Top 5 Ways to Heal Leaky Gut NATURALLY

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And don't forget to use the code Axe to save $200 today. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Today, I'll be sharing how to heal leaky gut naturally.

And when people hear hear leaky gut, they tend to think that's a major digestive issue, when in reality it is an occurrence that happens in the small intestine that can then lead to, uh, issues like autoimmune disease. It can lead to migraine headaches. It can lead to hypothyroidism. It can lead to food sensitivities. It can lead to, uh, poor absorption of your vitamins and nutrients.

And so this is a topic that is very, very important because people tend to think leaky gut or intestinal permeability is only related to digestive health, but The reality is your digestive system impacts nearly every single organ system in your entire body.

So again, if you have an issue like even ADHD, or if you have a problem like I mentioned, autoimmune disease or joint pain or children with autism, almost across the board, all of those conditions are related to leaky gut syndrome. So this is going to help heal and reverse those conditions. I'll be going into the top foods, the top supplements, the research.

The latest research behind leaky gut and what you need to know. Before I dive in though, make sure to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. And my hope for you is that this show can be educational and help you grow.

You know, one of the things I hear from people oftentimes is, Dr. Axe, by listening to your show, I've not only been able to help myself heal, I've been so educated I've been able to help others heal as well. So I just want to say, hey, I just want to encourage you all to take some time and subscribe and share if you love this episode as well. So here is how a healthy gut works.

It works like a cheesecloth, allowing only nutrients through, but keeping out large food particles like pathogenic bacteria, yeast, parasites, even undigested food particles like protein, heavy metals, and other forms of toxins. So it acts like a cheesecloth keeping those things out.

Now, it can also And other— metaphorically, we could also say it acts like a fishing net or like a kitchen strainer. But the idea there is, is that there are— your small intestine, which is where leaky gut occurs, acts as a barrier between your digestive system and your bloodstream.

And what happens is when you have too much inflammation that starts to occur on the gut lining or bad bacteria and Candida start to produce toxins that then eat away at the gut lining, well, then that damage causes something called your gap junctions to open up, and then that allows toxins or undigested food proteins or pathogens to then enter into the bloodstream.

When that happens, the inflammation doesn't stay inside your gut, it actually goes into your bloodstream, and then that inflammation is spread to every cell, tissue, organ of your body. And if that isn't corrected, it leads to autoimmune disease, or it leads to migraine headaches, or trouble thinking, or brain fog, as in the case of mold typically, or something like that.

And so it's so critical you go and heal leaky gut. Now here's the actual definition of leaky gut. It's also known as intestinal permeability. So if you're a person that likes to read the medical journals, okay, it's almost always called intestinal. So your digestive system, your intestines. Permeability means things are passing through or too many things are passing through.

And this occurs when the lining of the small intestine becomes damaged. This damage allows for, as I mentioned, things that should not be able to enter your bloodstream, or at least not in their current state, like certain food particles, like proteins. It allows them to pass in, causing this systemic inflammation.

And on a biological basis, leaky gut occurs when the tight junctions in the gut lining Basically, they become too loose or open up. This can be triggered again most commonly by inflammation, but also harmful bacteria or poor dietary choices, of course, are contributing as well. And then what this does, as I mentioned, it kicks off an immune response where foreign substances enter the bloodstream.

The immune system reacts because here's what happens. Your, your body starts to say, well, these things shouldn't be in here— casein and gluten and you know, arsenic, uh, you know, some of, you know, antibiotics, certain things, they should not be in the blood.

And this inflammation then is what damages the lining and then gets into your blood, causes these proteins to get in the blood or particles. And then this is what's going to lead to many of these chronic conditions.

Um, and I want to get into the top causes of leaky gut syndrome that I see in my clinical practice when I work with patients, both before when I was in person and then now that I have a virtual practice. But, uh, diet is the biggest thing, okay? Across the board, diet is the single biggest thing that causes leaky gut syndrome.

