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Leaky Gut: Chemicals in Foods And Products That Increase It
20 Plays4 months ago
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Hosted by functional health practitioner and longevity author, Christian Yordanov, this podcast is dedicated to helping women struggling with gastrointestinal problems such as gas, bloating, constipation, and other digestive distress.
Whether you have a diagnosis such as IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), IBD (inflammatory bowel disease; Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis), SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth), GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) or not, you will benefit from the insights we'll share.
Join us as we explore the intricate connections between gut health and overall well-being, addressing common issues like fatigue, poor sleep, hormonal imbalances, and anxiety.
Learn how stress impacts your digestive system and discover effective strategies to reduce inflammation, improve digestion, and enhance your quality of life.
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Transcript
Introduction to Leaky Gut
00:00:43
chrisyzen
Hey, it's Christian Jourdanoff. Today I'm going to talk to you about chemicals that increase leaky gut, also known as intestinal permeability. In case you haven't heard, I mean everybody's heard now, but just to make sure we're on the same page, intestinal permeability or leaky gut is when the gaps between our intestinal cells increase and allow undigested bits of food, chemicals, toxins and other but like but bacterial toxins and chemicals from but that bacteria and other organisms are exuding into the bloodstream and that's not a good thing because
Impact of Chronic Inflammation from Leaky Gut
00:01:31
chrisyzen
it activates the immune system and the immune system being activated causes inflammation and that as a byproduct of that inflammation there's collateral damage to our own tissues so we don't want chronic rampant or low-grade inflammation in the body because it's disease promoting and it it hinders from healing from gut healing right so because um you you use energy to create the inflammation so it's expensive energy wise and nutrient wise and then all that collateral damage you got to repair it so it eats up you know amino acids and vitamins and minerals and that energy could be used either for healing or just for general regeneration and
Food Ingredients to Avoid for Gut Health
00:02:23
chrisyzen
maintenance processes in the body and when there's a lack when all we haven't got all our bases covered then the body has to make trade-offs and that's when we kind of can experience unpleasant and unwanted things like nice to have things in the body can start getting down regulated like good skin or good mood or sleeping well or hair you know having a full head of hair and stuff like that so we definitely don't want to do that And one way to not allow for intestinal permeability or for leaky gut to happen or to be exacerbated is by avoiding
00:03:03
chrisyzen
a lot of these, I'll give it to you in like a sentence, how to avoid it. Don't eat processed garbage. but Very, very simple. um even i'll tell you Even organic products nowadays, that a lot of them have too many ingredients, too many chemicals, or too many emulsifiers and stuff like that. So we want to eat
00:03:28
chrisyzen
ideally as clean as possible and what that means is just single ingredient foods really at the end of the day that's that's what it boils down to so but let's um cover some of these chemicals that are known well known to cause damage to the gut lining to induce inflammatory processes and to damage the intestinal lining causing this leaky gut so emulsifiers anytime anything has emulsifiers you should be wary you would really want to keep these out of your diet ideally
00:04:03
chrisyzen
in general, but whilst you need to accelerate the gut-heating processes, you really have to keep the stuff out. And so you have your Polysorbate 80, that one is well known that it's not good. ah Then you have a bunch of different ones though. So you you have to always look look for different emulsifiers but some that are known to cause leaky gut would be even things like soy lecithin and where are emulsifiers usually will be Dessert cakes and ice cream. That's another one right? You need it because the amounts or the emulsifier is used for is to basically allow fat
00:04:43
chrisyzen
and lick water to basically become like a homogenous substance so it kind of saponifies the fat breaks it down into tiny little droplets or whatever and like that that's how you make ice cream you need egg yolk because the egg yolk has lecithin in there and that's that's a natural emulsifier and honestly egg yolk and even soy lecithin these are like the ah dream compared to these more chemical based ones like carboxymethocellulose and the polysorbates and um there was a few others that I can't um remember off the top of my head right now so
00:05:22
chrisyzen
anything that's like an ice cream, a dessert, that's a that's you know there's gonna be some emulsifiers in there. Then preservatives, this is again things like salad dressings, various, um this is more so in the USA. I was in Mexico there a few months ago and even like soft drinks who have a ton of like um synthetic colors and just a lot of stuff that isn't in drinks in Europe. So even with drinks you in the US, you have to be very careful what you're getting through juices and stuff like that. But then ah ah breads, baked goods, anything that's processed, it's going to have, you know, sodium benzoate.
