Junction Dysfunction in the Gut
Junction Dysfunction in the gut is called intestinal permeability in the literature and is very popularized online with the terminology of leaky gut.
Intestinal permeability is when the cells that line the gut have increased Zonulin expression (a tight junction) which allows for foreign proteins and pathogens to reach the blood stream, from the gut.
This post is broken into two parts:
What Causes Intestinal Permeability?
Simplistic list:
Viruses (like Sars-CoV2, Ebola, EBV, etc)
Parasites
Fungal species (like candida, airborne fungal byproducts)
Pathogenic Microbes (like H pylori or C diff)
Plant Toxins
Xenobiotics (like man made chemicals and -icides)
Carbons and Pesticides
Fulvic and Humic Acids
Fulvic (small) and humic (large) acids are the carbon-based substance that are created from decayed organic material.
Depending on many factors including what is the organic material being decayed changes the type and function of the fulvic and humic acid structure.
Zach Bush first taught me about how ionic particles are able to reduce zonulin in the gut.
He had a product called Restore, later switched to Ion Biome, and now I'm not sure what it's called, nor why they made these changes.
Maybe it's policy based?
Anyway, later on I discovered Cell Core, who had similar methodologies to create ionic particles.
Both manufacturers, use carbon chains (humic acids).
I found a specific product by Cell Core called Carboxy (WrNETza8) to be very helpful.
Glyohosate (Roundup)
Fulvic and humic acid have two distinct properties in the gut (outside of mitochondrial enhancement abilities like shilajit), they increase the charge of those tight junctions, and they also help excrete the organophosphate Roundup (glyphosate), or better to understand as glycine-phosphate.
While the research is affected heavily by policy, it is mixed whether glyphosate displaces glycine in the body or just binds to its receptor sites.
This may be the reason why so many people have issues with collagen synthesis and hypermobility issues.
Collagen is rich in the amino acids of glycine and proline and if glycine is being displaced everywhere, remodeling collagen would be significantly harder.
Your Bacteria Help You Produce Essential Nutrients
What is not mixed is that glyphosate can disrupt something called the shikimate pathway (you can read my post on glyphosate and the shikimate pathway here).
Google has made it extremely difficult for my glyphosate post to show up, and to get it to show up, you have to use multiple full lines of my text from my article, in quotes.
I wonder why, but I focus my energy elsewhere.
The shikimate pathway is a metabolic process by which bacteria convert the food you eat into nutrients that you use, like amino acids and b vitamins.
Glyphosate directly causes dysbiosis this way and it kills a lot of good bifido and lactobacillus strains.
Glyphosate also makes it harder to active Vitamin D receptors, which are necessary for so many enzymatic processes.
Organophosphates, The Vagus Nerve, and Cholinergic Issues
While it is disputed whether glyphosate has cholinergic effects, other organophosphate (OP) -icides can.
OPs work killing bugs and critters by paralyzing them through cholinergic pathways.
If you ever study Gulf war illness or read about farmers that handle OPs daily, you will learn how OP poisoning is really no fun.
Through urinalysis (which can be purchased here), most people I've worked with have subacute chronic OP poisoning, not on purpose, but due to high exposure in our environment.
It is important to note that the vagus nerve works on cholinergic pathways for you to have rest and digest and feel calm and not be in fight or flight.
What do you think happens when you disrupt its signaling pathway?
You're pushed into a more sympathetic dominant state.
Blocking cholinergic pathways in the brain have implications on memory formation and recall.
I used to be highly sensitive to supplements that increased my acetylcholine levels.
Things like phosphatidylcholine, galantamine, etc would give me such high anxiety, brain fog, irritability, and depression.
You can see a video here 7 years ago where I talked about acetylcholine and how it messed with me and read my post about acetylcholine here.
It wasn't until years later when I really worked on getting organophosphates out of my life and out of my body and working on repairing that system, that I could tolerate acetylcholine products.
Here's a post about acetylcholine, how to increase it and how to inhibit it.
Acetylcholine was not the bad guy; it was the organophosphates.
Now I handle phospholipids and cholinergics very well and get their benefit.
