Complete Guide to Healing Leaky Gut Naturally | Dr. Josh Axe

You have been told your chronic fatigue, joint pain, and brain fog are just "stress" or IBS. But what if a Harvard medical discovery proved that a single biological switch in your stomach is actually the root cause of every symptom you are experiencing? Your gut lining is only one cell thick, and right now, it might be tearing apart. Uncover the exact biological mechanism behind "Leaky Gut" (intestinal permeability) and why it is the true driver behind autoimmune diseases, thyroid failures, and even neurological conditions like autism and anxiety. We explore the 2000 Harvard discovery of Zonulin—the protein switch that opens your gut junctions—and the exact environmental triggers forcing it open. I break down the terrifying truth about how chronic stress alters your gut bacteria in just two hours, and how daily exposure to Glyphosate (Roundup) is starving your beneficial microbes. Finally, I reveal my exact 6-step clinical protocol to permanently seal your gut lining, including the specific amino acids (L-Glutamine), minerals (Zinc Carnosine), and soil-based probiotics required for total cellular repair. Find out what’s really going on in your body with advanced biomarker testing for hormones, thyroid, and metabolism— plus a 1-hour consultation with a Senior Health Advisor! → http://mybloodwork.com My FREE "Leaky Gut" Protocol PDF: https://bit.ly/draxehealingleakygut Thank you to our sponsors! Sunlighten Sauna: https://get.sunlighten.com/axepodcastManukora Manuka Honey: https://manukora.com/axeCaraway Home: carawayhome.com/drjoshaxe (Use code DRJOSHAXE) for an exclusive discount Watch The Dr. Josh Axe Show every Monday & Thursday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@drjoshaxe?sub_confirmation=1 Pre-order my NEW BOOK, Heal Your Cells → https://bit.ly/3QJBcQ5 🎧 Early Access! Our listeners enjoy every episode before anyone else! Tune in below and join our exclusive group of listeners → Spotify: https://bit.ly/DrJoshAxeSpotifyApple Podcast: https://apple.co/3JDvWcS Watch my free training on how to naturally balance your blood sugar and reverse your symptoms → http://DrAxeDiabetesClass.com Discover practical steps you can take today to start healing your thyroid naturally → http://DrAxeThyroidClass.com If you’re ready to start feeling like yourself again and balance your hormones, take my free class → http://DrAxeHormoneClass.com CONNECT WITH DR. JOSH AXEInstagram → https://www.instagram.com/drjoshaxe/Facebook → https://www.facebook.com/DrJoshAxe/TikTok → https://www.tiktok.com/@thedrjoshaxeshow/X → https://x.com/drjoshaxe/LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshaxeWebsite → http://thehealthinstitute.comSign up for my newsletter → https://bit.ly/4oE9Jf3Ask Dr. Axe → http://speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe Timestamps:0:00 — The Hidden Cause of All Disease 4:30 — The Harvard Discovery: Zonulin Explained 9:45 — The 5 Root Causes of a Broken Gut 14:50 — How Glyphosate Destroys Your Microbiome 20:15 — The Leaky Gut & Autoimmune Connection 25:40 — Why Your Thyroid Is Failing (T4 to T3) 31:10 — The Leaky Brain Connection (Anxiety & Autism) 36:25 — The 6-Step Protocol to Seal Your Gut 42:50 — The Best Foods & Supplements for Repair DISCLAIMERThis content is strictly the opinion of Dr. Josh Axe and is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Axe nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program. MB01Z8CTGEU47YZ

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Josh Axe?

  There's a condition that's flying under the radar, causing the majority of health problems that people are experiencing today. You've been told it's IBS, or anxiety, or autoimmune, or just stress. And here's the reality, you probably have a condition called leaky gut. And it may be the upstream cause of every single health symptom that you're experiencing right now. And today, I'm going to walk you through exactly how to heal leaky gut for good. Welcome to the Dr. Josh Ak Show.

• 0:43Josh Axe?

