The Gut Centered Theory of Disease - Aspire Natural Health

The Gut Centered Theory of Disease

To quote Hippocrates “All disease begins in the gut”

What is the gut centered theory of disease?

  1. In a chicken and egg fashion abnormal gut flora (dysbiosis) leads to abnormal digestion, and abnormal digestion leads to abnormal gut flora. Whichever comes first, they become intertwined.
  2. These lead to nutritional deficiencies which further worsen digestion, and inflammation and immune dysregulation
  3. These inflammation leads to a damaged gut lining (and the nutrient deficiencies slow/prevent the guts ability to heal) which allows
    1. The absorption of incompletely digested proteins AND
    2. The absorption of bacterial and fungal toxins from the abnormal gut flora
  4. We have anywhere from 60-80% of our immune system in our digestive tract and they are there to protect us from bacterial, viral and toxic invasion, so when the damaged gut lining allows protein fragments to enter the system the immune cells pick them up, consider them hostile and mount an immune response. The immune cells also respond to the bacterial and fungal toxic load by mounting an immune response.
  5. If the toxic load is sufficiently high, compounded with nutritional deficiencies from abnormal digestion (detox pathways require high levels of energy and nutrients to run), the detox pathways collapse, allowing the toxic load to flood the body.
  6. Haptenization (this is a big word meaning that something that didn’t trigger an immune response before when it binds with something else does) occurs, which means that protein fragments from incompletely digested foods as well as toxins bind with other proteins in the human body, triggering further immune activation.
  7. Circulating immune complexes are formed between the proteins and toxic load which can deposit anywhere in the body, leading to symptoms that can occur anywhere.
  8. If there is an appropriate genetic predisposition, autoimmunity can arise.

This is the gut centered theory of disease.



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Another Interesting post:

How do you know if you have dysbiosis? – Post 6; Day 6 By: Dr. Tim Gerstmar – 9/28/2011