PON1 is one pathway that helps get rid of OPs and you can read my post on it here.
Seriously, cut out the pesticides…
How The Liver-Axes Contribute to Digestive Issues
What Does The Liver Do?
The liver is essential for:
clearing toxins (by making them more water soluble or fat soluble and putting that into bile)
creating an inhospitable environment for pathogens (by introducing tons of neutrophils and NETs, kupffer cells, and macrophages)
producing bile from broken down red blood cells (it will also trap microbial byproducts in the bile so it can be excreted).
The sinus and small capillaries that run through the liver also have a glycocalyx layer to it.
Liver Axes
Through a tightly regulated feedback system, the liver axes are able to talk to:
the mouth
the esophagus
the stomach
the pancreas
the gallbladder
the duodenum
the small intestine
The large intestine
If this system is broken, there ability for the gut to repair itself becomes very difficult.
Sluggish Bile
When there is hyperinflammation from Intestinal Permeability, this can contribute what is called a sluggish liver.
Essentially a sluggish liver is when the ability to create bile is poor and the consistency of the bile becomes viscous and less water soluble.
Bile is essential for:
moving food along your intestinal tract (closing tight junctions as it passes by)
regulating the pH of gut lumen (making it a good place for happy microbes and bad place for pathogens, although clostridium spores and an exemption)
helping you excrete fat soluble toxins through your stool
Microbes and toxins can cause calcium and cholesterol stones to form in the liver which builds up in the gallbladder and causes for the gallbladder to be unable to contract when you eat fatty food.
This is a main reason as to why many people develop gallbladder issues and SIBO.
Vitamin Absorption
Having a healthy liver is required for fat soluble vitamin absorption.
When the liver is unhealthy fat soluble vitamins like vitamin a, vitamin d, vitamin e, etc are much harder to absorb and I'll generally see clients with low vitamin D who have a sluggish liver and a high body burden of microbes or toxins.
More on fat soluble vitamin absorption on the lymphatic system post.*
Aldehydes and Candida
An important fungal byproduct is called acetaldehyde.
Acetaldehyde is similar to other aldehydes and makes you feel tired, brain fogged, and slightly drunk.
Having intestinal permeability allows candida to thrive because candida acts as a natural buffer to try to close up your tight junctions and protect you from other pathogenic species takeover.
Candida naturally produces acetaldehyde as a byproduct which is toxic to the liver.
Acetaldehyde is broken down by acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) either into carbon dioxide and water or into acetyl CoA.
Cirrhosis and Portal Hypertension
Portal hypertension is when venous toxic blood flows back to the liver.
Patients with liver cirrhosis (liver scarring) display a complex immune dysfunction, an altered gut microbiota and increased bacterial translocation through the intestinal wall. R
The presence of portal hypertension leads to a decrease bacterial clearance in the liver. R
An altered bile composition, a delayed intestinal transit time, decreased gastric acid production and a disturbed production of intestinal antimicrobial peptides results in small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. R
The systemic inflammatory response leads to an increased leakiness of tight junctions further increasing gut permeability. R
Bacterial translocation contributes to an additional activation of the immune response with increased levels of cytokines (TNF) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), thereby forming a vicious cycle. R
Gut-Brain Axis
The gut brain axis is how the brain and gut communicate.
We've already discussed tryptophan and the vagus nerve in conjunction to the brain.
There are additional important factors that play a role in the gut brain axis and can be read in this post.
Testing for Gut Pathogens and Toxins
It’s paramount to test where you stand, or else doing modalities and supplements are just a gamble.
Gut Testing
I will run a Gut Zoomer to test for gut pathogens in the stool.
Stealth Pathogens
I also run a Vector Borne Illness Panel and Organic Acids Test (OAT) to identify stealth infections.
The former looks at bacteria that the immune system is responding to.
The latter looks at microbial byproducts that show up in the urine.
Toxicology
It's also essential to run a Total Toxicology and Toxic Genetics to see what toxins you are currently exposed to and how well you can detox.
In the next post, we will discuss how to rebuild the gut-liver axis.