The Surprising Food Compound That Fixes Leaky Gut

First, what is leaky gut?

It’s when the barrier between the gut and the rest of the body gets punctured, and things that should definitely stay in the gut escape into the rest of the body.

You may be wondering: how does the gut get punctured and is this only a risk if someone’s stabbing or shooting us?

And the answer is: most often, the gut gets punctured from the inside, either by fungus (usually C. albicans) putting its roots through the intestinal walls, or by other adverse microbiome changes that result in a reduction in mucus and other components of gut’s selective barrier layer that usually allows nutrients to pass through while keeping unpleasantries contained.

You can read more about that, here: Making Friends With Your Gut (You Can Thank Us Later)

And more specifically, for the implications and extra considerations pertaining to this, you might want to check out:

• The Alzheimer’s Gut-Brain Connection—Caught On X-Ray!
• Spicy Foods & Your Gut ← it’s probably not what you might expect!
• Minimize The Harm Of Antibiotics

So, what’s this about a nutrient, or indeed an antinutrient, that can fix it?

Mighty phytic acid to the rescue!

We’ve written before about phytic acid, usually in the context of it being an antinutrient, that is to say, it reduces the absorption of some nutrients, especially certain minerals.

See for example its mentions in the following articles of ours:

• Brown Rice Protein: Strengths & Weaknesses
• Make Your Vegetables Work Better Nutritionally
• Sprout Your Seeds, Grains, Beans, Etc

…in which cases, usually we’re talking about soaking, cooking, and so forth to reduce the phytic acid content and resultant phytates.

A quick note before we continue: in nutrition science, phytic acid and phytates are closely related and in some contexts can even be interchangeable (them both being considered functionally the same antinutrient), but just to clarify…

• Phytic acid: the molecule itself, also known to its friends as inositol hexakisphosphate (InsP6), which plants use to store phosphorus, especially in seeds, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
• Phytates: the salts formed when phytic acid binds to minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc, or potassium. In foods and in the digestive tract, phytic acid mostly exists in these mineral-bound forms.

So for example:

• Phytic acid + calcium → calcium phytate
• Phytic acid + zinc → zinc phytate
• Phytic acid + iron → iron phytate

…and lo and behold, those are the minerals it stopped you from absorbing in those cases!

Now, researchers (Dr. Sujan Chatterjee et al.) have discovered that phytic acid also helps maintain the integrity of the intestinal barrier; when this pathway was disrupted in experimental models, the gut barrier became more permeable, and phytic acid supplementation restored much of the lost function.

Why/how this happens: Dr. Chatterjee and her teem found that phytic acid activates HDAC3, a protein that regulates genes involved in maintaining the gut lining; when HDAC3 activity falls, genes that can damage the intestinal barrier become more active, increasing intestinal permeability and inflammation.

So, in other words, a necessary part of a system was taken out, so the system stopped working properly!

This study also suggests that sometimes it’s one of the enzymes that’s lacking, and that restoring for example HDAC3 activity, if that be lacking, can help protect or repair the intestinal barrier.

You can read this paper in full, here: Phytic acid (InsP₆) activates HDAC3 epigenetic axis to maintain intestinal barrier function

And you can read about what foods have often-high phytic acid contents when unprocessed (it’s a lot of edible grains, legumes, and nuts), here: Phytic Acid and Whole Grains for Health Controversy

…which may also explain why almonds improve gut barrier health, as we discussed here: What 47 Almonds Can Do For your Gut, Heart, Skin, & more

Want to learn more?

Do consider this very good book that we reviewed:

Heal Your Gut, Save Your Brain – by Dr. Partha Nandi

Enjoy!