Typically, the diet is high in sugar, processed foods— even alcohol, by the way, can damage the intestinal lining— and diets low in fiber, according to medical research, also contribute to poor gut health and leaky gut syndrome.

And I tend to— now, I do want to also say I've had plenty of patients who were eating fairly healthy who got leaky gut syndrome, but the problem was they weren't eating the right foods for them. I'll give you an example. Raw foods are harder to digest than most cooked foods.

So I have patients sometimes, and they'll come in and they'll say something like, I eat a lot of salads or raw vegetables, or I'm a vegan or something like that. And the reality is raw foods are not ideal for leaky gut. Cooked foods are. When I have somebody who has leaky gut syndrome, I almost always recommend they consume a lot of soups, cooked meat, steamed vegetables.

Things like that are typically more ideal. So it's not just about eating healthy, it's also about eating the right foods based on your medical condition when it comes to leaky gut syndrome. But of course, you want to stay away from added sugar, you want to stay away from processed foods, you want to stay away from refined grains.

You want to stay away from non-organic meat, ideally in most cases as well. You want to stay away from those foods that are inflammatory as well as a lot of things that are raw in nature or your body has to work harder to digest. Now, the second thing that can cause leaky gut syndrome is other medical conditions. Here's what I mean. Let's say someone's had their gallbladder removed.

Well, when you've had your gallbladder removed, your body may not be able to digest fat as well. It likely won't be able to. And so what happens now is some organ has to make up for it. Well, it's going to be your liver and your small intestine.

And so your small intestine will tend to get more inflammation if you've had your gallbladder removed or if you have liver toxicity such as liver cirrhosis, or if you have stomach issues where your stomach isn't producing enough hydrochloric acid, or if your pancreas isn't producing enough digestive enzymes.

And so it's also important to note another thing that causes leaky gut is if another organ's system becomes weakened or overburdened, and the small intestine has to make up for its lack of energy or digestion or, or, or basically what it's supposed to be doing as part of the digestive process.

So imagine you've got a sports team and all of a sudden, you know, you're playing basketball, or hockey is probably a better example. Someone gets a penalty and they're removed from the ice. Well, now someone else has to cover and do more of the work. Well, that happens with a small intestine oftentimes. So that's another thing that oftentimes people don't talk about that causes leaky gut.

And so sometimes with leaky gut syndrome, you don't only want to help heal the small intestine, you also want to go to certain other organs like the liver, like the pancreas, like the stomach, and make sure those are operating at the highest level possible as well.

Another example of this actually is also with the colon, because if the large intestine, uh, starts to get out of balance, sometimes what can happen is you can get something called SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, where That bacteria starts climbing up in the small intestine. Sometimes that's actually a stomach issue as well, with it not producing enough acid or hydrochloric acid.

But the main point here is another big factor of leaky gut syndrome is other organs that are overburdened or are diseased. The 3rd biggest factor that causes leaky gut syndrome are taking medications, even medications taken for the right condition. Let me give you an example. Overuse of NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen have been linked to leaky gut syndrome.

I'm going to get into the research here in a minute. Also, antibiotic drugs have been linked to this and even birth control. Okay. We know birth control alters the gut microbiome, which can lead to leaky gut syndrome. Now, here's a little bit of research on these nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

There is a study that found that between 50 to 70% of people who take NSAIDs long-term have small intestine permeability. It's a very, very high number. So it compared to the, uh, the, the, the other groups. And so we see that there's no doubt that if you're taking an NSAID, your likelihood of having leaky gut goes up dramatically.

We know the studies show that NSAIDs, I believe at one point, and I believe they still are, are around the 15th leading killer. In America today, but they've been connected with bleeding of the GI. Okay, so that's stomach and small intestine, and also liver damage. And so we know that, of course, NSAIDs here are very damaging the body.

