What is the recommended diet for treating irritable bowel syndrome? What foods and nutrients can strengthen the integrity of our intestinal barrier?
Our gut is the biggest barrier between us and the environment. More than what we touch or breathe, what we eat is our biggest impact on the outside world. Usually, our entire gastrointestinal tract is it is impervious to what is inside and allows our bodies to pick and choose what goes in or out. But there are things that can make Our bowels are leaking and between them is our ration.
A standard American or Western diet can reason gut dysbiosis, which means disruption of our gut microbiome, which can lead to gut inflammation and intestinal obstruction. Then, tiny bits of undigested food, germs, and toxins can enter our bloodstream uninvited through the lining of our gut and cause chronic systemic inflammation.
“To prevent this dysbiosis and intestinal inflammation, a mostly vegetarian diet” — in other words, eating plants — “should be preferred.” Gut bacteria in people eating a vegetarian diet are associated with gut microbiome balance, high bacterial diversity, and gut barrier integrity. Vegetarians tend to have significantly less uremic toxins such as indole and p-cresol and because the fiber is The gut bacteria of those who eat plant-based diets have been found to be the primary food for our gut microbiome. to create more of the good stuff, namely short-chain fatty acids that play a “protective and nutritional role” for our intestinal cells and “maintain” our intestinal barrier. Plant fiber is “paramount” to maintaining the integrity of our gut barrier, but you won’t know for sure until you put it to the test.
When people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease were given grains, beans, lentils, fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds for six months, the amount of zonulin in them decreased significantly.
Zonulin is a protein responsible for severing tight junctions between intestinal cells and “considered the only measurable biomarker that reflects intestinal barrier dysfunction.” In other words, zonulin is A helpful sign of leaky gut. But to add all these plants it seemed falls to a lower level, which may mean that adequate fiber intake helps maintain proper intestinal barrier structure and function. But healthy plant foods are about more than fiber. How do we know it’s fiber? And the study didn’t even have a control group. Therefore, the researchers said, “intestinal transit may be improved by dietary fiber” (emphasis added). To prove cause and effect, it would be good to have a randomized, double-blind, crossover study where you compare the effects of the same food with or without fiber.
Such research actually exists! There was a group of healthy young people accidental eating pasta with or without added fiber and a significant decrease in zonulin levels in the added fiber group compared to pre-intervention levels and control group levels, as you can see below and at 2:51 in my video How to cure dropsy with diet.
So fiber really does appear to improve bowel movements.
Are there any plant foods that can help? Curcumin, the yellow pigment in the spice turmeric can help prevention of intestinal damage caused by ibuprofen-type drugs in rats. The defense was similar noted for broccoli sulforaphane content in mice. There is no human research yet on broccoli, but it does exist was A study found the equivalent of about 2 to 3 teaspoons of turmeric per day reduced symptoms of exercise-induced gastrointestinal barrier damage and inflammation compared to a placebo. Less turmeric may also work, but lower doses have not been tested.
If you ask what do alternative medicine doctors use to treat irritable bowel, number one on the list – after cutting back on alcohol – is zinc. You can see the list below and at 3:42 on mine video.
Not only zinc protection against aspirin-like intestinal damage in rats; when put to testing in a randomized trial of healthy adults, the same was found. Five days of 250 mg of indomethacin, an NSAID, “caused a threefold increase in intestinal permeability,” as would be expected from this class of drugs. However, this increase in permeability did not occur when participants also consumed zinc, which “suggests a strong protective effect on the small intestine.” Their dosage was very high, but 75 mg per day is about twice the upper tolerable daily limit for zinc. What about just getting zinc in normal doses from food?
There was a significant improvement in bowel movements found even with only 3 mg of zinc, suggesting that even relatively low zinc supplementation can work. You can get 3 mg of zinc in your daily diet by eating one cup (200 grams) of cooked lentils.
Dr.’s comment
To learn more about the prevention of intestinal dysbiosis and leaky gut, check out Friday Recap: Gut Dysbiosis: Starving Our Own Microbes and Avoid these foods to prevent a leaky gut.
