Question
Joan Ives
Does "leaky gut" exist? Are lectins dangerous?
Answer
So two different questions Joan and both very important first leaky gut is a condition that does exist as well recognized in the medical community and more information is being discovered on how this actually occurs and just a brief description of what happens is that you know in our small intestine the cells have very tight junctions, they're sealed and that prevents everything in the small intestine from entering the bloodstream. and so leaky gut occurs when we get an inflammation in the small intestine, which causes these tight junctions to slightly swell apart leaving room for some of the larger particles in the small intestine the migrate up and get into the bloodstream things that cause the leaky gut may include things like anything that disrupts the microbiome including antibiotics chlorinate water stress Alcohol Tobacco heavy animal-based diet that microbiome the bacteria that live in the gut help to maintain the tight junctions. And so as the microbiome becomes disruptive we begin to get a leaky gut syndrome. And so it's the Western diet. It's stress. It's alcohol it's tobacco which are disrupters. Once that leaky gut becomes open and those toxins begin to migrate up into that area. Then we run into the problem of and and augmented immune system that begins to attack itself. And so the immune system looks and starts to attack other tissues in the body. And those other tissues become inflamed and so leaky. God is kind of the degenesis step for autoimmune diseases. The other question that you have about lectins lectins are found commonly in plants and you know, they're they're often their component of beans and lentils and whole grains and so there was a book written by Dr. Gundry who's a cardiologist and it's called the plant Paradox and this book, It documents not in a very scientific way that these lectins can be harmful to the human body. And therefore we should not be eating beans lentils or whole grains because they cause damage and inflammation that are actually a poison to our system. However, the when you look at the medical literature, there's been only one research study that showed harm from Beans and lentils and this research study. This is just my daughter coming back. Thank you. Thank you. There's only when we one research this study showed that when people consume beings in a hospital that had not been prepared. Well, there was actually a A foodborne a foodborne poison and so it was undercooked under prepared poorly prepared beans that caused harm in a hospital setting. Other than that there have been no studies and no research to document that lectins are actually harmful. So the it's a hypothetical harm because lectins are in unprepared uncooked beans and lentils. However, when we cook beans and lentils, it destroys the lectins and they don't cause harm to our body Dr. Gundry was on the doctors television show. With a good friend of mine Dr. Joel carne as a cardiologist and he admitted this on the doctors. You can actually look it up on the internet and he also admitted that he eats beans and lentils on a daily basis and recognizes that when they're cooked that the lectins are no longer a problem. And so we don't have to be afraid of lectins. In fact in survey the longest of people groups all around the world the most consistent and single common dietary factor for all of these people groups was that they ate a cup of beans every single day. And so this has been a part of the history of these long people groups and therefore the elections are not harmful. They're not poisoning our body and actually beans and lentils are very helpful and do amazing things for us including feeding our microbiome. So, it's a great question. Thank you for asking John because it really causes a lot of confusion and a lot of fear when people hear things like this, especially from a cardiologist. if a really impeccable academic background, however Just a misinterpretation of the information. It causes some some. fear mongering in the food circles.