We also saw in a study that 8.4% of people who recently took NSAIDs have small intestinal ulcerations compared to only 0.6% of people who have never taken an NSAID. And this can happen as little as 2 weeks. Listen to this. 55% Of healthy volunteers who took, uh, naproxen for 2 weeks had small bowel mucosal breaks.

They had the damp damage there, these breaks that they're seeing within the small intestine. That's only after 2 weeks total. And so the reality is, if you're taking medications, especially NSAIDs, especially antibiotics and birth control, and by the way, many other medications, those— many of these damage our Gut barrier.

Now, another thing that causes leaky gut syndrome, and by the way, I would actually say this probably ranks within the top 2 along with diet, and the actual number 1 root causes of leaky gut syndrome is stress. Emotional stress disrupts the gut microbiome in a major, major way. It alters the gut bacteria, it alters the hormones that support the regeneration of gut tissue.

And so we know emotional stress is a really, really Major factor. And I can tell you, and I've, I've worked with, uh, a lot of patients with inflammatory bowel disease, a lot of patients with leaky gut, uh, celiac disease, and things to where when they ate foods that didn't agree with them or they were sensitive to, it would, it would wreck their digestive system.

And they would say things like, you know, I've had loose stools for days or diarrhea. I've had, uh, major gas and bloating. I've had stomach cramping. I've just felt horrible. And what would affect their body just as much as going and eating a slice of pizza or going over to the Dairy Queen and getting ice cream, you know, those foods just wreck their gut almost every single time.

What will equally wreck their gut is if they're going through an emotionally trying time in life, if they're going through a divorce or they've lost a loved one, or even just, hey, I've got relational stress, or I've got a deadline at work or at school. But emotional stress, because of what happens when cortisol goes up.

So, so here's the basis of what happens when your body goes into a fight or flight response.

Your body starts kicking in your fight or flight state and cortisol's released, adrenaline's released, and all of your blood flow goes from your, uh, organs in certain areas of the brain and they move to an area of the brain that's responsible for alertness and they go out to your extremities cuz your body either needs to fight. Or you need to fly and run away. Okay?

So your body sends blood and energy to the areas it needs most. Now, when you're— if your body believes you're in an emergency state because of this high level of stress, your blood goes towards, again, to the areas of your brain responsible for alertness and making quick decisions and towards your extremities. However, that blood has to leave somewhere.

It leaves your digestive system, it leaves your liver, it leaves your pancreas, it leaves Those areas of the body. So when you are stressed out, what happens physiologically? Your body sends blood and energy away. That's why your parasympathetic state— so we're talking about, you were, we were talking about sympathetic fight or flight.

I'm now talking about parasympathetic that is connected with the vagus nerve. And that is actually tended to be called, rather than fight or flight, it's called rest and digest. Your body is at a state of rest, a state of peace. You don't have emotional turmoil. You're just relaxed. You're not concerned. You're, you're. You're, you're, you're, you're in a state of serenity.

When you get out of that stress state, all of a sudden now your digestive system can heal, it can function, it can repair. It's important to know this operates at a spectrum. When you are operating in a stress state, your body can't heal. It's a non-healing state. The rest and digest state is a state of healing and tissue regeneration and repair.

And so you wanna do everything you can if you're trying to heal leaky gut syndrome to get more in that stress-free zone. And part of the way you do that is schedule things you love to do. Okay?

You schedule things that build peace and that have health, uh, light exercise, walking outside, spending time in nature away from screen times, spending time that are uplifting with, with close friends, doing things that are spiritually growing in nature, right? Uh, those things will help.

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So that's, that's the other point, though. The big thing that will cause leaky gut syndrome is emotional stress. And the last one is toxins. This could be toxins from the environment. It could be toxins in food products, but environmental toxins, exposure to pollutants, pesticides, antibiotics in your food products, and just other environmental toxins, even 5G. These all contribute to gut damage.

And intestinal permeability. So this is why it's important to try and buy organic, try and buy local foods, uh, you know, live in a place to where you can get more fresh air, have an air filter in your home. Again, mold is another example of this, something that causes major toxicity and disrupts the gut microbiome. But these are the top causes of leaky gut, as I just mentioned.

