Keep 'em tight, Part 2.

Keep 'em tight was about the ramifications of excessive gut permeability, a.k.a."Leaky Gut".

Graphic From: www.leakygutcure.com

Almost as an afterthought, I added to that post a link to Physiology and Immunology of Digestion. As this article is interesting & informative and since only 706 people have read the first post since it was published (the link was added quite some time later), I thought that I'd give it another airing, with a picture to make the post more attractive.

Doctor, every time I do *this*, it hurts!

The correct response is either:-

1) Go to hospital and get that broken finger fixed, or
2) Stop doing *that*!

There seem to be a lot of people out there who are having problems with wheat gluten (gliadin), casein and other proteins. As Matt Lalonde said in The Science Behind the Paleolithic Diet, some proteins are harder to digest than others.

Here's a hard to digest protein:-


It's raw albumin (egg white protein). As mentioned in As sure as Eggs is Eggs....., raw albumin is poorly absorbed, compared to cooked albumin. To digest the above protein requires peptidase enzymes (pepsin, trypsin and chymotrypsin) to break the peptide bonds. This has to be done from the outside inwards, so a large, heavily-folded protein takes a long time to break down into individual amino acids. Cooking albumin changes the 3-D structure - this is called denaturing. Cooked albumin digests much faster than raw albumin, which is why it's much better absorbed. Cooked proteins are generally faster to digest than raw proteins, unless they're burned to a crisp on a barbecue!

In a person with a healthy gut, partially-digested proteins are not absorbed, as the molecules are too large to pass through the tight junctions in the small intestine. They just ferment, producing malodorous wind. In a person with impaired gut permeability, partially-digested proteins pass through the loose junctions and get into the blood, provoking an immune response. This is not good, so Keep 'em tight.

People who suffer ill-effects after eating certain proteins may either have the wrong genes (e.g. coeliac disease), or have impaired gut permeability. The former isn't fixable but the latter may be. In the meantime, if eating "X" hurts, don't eat "X"!

Keep 'em tight.

Wheel nuts? Nope!

Image from https://suppversity.blogspot.de/2012/11/shedding-some-light-on-the-leaky-gut.html

I'm referring to Tight Junctions. As mentioned at the end of Wheat? Oh, dear! , 10% of people who are healthy enough to donate blood have gut walls permeable enough to let gliadin fragments pass into the blood.

Tight junctions are important, as they keep the contents of the gut inside the gut and out of the blood. If you read Food Combining: What's THAT all about?, you'll see that during digestion, proteins are broken down into individual amino acids & very short peptide chains*. Amino acids & very short peptide chains are small enough to pass through tight junctions. Peptide chains longer than about 3 amino acids are too big to pass through. See also Physiology and Immunology of Digestion.

Carbohydrates are broken down into monosaccharides, which are small enough to pass through. Disaccharides are too large.

Fats are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids. Glycerol is small enough to pass through. Fatty acids and other fatty molecules such as Vitamin D, Co-enzyme Q10, Vitamin K2, curcumin, berberine etc are transported across.

The consequences of having loose junctions are not good. Chains of amino acids that aren't supposed to pass through the gut wall enter the body and produce an antibody response, e.g. Beta-CasoMorphin 7 and/or Gliadorphin 7. That in itself isn't a problem, unless amino acid sequences in the chains match amino acid sequences in certain parts of the body.

Diseases of autoimmune origin such as Coeliac disease (gut), Eczema (skin), Dermatitis herpetiformis (skin), Psoriasis (skin & joints), Sjögren's syndrome (mucous membranes), Cerebellar ataxia (Purkinje cells in the brain), Multiple sclerosis (myelin sheaths of nerves), Type 1 Diabetes (pancreatic beta cells), Rheumatoid arthritis (joints), Asthma (lungs), Lupus erythematosus (various), Autoimmune thyroiditis (thyroid), LADA (pancreatic beta cells) etc are caused by antibody responses inappropriately attacking parts of the body. Autoimmune diseases can also occur after bacterial & viral infections.

The other day, I found Immune response to dietary proteins, gliadin and cerebellar peptides in children with autism.

See also Stronger Intestinal Barrier May Prevent Cancer in the Rest of the Body, New Study Suggests.

So, how do we keep 'em tight? See Vitamin D.
See also Dietary Fat Can Modulate Intestinal Tight Junction Integrity.
See also Shedding Some Light on the Leaky Gut <> Exercise Connection. Plus: 20+ Things You Should or Shouldn't Do to Protect and Restore the Integrity of Your Intestinal Wall.
See also Sulphation and Autism: What are the links? A good source of sulphate is Epsom Salts.



In other news....
I had a phone call from mum's GP this morning. Having read my evidence, he's agreed to test mum's serum B12, 25(OH)D and Calcium and give her supplements accordingly. He's also happy with me giving mum a Ketogenic diet and will also advise the nursing home to exercise mum as often as she is able. Result!

I put four cubes of liver pâté out for Sooty & Sweep (I don't know which one is which as they're identical) and a Magpie swiped two of them. We also have seagulls. I put the other two cubes out of sight in a box.


So far, so good!

P.S. What fuel can be extracted from decomposing seagulls?
.
.
.
Wait for it...
.
.
.
Petrel! (From Petrol Direct, a joke site in case anyone's wondering).