The Health Risks of Ultra-Processed Foods
00:06:09
chrisyzen
various other preservatives. So um these are known to increase leaky gut. The nitrites and nitrates used in processed meats like bacon, sausages, deli meats. Again, this is not something, unless you're getting your sausage from a a butcher that does or like online that they do grass fed, grass finished, organic pastured, all that good stuff and you know you can trust them, I wouldn't ever buy like things like bacon sausages and stuff like that unless you know the source because bacon pork is going to be very high on omega sixes which are very inflammatory because those pigs are getting fed a ton of corn and soy as their main basically their main food so they're going to absorb and have that fat under their in their tissues so you really want to stay away from that kind of stuff
00:07:01
chrisyzen
artificial sweeteners there's if you this is the way I kind of frame it to my clients if they might ask me ah doesn't happen very often but like someone might ask me what's what's your sort of take on this this um let's say sucralose or aspartame and then they're like like I remember one client said me like a a drink like an energy drink I'm like the the hell is this why why are you sending me this you're really asking me what I think about this energy drink which like oh But it just has caffeine and water and yeah and citric acid and aspartame and sucrose. The point being, if it has an artificial ingredient or sorry an artificial artificial s sweetener,
00:07:46
chrisyzen
I think the question is, Why are we considering consuming or purchasing this item? right ah quite is Because invariably it's going to be a processed food and processed food is not optimal unless it's barely processed. It's like more natural processing, like yogurt, that's processed technically, cheese is processed, butter is processed, right? But these more sort of the the newer name being ultra processed foods, like the baked goods and whatever else, these, the way they are right now, with they just, they're basically optimized for shelf life. Zero consideration is given
00:08:34
chrisyzen
too much else. So the presentation, how are we going to sell it? It should you know last as long as possible. Zero dams are given, whether it's going to make you healthier or less healthy when you eat it. Zero. There's zero incentive for manufacturers to do any of this stuff. okay And then flavor enhancers that have also been found to increase leaky gut include monosodium glutamate, MSG, you in the u.s oh my god oh my god i ah went to do this convenience store i was in acapulco in february 2024 and um i swear to god the healthiest thing i could find was
00:09:19
chrisyzen
Coke original That just had like sugar Not like fructose corn and syrup, you know Just sugar and caffeine and water and whatever a couple of other things that was basically the healthiest thing the rest was like soybean oil laden chips and whatever cookies and glyphosate laden stuff like um wheat products and all these like drinks there wasn't one one fruit juice like 100% fruit juice to buy and i was very afraid to buy like milk um because god knows you know just god knows if i would have
00:09:57
chrisyzen
force myself to buy milk, it would have been like the low fat super skimmed just because a lot of toxins are lipophilic. They're bioaccumulating the fat. So they kind of travel up the food chain in the fatty tissue of the animals. um like So the cow would be consuming a lot of those and storing it in the fat. And then the fat then becomes butter. It becomes the fat in yogurt, the fat in milk. So um if you can't get grass fed, ah dairy and other animal products that would probably be opting for lower fat versions because there's less chance for toxin bioaccumulation if there's less fat in the in the whatever animal products we're talking about.
00:10:42
chrisyzen
So that's kind of, and then oh the and the other flavor enhancer is hydrolyzed vegetable protein, which is also kind of like m of the MSG sort of ilk. It's a flavor enhancer and it's in a lot of these things are in like soups, broth, sauces. So again, processed stuff. So at the end of the day, very simple, right? Don't try to not consume too much processed food and
Chemical Additives and Their Impact on Gut Health
00:11:08
chrisyzen
you'll be okay. And if you do, there's, there's, There's also so ah this processed food. There's this big spectrum there, right? So there's much more benign things like, for example, organic corn cakes and stuff like that, you know, or if you want to have like potato chips nowadays, you can get them organic.
