Gut Toxicity Is A Spectrum Disorder

The intestinal membrane is the thickness of an eyelid and is the only thing separating your sterile blood from the bacteria and fermentation products of intestinal contents. Naturopathic doctors and medical doctors have been treating patients for chronic disease by increasing fiber in the intestines for over one hundred years. This was one of the cornerstones of John Harvey Kellogg’s work at the Battlecreek Michigan Sanitarium. Fiber helps maintain intestinal permeability.

Three factors that alter intestinal permeability

1. disruption of the gut flora

2. impaired host immune defenses

3. physical disruption of the gut barrier

Once the intestinal permeability is damaged and toxins leak in, a protein malnourished individual cannot defend itself as well.

Maintenance of gut barrier in a critically ill patient is very difficult because these patients have blood loss, and are on vasoactive drugs, these drugs could cause splanchnic vasoconstriction and gut injury. These patients also have impaired immune function because they are on antibiotics, antiulcer medications, and on dietary regimens that disrupt the ecology of the flora.

The initial step of translocation is the adherence of bacteria from the intestinal tract to the epithelial cell surface or to ulcerated areas of the intestinal mucosal surface. From here they migrate across the cell surface into the circulation. Naturopathic care begins here to heal the barrier and prevent "sewage" from leaking into sterile blood.

Spaeth, G., et al. “Food Without Fiber Promotes Bacterial Translocation from the Gut,” Surgery 108, 2 (1990): 240–46