And just to walk through these again, remember, biggest cause of leaky gut syndrome are A poor diet, other organs that are diseased that put stress on the small intestine, medications, stress, and toxins are the biggest causes of leaky gut syndrome. Now, I want to talk about the symptoms of leaky gut.

Here are some that are very recognizable that are tied to the digestive system: abdominal pain and bloating, sometimes even cramping, stomach cramps. Diarrhea or constipation, gas, bloating, and indigestion, frequent headaches, and low energy. Those are the most common symptoms related to leaky gut syndrome. And you don't have to have all of them.

You just have to have one of them as a warning sign. Now, here are some of the lesser-known symptoms of leaky gut syndrome. Chronic fatigue syndrome, brain fog, Joint pain and muscle aches, skin issues like acne, eczema, rashes, food sensitivities that were not present there before.

You notice after you eat a certain food, maybe your nose starts running a little bit or you get redness on your skin. Autoimmune disease. These are the lesser-known symptoms around leaky gut syndrome. And let me talk to you. You, you may say to yourself, well, you know, uh, chronic fatigue, how is that related to leaky gut syndrome?

Well, if you have leaky gut syndrome, your body is not absorbing nutrients very well, like B vitamins. So now your body isn't able to produce ATP properly, or your body isn't methylating properly or converting, uh, folate to methylfolate. And so what happens then is your body does not have the vitamins and nutrients it needs in order to create energy and sustain your body.

Another example of this is poor iron absorption. I see this with a lot of women with leaky gut. They will be fatigued and tired. Yeah. All the time because their ferritin levels or iron levels are low. And it's sometimes borderline levels.

A lot of times it doesn't even show up on the blood test, but they have this blood deficiency because of leaky gut, because they're not absorbing their nutrients very, very well. Of course, brain fog, like we talked about, when you start to have these proteins that shouldn't be there, they leak through the gut, those recirculate, then they cause inflammation of even areas of the brain.

I see this a lot with children with autism where they have leaky gut. And basically they have constant inflammation because of what they're eating affecting the brain. Or it can also happen in people with, uh, brain fog. Could be somebody with mold toxicity. Okay, the mold is circulating constantly. It goes from the gut, then through the brain.

Or of course, mold can also affect the lungs, which then affects the brain. So there's other pathways there as well. But, but those are, those are some of the, some, some of the different pathways for how leaky gut can then affect different organs and tissues within your body. And it's important to recognize, as I mentioned, there is a gut-organ connection. Okay, so you've heard of gut-brain.

Well, the gut-brain, if you've got brain fog or anxiety, depression, insomnia, cognitive decline, those are all connected to the gut-brain connection, which is leaky gut, which is now affecting your brain.

But as I mentioned, the gut also impacts the skin, such as with acne, rosacea, eczema, psoriasis, and of affects the immune system with autoimmune disease, allergies, food sensitivities, asthma, and inflammation. It can affect the liver, causing sluggish bile flow and high liver enzymes and gallstones.

It can affect the thyroid and estrogen levels and testosterone and serotonin, which of course then affects the brain and affects mood, your oral health, your heart health, causing you to store visceral fat or have plaque buildup. But again, leaky gut is connected to almost every one of these conditions, and it's connected to almost every organ in your body.

So I want to walk you through now the top natural solutions to start to heal leaky gut right away. Number 1, get rid of those processed foods, the processed sugars. Typically, you want to get rid of gluten.

Now, I do want to say, if you're eating a traditional sourdough bread you are making at home where you're fermenting it a long time, you've got a really quality grain, whether that be, you know, it could be wheat rye, barley, or it could even be Corn, something like that. But you are— you're fermenting it long-term to where the gluten gets broken down.