00:11:28
chrisyzen
Also that with olive oil they taste like crap. I've not had one Where like I enjoyed it well and I occasionally will buy one just because you know, like my wife She likes the occasional indulgence. So I try and she's like look if you she's she tells me if you're gonna buy chips just buy the real thing or don't buy anything at all i'm like i'm not i'm not gonna buy anything at all because the other stuff is like 30 sunflower oil in the in europe and then in the state it could be like soybean oil or canola or some other stuff so really terrible overall
00:12:05
chrisyzen
And then, so just to kind of round out the discussion in terms of chemicals, that's another thing we have to be very cognizant of nowadays. The plasticizers are also known to do this, to increase intestinal permeability. So the phthalates used in plastics, they're more to make them pla ah ah flexible, pliable, and bisphenol which is more to make them hard, um, kind of more solid. The thing to remember is that if you buy a plastic product that says BPA free, that does not mean Jack because they just use, ah so BISFANO, BPA stands for BISFANO A.
00:12:53
chrisyzen
then you have Bisphenol B and so on and so forth. You have Bisphenol S now is used a lot and there was another one Bisphenol F and BPS and BPF are two of the most commonly used plasticizers now. so some of them actually have been shown to be even more toxic because what did the manufacturers do is let's say whoever it is the FDA or whatever they say okay this is now banned you can't use this what they do to circumvent legislation or law or whatever other kind of um what's the word i'm looking for uh mandate or whatever else they just they can just attach a little
00:13:39
chrisyzen
um atom or molecule or whatever or compound to change the molecule right the molecular structure of the thing very very slightly it still does the same job And then they're like, well, look, it's a different thing. That one was BPA. This is BPP. And then, you know, you can have any number of variations like this. It's actually fun fact. It's how um they can get away with cloning drugs like LSD and various other other drugs that the original LSD that was made illegal. And then they just changed. They add like a little
00:14:18
chrisyzen
thing to the molecule and then that can circumvent laws until they kind of re-legislate against it. And that's how, um and you at least in Europe, that's how they're actually um circumventing these these drug laws and stuff like that with various different LSD. They call it like LSD 1P and whatever the hell, 1D. So it's just a fun fact. This is how this is how um I guess capitalism works. They don't really care for the laws or for the consumers. They care about, can we protect our profits? Can we change as little as necessary in order to comply with regulations? That is how a lot of business is being run, unfortunately. And there's little incentive so far or disincentive. So there's little incentive to be good to the consumer in terms of their health.
00:15:16
chrisyzen
And there's very little disincentive to not be good. As long as you've got your bases covered as a corporation, you're you're pretty much in, you know, the people running the show are indemnified for the most part. So kind of sucks. But what that means is we need to take responsibility for our own lives and exposures and stuff like that. And while we are on the topic, um, I want you to keep in mind this phthalates fall into two categories. So you have your um high molecular weight phthalates and low molecular weight phthalates. So the high molecular weight phthalates, they're like, again, plasticizers and ah shopping bags and stuff like that, right? Plastic wraps and other nonsense. So those are the high molecular
00:16:08
chrisyzen
weight phthalates. The low molecular weight phthalates are used in skincare products, perfumes and a bunch of other like cosmetic stuff, right? So be very, very careful because if you're using like more generic stuff or like the bigger brands like L'Oreal, Vichy and those other ones, A lot of them are pretty bad in terms of the chemicals. So you really want to switch over to more organic-based ah cosmetics and skincare products ah as much as possible, if you can, wherever you can. And it's always possible.
Detoxification and Gut Recovery
00:16:49
chrisyzen
you know like and know some Sometimes you can't find anti-aging serums and maybe hair dyes that are super clean.
00:16:59
chrisyzen
But I actually have a really awesome skincare sort of thing that I make myself that I share with my clients that are kind of interested. And it works really well, protects the skin, and rejuvenates it, and it's super natural, and it's really good for the body. So that's that's kind of some of the interesting stuff that I share with my clients, which is a little bit more in-depth and advanced. um In terms of other industrial chemicals, we have heavy metals, so lead, cadmium, mercury, these are all sorts of things from fish to, you know, just car exhausts, industrial emissions, contaminated food, water.