  All right, so in this episode, I'm going to dive into the 10 hidden signs you have leaky gut. There's actually a quiz that you can take to go along with this if you want. I'll also talk about something called zonulin, and this is the discovery that literally changed everything when it comes for testing for leaky gut. And you may wonder, well, how do I know for certain I have leaky gut? Well, one is the symptoms that I'll walk you through, but also, there's now advanced testing. Also, I'll go through the five root causes of leaky gut, and how to fix those things. Also, go through glyphosate's hidden role in leaky gut. Also, go through the connection between your gut and your thyroid, and the autoimmune connection.

• 1:23Josh Axe?

  Also, walk you through the number one probiotic everyone should be taking to heal leaky gut. I'm going to go through the exact protocol to heal leaky gut. By the way, if you also want to get a downloadable form of the protocol, you can go into the show notes here, and you can go ahead and click the Healing Leaky Gut PDF in the show notes as well. So do not forget to download that PDF so you have it. All right, so here is the foundation that Hippocrates talked about over 2,400 years ago. All disease begins in the gut. And Hippocrates is really the founder of Western medicine. I mean, a lot of what we do today, and the way we think about healing, is because of Hippocrates.

• 2:07Josh Axe?

  And he said, "All disease..." Begins in the gut. Now a few other stats that are really important. We know 70 to 80% of your immune system lives in your gut. Again, leaky gets very well connected to that. And now think about this. Think about how long your gut lining and surface actually is. It would cover an entire tennis court. That is a lot. That's crazy. And here's the other thing that's crazy. It's about one cell thick. Okay, what separates your gut lining from your bloodstream. Okay, so if your gut gets broken, it changes everything in your entire body. It changes nutrient absorption. It changes your whole immune system. And so now I want to walk you through the 10 hidden signs that you have

• 2:48Josh Axe?

  leaky gut. Okay, number one is chronic bloating or unexplained IBS symptoms. That could be constipation. It could be loose stool like diarrhea, but also chronic bloating is absolutely linked to leaky gut. Number two, food sensitivities. Okay, if you eat certain foods and you have a reaction or your kids have a reaction, there's a great connection there to leaky gut. Number three could be brain fog. Number four, autoimmune flares. This is if you've had leaky gut over time. If you if you all of a sudden get leaky gut, that's not going to lead to autoimmune disease in a few days. However, over time, if you don't fix leaky gut, there's a lot of studies around this. And by the way, leaky gut in the scientific literature is often called intestinal permeability, right? Permeable means things are passing through. Okay, maybe more

• 3:33Josh Axe?

  easily than they should, right? So autoimmune disease is a big, big warning sign, maybe the biggest long term warning sign. Number five would be skin issues, eczema, rosacea, acne, psoriasis. These skin issues are connected to leaky gut, joint pain, especially rheumatoid arthritis, chronic fatigue syndrome, hormone imbalances, headaches, nutrient deficiencies is a big one. So, so in some of these are more connected than others, but overall, these are all warning signs that you could have leaky gut. Now, listen to this medical breakthrough. In 2000, a Harvard scientist named Alessio Fazano from Harvard Medical School, found the switch of what

• 4:17Josh Axe?

  actually causes leaky gut and how to test for this. It was called zonulin. And it's the only known human protein that opens and closes gut junctions. Okay. And this is a big deal because every human carries the biological switch for leaky gut. So it's not fringe. It's not something like a epigenetic variation like MTHFR. Okay. It's not pseudoscience. It's anatomy. And we know this from this medical research and another study came out and showed this in 2020. And so every human carries this biological switch for leaky gut. Now here's the good news and the bad news. Well, one, you can turn it on, but you can also turn it back off.

• 4:59Josh Axe?

  So if you're a person dealing with the chronic bloating, the food sensitivities, the histamine reaction, some of these issues, we can start to turn it off. Now here's another thing that was found in one of the studies is zonulin predicts the disease before it starts. So if we start to see elevated zonulin on your medical testing, it's a sign that you're going to have leaky gut. In fact, in the study, researchers tracked at-risk children before celiac disease developed. And they found that zonulin levels were elevated before autoimmunity started. So basically they saw this, okay. Once zonulin gets turned on, it's only a matter of time before autoimmune disease starts. Okay. So leaky gut isn't a consequence of disease. It actually comes first.