That some people tolerate with leaky gut, some don't, but most do. In fact, there was a study done on celiac patients, and I want to say out of 17, all 17 of them tolerated eating sourdough bread, whereas other bread, almost all of them didn't tolerate it because it gave them an inflammatory reaction via the gluten.

Um, now that was a very small-scale study, but I think generally sourdough, it breaks down the gluten in an absorbable form, even for people with a gluten intolerance. But again, remember, with leaky gut, you want to stay away from processed foods, sugars, those dark seed oils like hydrogenated oils, gluten, grains, raw foods. You want to stay away from those foods.

What you want to focus on is eating a lot of anti-inflammatory foods, especially Organic meat. This is why oftentimes the people that I've seen reverse leaky gut the fastest tend to be people that focus primarily on eating meat and cooked vegetables.

Now, people that follow a carnivore diet or a lion diet or a diet that's, that's, that's where it's very heavy in meat, many of them can reverse leaky gut syndrome because They're not eating anything that's disrupting the gut lining, and they're getting a lot of amino acids that the body needs in order to break down and di— uh, to, to rebuild the, the gut tissue.

But the ideal diet for most people would include organic meat, bone broth. Here's why. Bone broth is made up of mostly collagen, and it contains the compounds that your gut is actually made up of. So your gut is made up of a lot of proline and hydroxyproline. Glutamine, some glycine, uh, those amino acids. And so bone broth has those things.

And so bone broth is a great food to have along with organic meat. Cooked vegetables, not raw, cooked. You can steam them, you could bake them covered in coconut oil, you could cook them in a soup, but cooked vegetables are a great choice. Uh, fruit. Some fruits you may not agree with as well, some others I tend to recommend. Baked fruit.

If you've got really severe leaky gut, applesauce would be great. Or some people also do very well with, with blueberries that are raw, pears. Those are some of my favorites for people with leaky gut syndrome. Again, blueberries, pears, things like applesauce, I really, really like for leaky gut syndrome. Um, but, but, but most fruit will work.

Um, healthy fats, avocado, coconut milk, and coconut oil. Olives, uh, sometimes even nut butters. I don't recommend raw nuts, but roasted nuts, even things like sesame tahini might be fine in small amounts. Um, congee, which is rice cooked into mush, and sweet potato. Those— when I put somebody on my leaky gut diet, these are the foods I recommend.

Again, organic meat, bone broth, cooked vegetables, fruit, Healthy fats, congee, and sweet potato. Now, I know some people don't recommend any grains whatsoever, but I will say that congee, which is rice that's cooked until it's mushy— it's like putting rice in a crock pot or a slow cooker overnight to where it's mushy.

And you either cook it with water or you cook it with chicken broth, something like that. But that's been used for thousands of years to help heal leaky gut as one of the staple meals. In fact, if you look back at these ancient Asian textbooks written by amazing physicians to help heal leaky gut, They will have most of the meals as a, in a base of congee.

So think about broth, rice, and then they'll add things to it like chicken, or they might add certain types of fruit or even herbs. They'll sprinkle turmeric in there or ginger, uh, in order to help reduce inflammation. And it's, it's actually like a medicine, a lot of these, um, a lot of these soups and, and congee bowls that they'll, they'll, they'll use in Asian medicine for healing leaky gut.

So, so I do think that as a carbohydrate, long rice that's cooked until it's mush, and sweet potato are good options for most people. Now, there's some people do not do well with disaccharides, which are a form of sugar that you might find in starches, even sweet potatoes and potatoes. But most people tolerate it well. But listen to your body on, on, on all of these foods.

That's the other thing is be aware, because there might be something that your body just doesn't tolerate, uh, compared to other people. But dietary changes, eat those foods, it's going to help tremendously. The second thing I want to recommend is consuming probiotic supplements, and if you tolerate it, fermented foods.

Studies have shown, multiple studies, that probiotics, especially strains like Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, reduce gut inflammation and improve intestinal barrier function. So incorporating foods like— probably my favorite is coconut yogurt. I also like goat's milk kefir, especially if it's raw and organic and from a local farmer. Um, and sauerkraut, those can help restore gut bacteria.

