholesterol (we need to increase his fat intake), low neutrophils, high lymphocytes and eosinophils (which indicate a virus infection), high IgE count (proving our leaky gut syndrome diagnosis), high vitamin B6 and B12 levels, and a possible parasite infection. Oh, and it also showed that he is allergic to cat dander..good thing cats would be dog food at our house!

The blood panel basically showed an underactive immune system due to the inflammation and stress caused by the leaky gut syndrome…which is why he often gets sick.

We had worked on the leaky gut a couple of years ago, but unfortunately it seems like we backtracked (probably during the months that we broke his diet), so we are back to square one. The good thing is that his DAN doctor has a plan and believes with proper supplementation (starting with L-glutamine) we can get him back on the road to health.