• 5:43Josh Axe?

  So think about leaky gut as sort of the domino that once that happens, it's only a matter of time before there's autoimmune disease or brain fog or some sort of health reaction, poor nutrient absorption. And leaky gut looks like this. Okay, well, let me, let me start off with a healthy gut. A healthy gut acts like a kitchen strainer. All right. So certain things are allowed to pass through like water and very small particles. Okay. But the larger particles, they get trapped and they don't get through. Okay. And then your bowels, you know, it becomes part of your stool and it just passes right out of your body. That's the way it should work. All right. Bacteria, toxins, undigested food, proteins like gluten and casein, heavy metals. Right.

• 6:26Josh Axe?

  These things get trapped in your gut and a good Put away, they get bound to by things like fiber and other things. And then it passes out in your stool. Okay. And this calms the immune system. It keeps the inflammatory substances out of your bloodstream and you stay healthy. But here's what happens in leaky gut. It's like a kitchen strainer and you took a big, you know, wire cutters and you cut big holes in it. And now you've got this pasta in there and it's just, it's everything is just sort of falling out over time. These bigger holes allow things that should never get into your bloodstream. They start to get in there. So undigested food proteins like gluten and casein, the heavy metals get in there. Parasites, certain things start getting into your bloodstream. And then your immune system goes on high alert.

• 7:10Josh Axe?

  And then you get inflammation everywhere. And then over time, once that inflammation is kicked off everywhere, it leads to autoimmune disease because your body says, okay, we've got to stop this reaction. We're going to go in full force and try and deal with this. Now here's what else happens sometimes with autoimmune disease. Is that your body is trying to clean up and deal with this constant threat. And finally, over time, let's say it's been a few years. And let's say you still have this threat and you've had leaky gut for this whole time. And now your body says, well, because what we've been trying isn't working. We're now not only going to attack proteins like gluten. We're going to go and attack other proteins and other areas of the body trying to fix the issue. And this is how you end up where your body will attack its own thyroid or its own joints.

• 7:55Josh Axe?

  And you have an issue like Hashimoto's thyroiditis or rheumatoid arthritis. This is what starts to happen in sort of later phases when somebody has leaky gut over time. And the reality is there are some genetic susceptibilities, but for the most part, it's the environmental triggers that cause the issue.

• 8:16Josh Axe?

  Hey, so if you've ever thought something is wrong with me, but I just can't prove it, then this is for you. Now, you might be eating clean, even what you feel like is perfect, working out, taking all of the right supplements, but you're still exhausted, still foggy, gaining weight, and you're not sleeping. And every time you ask for help, you hear the same thing. But your labs are normal. Here's what that actually means. Standard blood work only shows what's in your blood, not whether your cells can actually access it or not. You can give your body all the right inputs, but if your cells are in danger mode, chronically stressed or inflamed, they can't absorb or use those nutrients properly. If you're finally ready to heal, go to mybloodwork.com.

• 9:02Josh Axe?

  You'll get an at-home cellular blood work panel, shipped straight to your home and reviewed on a private call with one of my senior health advisors at the Health Institute. And this will help you finally connect the dots between your symptoms at the cellular level. We'll also determine if you're a good candidate for one of our cellular healing protocols so you can finally experience lasting healing. Once again, go to mybloodwork.com to check it out.

• 9:29Josh Axe?

  So let me walk you through the five main causes of leaky gut today. Okay? And you can identify in yourself what might be causing your issues. Number one, stress. That's right, the single greatest driver today of leaky gut, and it's the most missed, is chronic stress. When cortisol rises and stress hormones rise, over time, zonulin will start to get turned on. You'll get these gap junctions opening, and that causes leaky gut. Single greatest one. Now, here's number two, and this one's hidden often. Glycosate. Roundup, that chemical, that herbicide, destroys your gut bacteria and damages your gut lining. There's studies that have proven this as well. Number three, inflammatory food particles, especially gluten.

