ARTICLES

The Intestinal Barrier: Gateway to a Healthy Immune System
Gary S. Gruber ND

Bacteria, viruses, fungus, man-made toxins, and natural toxins are everywhere. They are in food, air, and water. Bacteria and viruses can be transferred by specific vectors like ticks and mosquitos. There is no place to escape. Nevertheless, the human body is equipped to handle these ubiquitous influences because of the barriers to entry into the body.

The most obvious barrier is the skin. Seven layers of epithelial cells stacked and closely knit together by proteins called keratins. The lining of the intestinal tract has a barrier. The lungs have a barrier. And just in case something gets through these three gateways, there is a blood-brain barrier.

The gut barrier is one of the three functions of digestion. As an analogy, if you thrust your fist into a balloon, the outside skin becomes the inside skin. In between the inside skin and the outside skin is air. The air represents your body. Accordingly, when you ingest something it is technically not in your body until it crosses the barrier.

The gut barrier is composed of a thin lining of mucous over a single layer of epithelial cells, the same cells that comprise the skin. Between each cell is a zipper-like protein that is called the tight junction. When the tight junction is broken, the gut barrier is compromised. This condition is referred to as intestinal permeability or sometimes “leaky gut”.

It is estimated that seventy percent of the immune system is located in the gut. There is a constant, enormity of activity from destroying and eliminating bacteria, fungus, and viruses. Undigested proteins from foods are recognized as viral proteins and treated as such by the gut immune system. The gut environment is a fine balance of inflammation and repair. Sometimes the influences overwhelm the immune defenses or the immune system overreacts, creating a chronic inflammatory environment. The overburdened immune system cannot prevent damage to the intestinal lining, an important barrier to the body and vital organs. Once past the gut barrier, the body or somatic immune system reacts vigilantly to the same bacteria, viruses, fungi, man-made and natural toxins. Bear in mind that the immune system is finite so without the gut barrier the somatic immune system can be easily overwhelmed. When the immune system cannot keep up with the chronic invasion, symptoms begin to develop. A compromised gut barrier is the very beginning of many symptoms, syndromes, and diseases.

Intestinal permeability is correlated with autoimmune diseases, headaches, insomnia, lyme disease, and psychological conditions including anxiety, depression, neurosis, and schizophrenia.

In its 2005 Report on Progress in AutoImmune Diseases Research the research committee stated “while many diseases (autoimmune) are rare, collectively they affect 14.0 to 23.5 million people in this country.” To put this into context, cancer affects about 12 million people and heart disease affects approximately 18 million people. Yet autoimmune diseases are more prevalent than cardiovascular diseases and cancer combined. In a 2011 study, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences estimates that “more than 32 million people in the United States have autoantibodies”. The 2005 report goes on to say “More than 80 human diseases are due at least in part to an inappropriate immune system response that results in damage to an individual’s organs, tissues, or cells. Autoimmune diseases can affect any part of the body, and have myriad clinical manifestations that can be difficult to diagnose. At the same time, autoimmune diseases share many features related to their onset and progression. In addition, overlapping genetic traits enhance susceptibility to many of the diseases, so that a patient may suffer from more than one autoimmune disorder, or multiple autoimmune diseases may occur in the same family.”

Some of the more common named autoimmune diseases are Psoriasis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Hepatitis, Sjogren’s Syndrome, Lupus, and Multiple Sclerosis. At the core of these diseases is a hypervigilant immune system that attacks its own tissue because the tissue resembles a virus or other protein with which the immune system had an experience. This is called molecular mimicry and is an important understanding of the cause of autoimmune diseases. It is the undigested proteins, viruses, bacteria, fungus and other environmental influences that pass through the compromised gut barrier and are attacked by the somatic immune system. The somatic immune system is on guard against any cell that even looks like the trespasser, including one’s own tissue and cells.

In a condition of intestinal permeability the somatic immune system is overwhelmed and can barely keep up with the onslaught of influences, especially when it is confronted with the stealth bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria implicated with Lyme disease. Lyme disease is the symptom picture associated with an overwhelmed immune system combined with an unidentified autoimmune disease. Many of the psychological conditions, as well as insomnia, are part of chronic Lyme disease. Despite a multitude of physical and psychological symptoms, Lyme disease is the manifestation of leaky gut.

Once it is recognized, intestinal permeability can be repaired. First, remove the source of chronic inflammation. Then nourish the epithelial cells so they may replicate and develop new tight junctions. Once the gut barrier is restored, the somatic immune system will rebalance itself and hyperactivity will subside.

