I heard that people with celiac disease suffer from symptoms similar to IBS people. I also heard that IBS is a situation less serious than celiac disease. Therefore, we do not have to stay away from gluten as the protein is an enemy only for celiac-disease people!
Well, if you know what gluten is and what it does in your bodies, gut in particular, you will think twice about eating them.
Gluten and IBS: Why Your Gut Struggles
The biggest problem with gluten is that you cannot digest them totally. Actually, gluten is a protein that most people cannot handle, not to mention you and me, IBS people.
The funny thing is insects, a kind of organisms far less complex than us, are able to digest gluten totally (Enders, 2018). Meanwhile, our gut do not have the ability (the right enzymes) to finish the job. So what happens instead? That gluten partially digested sticks around longer than it should, which is when problems start to show up:
- gluten, partially digested, staying in our gut
- a state causing us a big problem: leaky gut
From Gluten to Leaky Gut: Step-by-Step Inside Your Body
In a way, anything leaky is usually something bad. Do you want to live in a house (or flat) that is leaky?
The same applies to leaky gut. In a body that is healthy, there should be an extensive intestinal lining forming a tight gate controlling what gets absorbed into your bloodstream.
Leaky gut is a situation in which the tight gate becomes loose and tiny holes are to be found (source of wisdom: Dr Campos, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School). When this happens, three groups of gangsters (undigested food particles, toxins, and bacteria) find their ways to your bloodstream to steal (or rob) your health.
And gluten is an active, corrupted member of the first group of gangsters (undigested food particles). Corrupted? Yes, this is the way how they get through your gut!
Leaky Gut and Gluten: A Game of Corruption and Betrayal
In a way, gluten does not go straight through the gate of your intestines and then march into your bloodstream. As the gate is so tight that gluten has to do one thing.
It has to bribe your gut cells and some of them betray you. What does that mean? Gluten prompts (bribes) your gut cells to release a protein (called zonulin). Zonulin? Yes, Zonulin, discovered by Dr. Alessio Fasano in 2000, (wisdom from PubMed) is the one who betrays you by opening the gate of your cell wall. In other words, zonulin acts like a corrupt gatekeeper, loosening the tight junctions between you gut cells so that unwanted particles can slip through the gut lining into your bloodstream.
Put simply, when you consume foods with gluten, a game of corruption and betrayal is played within your body, where gluten convinces your own cells to lower their defenses and let the “bad guys” in.
What Leaky Gut Can Lead to (Beyond IBS)
This game of corruption and betrayal is never a small one. When gluten runs into your bloodstream you have to fight against the following:
- autoimmune conditions
- depression, and
- diabetes
And you may ask a big question. How in the first place our gut gets leaky? One of the culprits is gluten. It has the power to ‘open’ our gut. What does that mean? It means gluten can untighten junctions of our intestines, causing IBS and other other chaotic situations.
Sources of Digestible Wisdom
- Enders, Giulia. Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body’s Most Underrated Organ. Greystone Books, 2018
- Campos, Marcelo. “Leaky Gut: What Is It, and What Does It Mean for You?” Harvard Health Blog, Harvard Health Publishing, 21 Sept. 2017, www.health.harvard.edu/blog/leaky-gut-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-mean-for-you-2017092212451
- Fasano, Alessio. “Zonulin and Its Regulation of Intestinal Barrier Function: The Biological Door to Inflammation, Autoimmunity, and Cancer.” Physiological Reviews, vol. 91, no. 1, Jan. 2011, pp. 151–175, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21248165/