• 10:12Josh Axe?

  This activates zonulin in every single human. Number four, medications. This could be NSAIDs, of course, antibiotic drugs, alcohol. Drugs, medications, alcohol damage the gut lining greatly. Here's another one that should be on the list. Birth control over time. Birth control pills, contraceptives. All damage your gut lining and the number five is chronic infections, SIBO, parasites, candida, H. pylori, those pathogens will eat away at the gut lining, causing leaky gut. Really what bacteria should be doing, if you have the right type, should be protecting your gut lining. But when you have too much of the bad bacteria

• 10:55Josh Axe?

  or yeast or parasites, they will actually start to eat a hole in your gut lining, causing leaky gut. And so I want to jump back to the number one root cause of leaky gut today, and it is stress. And it's one that almost every protocol misses. When I think about protocols out there today that are addressing leaky gut, almost no one has stress on the list. And here's how it works to damage your gut. Stress alters gut bacteria within two hours of exposure. Okay, what happens then is zonulin is elevated. And so cortisol increases zonulin release, which then opens these gap junctions. Okay. And then what happens then is this shrinks what we call your mucosal layer. This is really important. I'll get into this later in the protocol of how to start to heal and repair the mucosal

• 11:38Josh Axe?

  layer of your gut. The number four, you have these, these crashes of what we call secretory IGA. Okay, your body goes into an immune response and your body's antibody defense plummets and then pathogens take over. And if you don't address stress, you, you won't heal, period. Okay. So again, and listen, there are other things. Most of the time when we think of leaky gut, we think of a poor diet. That's a big part of it. It's the second biggest cause. But the single biggest cause today, absolutely, is chronic stress. Now I want to walk you through a few quick studies before we dive into the protocol. And then one is this is glyphosate induces dysbiosis and alters intestinal permeability, according to one study. In fact, listen to this. 54% of common gut bacteria

• 12:23Josh Axe?

  are sensitive to glyphosate. All right. And I've seen other studies where it's even bigger than this, but this is a 2024 study, fairly recent that found that glyphosate absolutely alters and damages your gut microbiome. Now I want to go over another study here as well. And this was for lifelong low dose roundup exposure. So maybe you're On a golf course where they're spraying with chemicals or you just don't eat organic food very often and you get a fair amount of roundup on a regular basis. Long-term low-dose roundup, damaged type junction proteins and changed actually behavior. And the other thing they found in this study was it damaged the gut barrier and the gut-brain connection. So there were also side effects of how this was affecting people's neurology.

• 13:08Josh Axe?

  And this could be everything from brain fog to I think in children, this is a big issue because I think it could be connected to ADHD. It could make symptoms of autism worse over time. There's a number of issues there when we're looking at roundup. And basically, the way this works is, okay, well, number one, you ingest roundup and the crops that are most sprayed with roundup tend to be wheat and oats and corn and soy and beets, where we get beet sugar today, and then vegetables that have the outer leaf that you eat, okay? And even things like strawberries. But these are the foods that have the greatest amount of roundup. By the way, I do want to say that, you know, when we're eating animal products,

• 13:48Josh Axe?

  that there is a lot of antibiotic and a lot of chemical residue in their tissue and their fat cells especially. So we do need to be careful there as well. But again, roundup, we know it's in any of our non-organic food supply. And so here's what happens once you ingest roundup. It actually blocks the pathway your body needs that certain bacteria need in order to survive. They actually starve, okay? Because it almost acts like an antibiotic. It's killing things that good bacteria need to live off of. And so what happens is the bifidobacterium and the lactobacillus, they collapse and die. So now there's this extra space left. And so then you have pathogens take over like E. coli, like H. pylori,

• 14:30Josh Axe?