References

http://www.agingsociety.org/agingsociety/pdf/heart.pdf

http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerBasics/cancer-prevalence

Progress in Autoimmune Disease Research, National Institutes of Health The Autoimmune Diseases Coordinating Committee, Report to Congress, March 2005.

Turner J. Intestinal mucosal barrier function in health and disease. Nature Reviews/Immunology 9: 799-809, 2009.

Fasano, A. Zonulin and Its Regulation of Intestinal Barrier Function: The Biological Door to Inflammation, Autoimmunity, and Cancer. Physiol Rev 91:151-175, 2011.

Fasano, A. Mechanisms of Disease: the role of intestinal barrier function in the pathogenesis of gastrointestinal autoimmune diseases. Gastroenterology & Hepatology 2; 416-422, 2005.

Oldstone, M. Molecular mimicry and immune-mediated disease. FASEB J. 12, 1255-1265. 1998.

Satoh M et al. Prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of antinuclear antibodies in the United States. Arthritis and Rheumatism. doi:10.1002/art.34380

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Toxic Load: Assessment and Measurement of Health and Well-Being
Gary S. Gruber ND

Your health and well-being are intricately intertwined with the many influences, stressors, and choices that are made over the course of a lifetime. There are physical influences such as infections, toxic chemicals, food allergies and sensitivities, imbalanced hormones, and anatomical abnormalities. Emotional stressors include divorce, death of a family member or close friend, a child with special needs, trauma, along with work-related issues and financial concerns. Guilt, fear and anxiety, and the suppression of negative experiences are spiritual influences that shape life choices. There is a fine line between all of these physical, emotional, and spiritual influences, and it is often blurred.

The summation of all these physical, emotional, and spiritual influences is called Total Load. A person’s overall health and well-being ultimately reflects their ability to accommodate this total load of the influences, stressors, and choices they experience.

Let me digress for a moment and take you on a walk through the woods. On this beautiful day you are breathing deeply and enjoying the harmony of nature, the beautiful flowers, and the cool canopy of the forest. Suddenly, you are startled by a bear which has emerged on the trail and is swiftly approaching you. Without any thought you turn and run. Every part of your being is focused on one thing; survival. Fortunately, the mechanisms that improve your chances begin to function immediately. Your heart begins to pump harder and faster to deliver more oxygen and nutrition to your muscles. The arteries that carry the blood open wider to handle the additional pressure. Your vision becomes acute because the pupils dilate to let in as much light as possible. Your liver becomes very busy converting stored energy into sugar and scavenges as many amino acids as possible for energy. At the same time the digestive and sexual functions stop in order to preserve all the energy in the event of a trauma that requires repair. You are totally unaware of the distance and speed you are traveling until a quick glance over your shoulder reveals that the bear turned off the trail and is no longer interested in the chase. As you progress from a sprint, to a trot, then to a walk, all of your physiological systems begin returning to normal.

Here is the problem. . . click here to read full article. 

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U.S. Health Care Crisis– Part 1:  The Myth of the Medical Model
Gary S. Gruber ND

Recent political rhetoric insists that the best public policy and solution to the “health care crisis” is to make health care affordable and accessible to all.  This basic idea that each person should have responsibility for and be empowered by her or his own health care is a very good one.  However, there is a hidden issue that is not addressed: What is the best medical model of creating health care?

What if the understanding of what fixes health problems is essentially wrong?

Look at the leading causes of death that create the spiraling costs for Americans: Heart Disease, Stroke, and Cancer.   These diseases, although associated with age, in fact affect almost all age groups and are on the increase at rates that are faster than the growth of the aging population.  The cost to society is escalating with no end in sight.  According to a recent study by Cathy J. Bradley, PhD*, the cost of cancer in the year 2000 of $115.8 billion is expected to jump to $147.6 billion by the year 2020, a leap of almost 30%.  In 2008, alone, the American Heart Association estimated the cost of cardiovascular disease to be $448.5 billion**.  It is no wonder we feel we are in the midst of a health care crisis. 

However, our medical model for dealing with these killers is based on the science of treating infectious diseases.  The basic mythology built into this model is that there is a drug to cure every disease (which is why pharmaceutical companies are so feverishly involved in medical legislation and advertising).

This model is simply wrong, and it needs to be replaced by new practices that enable us to detoxify ourselves and our environment.  Call the old model “the magic pill cure”; call the new model Environmental Medicine.

To understand the current health care problems we can look back in history and trace the development of American medical care . . . click here to read full article. 

* Bradley CJ, et al. Productivity Costs of Cancer Mortality in the United States: 2000 – 2020. J Natl Cancer Inst 2008; 100: 1763 - 1770.