And I do want to mention, some of the patients I've worked with that have SIBO, okay, if they have a lot of bloating, they may not tolerate fermented foods very well.

Uh, so I start them off with like a teaspoon of sauerkraut juice, and if that bothers them, we just, we work up to it, a teaspoon and eventually a tablespoon of sauerkraut juice, eventually eating the food or just, just a tablespoon of the fermented food. But if you don't tolerate it well, you don't need to do it. I would recommend a probiotic supplement instead.

One study found that around 96.3% of patients with IBS reported that their symptoms were improved after taking a multi-strain probiotic for 30 days. Okay, so there are numerous studies showing that probiotics help improve inflammatory bowel disease like IBS. Also, I believe it's very, very beneficial for those with leaky gut syndrome.

In addition to the Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium species, I recommend soil-based organism strains like Bacillus subtilis, Bacillus coagulans, Bacillus clausii. Those are more resilient and can clear out a lot of the bad bacteria in your gut as well. Number 3 thing you can start to do to heal leaky gut syndrome is take the right supplements.

There are nutrients that are required in order for your gut to regenerate. A few of those are— one is L-glutamine. L-glutamine is an amino acid that helps repair the intestinal lining. I recommend 5 grams to 10 grams daily, 5 grams in the morning, 5 grams before bed. Zinc. This is essential. This is the repair mineral, essential for gut barrier function and for your immune system.

I recommend about 30 milligrams daily of that. Collagen. A large percentage, possibly up to 70% of your gut lining is made of collagen. Now, this is why I recommended drinking bone broth earlier, but also getting about 10 to 20 grams of collagen a day is ideal. For those with leaky gut syndrome.

Now, there's an herb I love that's typically— it's not as popular as some of these other recommendations, but again, this is something in the eastern part of the world that they use— they've used for thousands of years for gut issues, and it's the herb astragalus.

This is an herb known for its immune-boosting and anti-inflammatory properties, but it's also great for gut health, especially if you have a weak digestive system.

A 2017 study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology found that astragalus contains a unique form of polysaccharides that improved intestinal barrier function by reducing inflammation, promoting tight junk integrity, and preventing leaky gut. Another study found that astragalus enhanced your mucosal immunity, decreasing gut permeability.

So we see this astragalus is incredible for helping heal leaky gut syndrome. In addition to that, I like slippery elm and some of those other, uh, Herbs that are more moistening to the digestive system. Marshmallow would be another one, but slippery elm, marshmallow are great options. Chamomile is one of the most well-known herbal medicines. I like taking this at night. It also reduces stress.

Remember we talked about the stress component? This does have a direct effect on soothing an inflamed gut lining, but also helps reduce stress. So chamomile is wonderful. Licorice root, specifically DGL, that's the deglycyrrhizinated form. Form of licorice, um, has long been used for gut health. Studies have shown it reduces gut lining inflammation and prevents intestinal permeability.

2 Studies, uh, on that. So I like licorice root as well for this. Ginger, I like taking that as an herbal tea. Now you could also do ginger juice, but herbal tea is probably the best form to get it in. I would say about 3 grams daily, or between 1 to 3 bags of ginger herbal tea can also reduce inflammation. There's a lot of good evidence and studies on ginger, uh, helping heal leaky gut syndrome.

One study was in 2019. This was in, uh, Ethnopharmacology journal, and they found ginger reduces gut inflammation and promotes healthy microbiome, both of which are key to preventing leaky gut. And I wanted to mention this as well: if you have a condition like hypothyroidism, or you get cold easily or have a cold, In addition, and you know you have leaky gut, you definitely want to do ginger.

Part of what causes hypothyroidism is a lack of nutrient absorption, the adrenals getting weak, but also your digestive system just, just being too cold. You want to warm up that system. This is why we recommend a lot of soups, but ginger is very warming.