00:17:45
chrisyzen
ah Fertilizers have them, batteries. So these are, yeah again, we have to take precautions to protect ourselves from them and support our detoxification systems. That's why nowadays it's so important. So it's a massive part of my gut recovery program is supporting detoxification because not only for the toxins, but estrogen is also treated like a toxin, so it's detoxified by the same route routes. So detoxification support is a massive part of the program to really create lasting health transformation in my clients. okay And then pesticides and herbicides, another big, big reason
00:18:29
chrisyzen
to go organic I know people nowadays be like oh yeah but they still use pesticides in organic farming they just use organic pesticides and herbicides and yeah the they're generally better than glyphosate and organophosphate pesticides and chlorpyrifos which is used in like parks and other places and stuff like that so these are
00:19:00
chrisyzen
the we can there's the things that are in our control on this side of things is obviously buying organic food and stuff like that and then obviously not using these things when you know for the garden all this kind of stuff right so you don't want to buy the and i you would think that would become a knowledge but i we we had these neighbors under us they moved in last year and the the the lady they were kind of in their 70s mid late 70s and the woman like I because they used to live kind of in the neighborhood every time
00:19:38
chrisyzen
so Excuse me. Every time we would walk by the road house that they sold before they moved under us, um she would have a freaking spray bottle with glyphosate, you know, round up in her hand. I'm like, geez. And every time we'd be going around like Jesus Christ. And she does she doesn't speak any English, she's French, so I can't like explain to her, although I did. what Here's the here's the where the story got interesting. So they moved under us, in the apartment under us, and she had started like, I could see the round-up bottle, ah you know, and then I saw like this blue powder she had.
00:20:19
chrisyzen
um of kind of thrown around their little tiny little garden I think it's like for ants or whatever so just like said this bullshit like we have a dog we have a had a like our kid was like under two years old at the time and I'm like this bullshit I came up in my office here I wrote a big old one-page letter explaining you know you know, glyphosate, how bad it is, that's let's for all of our health, let's, can we just not do this kind of stuff, not spray the common in the public areas. And um yeah, I mean, you just have to like, a lot of people for them, this is like, just, they, it's so normal that nobody really thinks about it as, oh, could this be harming me? Could this be harming others around me? So,
00:21:10
chrisyzen
We just have to kind of re-evaluate what are we doing on a daily basis. You know you you might say, okay, this this thing is okay to eat or this thing is okay this product is okay to use, like let's say plastics. They wouldn't let it on the market if it's harmful, like the plastics, the the glyphosate, the Roundup. um you know the the the plastic bags, the cosmetics, the the um pesticides in the food, you know the glyphosate, the herbicides in the food, those residues. And the fact is that not only are all those things harmful,
00:21:47
chrisyzen
but hundreds of other things we're exposed to on a daily basis are harmful as well. So this kind of underscores the importance of if you're going to be trying to truly heal yourself you want to give your body the best chance to do that.
Holistic Approaches to True Health
00:22:07
chrisyzen
To do that, to to give yourself the best chance for healing, you really have to cover a lot of bases. It's not, health, especially in today's world, is not just about drink water, stay hydrated. ah Oh my God, if I hear that one more time.
00:22:29
chrisyzen
Do your exercise as if fitness and and health are the same thing, you know, or just eat eat lots of vegetables and fiber and What other nonsense you hear? Oh, you know you try to sleep and okay. It's It's not enough. It's good advice. It's a good start some of it. But it's not enough. In today's world, we need to be thinking much wider. There's so many other pillars that we need to consider beyond just eating clean and drink staying hydrated and you know sleeping well and getting exercise and movement. And maybe sunshine. That's another one more people were talking about. But there's there's other things in there, like reducing toxins from the various different ways.
00:23:17
chrisyzen
you know, reducing um yeah EMF radiation, stress, our light hygiene, right, at night, that's a huge one, that most people still blissfully unaware of how detrimental these LED lights are at night to our everything, you know, not just our sleep, but to our physiology, to our health. So there's a lot of, my point here is, and we're be covering many of these topics in future episodes in more depth, but My point here is there's a lot more moving parts to a truly comprehensive gut and health restoration protocol, right? And that includes reducing chemicals from the food, from the environment that not only are detrimental to health, but they're directly
00:24:07
chrisyzen
detrimental to gut health so they really impede the healing processes and they actually accelerate the quote-unquote disease process so we really have to start you know educating ourselves there and taking action as much as possible because that's where the magic lies taking in action consistently okay so I thought you I hope you found this informative and thank you for listening or watching and I'll see you on the next episode