So if you have hypothyroidism, if you have headaches, if you have issues where your body gets— you get too cold too easily, this tends to be more women than men. It can happen with both, but I've seen it in practice with more women. Um, you want to do a lot of ginger herbal tea, okay? 1 To 3 bags daily. You can just sip on it.

And you could also— actually, one thing I love to do is you could also buy bags of licorice root tea, of astragalus tea, and do a whole blend. You could do about, you know, 2 bags of each, make it, and then just drink it and sip on it throughout the day. It's a great form of medicine that's been practiced for thousands of years.

You know, before we took these capsules today, Most people did herbal teas as their form of how they took their supplements and their, their medicine. Uh, number 4 is stress management. If you want to reverse leaky gut, reduce stress by doing things like spending time in prayer, going on a walk, doing lunch with a best friend.

If you have a hobby like tennis, like pickleball, like cycling, like swimming, something active ideally, but some, something like that. That is great. Reading a book, growing spiritually, meditation, deep breathing— these are all great forms of reducing stress. But here's the big thing: don't just try and reduce stress. Schedule things you love to do and that you know reduce stress.

That's going to help tremendously. And when you go into stressful situation, don't think, oh, this is so stressful. Have a level of self-awareness and say, you know what, I'm going into a stressful environment, but I'm resilient. I'm going to deal with it the best I can, and then I'm going to step out, and then I'm going to go and do something fun.

Okay, you want to have the right perspective in the right schedule to reduce stress. And then be conscious of the medications you're taking. The antibiotics, the NSAIDs, the birth control, and many, many other medications I haven't listed here damage the gut microbiome and the gut lining, causing leaky gut syndrome. So do your best to avoid those whenever possible.

Obviously consult your physician, but again, those medications They have major, major side effects. By the way, most of the antibiotics we get are not via oral antibiotics. Many of them are from our meat and dairy supply because 80% of the antibiotics given in America are given to livestock, which then that residue we consume, which has some level of, uh, negative effect on our bodies.

And so we also wanna be conscious of these medications, all the side effects there. And listen, if you've got joint pain, rather than taking an NSAID or an upset stomach, Take ginger, take turmeric, take rosemary, take clatzkohl, do omega-3 fatty acids, do more collagen, take some supplements, take boswellia.

These are amazing anti-inflammatory herbals and compounds like omegas that have been shown in studies to have better long-term effects on actually getting rid of the chronic pain and not having the side effects. And so, and also that's going to help your gut heal. Almost every one of those other herbs and supplements I just mentioned. Here's the reality.

Leaky gut is a condition that affects many people and often without them realizing it. And by making these dietary changes, managing stress, incorporating the right supplements, it's possible to heal leaky gut naturally. One of the questions I get most often is, how long does it take to heal leaky gut?

Well, I can take you personally— tell you personally, I had leaky gut syndrome after my second year in practice. I was eating a lot of salads, I was eating a lot of raw foods, but I was very stressed. I would work work all day and all night. And eventually I started getting some leaky gut. I had a little bit of bloating, I had a little loose stool, and I thought, what's going on here?

Well, I had a friend that I'd met, uh, who practiced Chinese medicine, and he said, Josh, uh, I think you have leaky— you, you have— he called it a spleen qi deficiency. That's what he called it in Chinese medicine. And I started going and getting acupuncture treatments. He said, you need to eat more soup. I started eating more soup. Boom. All of a sudden, leaky gut was gone.

My leaky gut was gone in probably about 40 days. Uh, I think for most people it can take anywhere from 30 days to sometimes a year or so. It really depends upon the person. But no, your body has amazing capacity to generate. Your body can regenerate your gut lining, but you've got to follow this advice. If you do it, you're going to see amazing results in healing leaky gut for good.

Hey, I want to say thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. Remember, each and every week I cover the science and the principles behind how to take your life to the next level physically. Hey, make sure to subscribe, like, and share. By the way, I'm so grateful for all of you that are subscribing and sharing this.

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