  and some of these tend to be more resilient and glyphosate doesn't impact them as negatively. So you've got the E. coli salmonella, C. diff, like Clostridium candida, H. pylori parasites, they will start to take over and take up more room and residence in your gut. And then your tight junctions fail, and then that causes leaky gut and chronic inflammatory issues throughout Entire body. This is sort of the process that happens with leaky gut over time when you're consuming glyphosate. And then, as I talked about as well, you know, gluten, modern wheat, now that's highly sprayed with glyphosate. But then also, it's very hard to digest. Now, let me say this. If you are using an ancient grain wheat like einkorn and doing sourdough bread at home,

• 15:12Josh Axe?

  that is breaking down the gluten to a point to where it's very easy to digest for your body. I'm not talking about that type of gluten. I'm talking about the gluten you're getting in fast food and from conventional grains today. And in A1 casein that's found in conventional cow's milk today. These are very, very inflammatory foods that damage your gut. And then you get to the point where, and some of you have experienced this, to where your digestive system is now so weak that you can't even digest salads or smoothies or things like that because your body has been so beat up and your gut so beat up over time. And really, you need to move to a diet to heal of a lot of cooked foods, which I'll get into later. And I want to dive into the few other causes here. I talked about NSAIDs. Those damage the mucosal layer.

• 15:57Josh Axe?

  Antibiotics, though, are probably the single greatest medication that are damaging our guts today because they wipe out all of this good bacteria. And then if you're not replacing it, very similar thing happens. The bad bacteria, the H. pylori, the candida starts to take over there as well. Also, alcohol directly increases zoonulin. And then you've got these, again, these chronic infections can take over, and that's sort of what happens over time. And by the way, if you're enjoying this episode, if it's helping connect some of the dots for you, don't forget to hit the subscribe button wherever you're listening so you don't miss next week. I've got an amazing episode coming out, so don't forget to subscribe here. And also, think about who is one person who could really benefit from this?

• 16:40Josh Axe?

  Maybe it's somebody who has gut issues or autoimmune disease. Share this episode with them. You may save them from years of suffering. So thanks so much for subscribing and being on mission with me. All right, let's dive back in here. And let's walk through the process of leaky gut. Okay, number one, here's what happens. Again, you eat something bad, or stress gets high, or you have a toxin, and these gap junctions open. Okay, it triggers the opening. Once you have the opening, foreign materials leak into the bloodstream, the bacteria, the food, the toxins, they get in there, and then that activates your immune system. Okay. And then from there, we have something called molecular mimicry. This is where certain body tissues resemble the invaders, right?

• 17:22Josh Axe?

  Gluten is a protein. You have protein and peptides in your thyroid and in your joints. Well, now your body starts to attack itself and then you have autoimmune disease. So here's the thing, though, if you have autoimmune disease, how do you actually fix and cure it? Is it by taking steroid drugs or if you have rosacea treating your skin? No, go and fix the leaky gut and then the autoimmune disease will reverse. I've seen this happen thousands and thousands of times. I've helped thousands of patients completely reverse autoimmune disease by addressing leaky gut, because that is the root of all autoimmune disease. And so when I'm talking about everything from, and by the way, the medical literature proves this, that leaky gut is connected to and helping reverse, or at least in many cases greatly improve these conditions.

• 18:08Josh Axe?

  We've seen it reverse Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And by the way, the scientific studies show in every condition I'm going to mention, that leaky gut is connected. Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis. There's a gut-brain barrier connection when they saw zonulin elevated in studies. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Type 1 diabetes is connected. No, I'm not saying you'll fully reverse it, but I have worked with type 1 diabetics who saw 80% improvements by going and addressing leaky gut. Lupus, celiac disease, psoriasis and eczema. These are all conditions connected to leaky gut according to medical studies.

• 18:53Josh Axe?

  And I also want to address why so many women today, even more than men, have both gut issues and hormone issues like thyroid issues. Okay, here's what happens. Zonulin elevates, which then causes leaky gut. All right, so Hashimoto's patients have significantly higher zonulin. Zonulin levels than healthy people in control groups according to studies. Okay, so that happens. And then higher zonulin is also correlated with free T3, which is your active thyroid hormone. All right, so you need T3. This is what functions inside and works in your cell to give you cellular energy. This is the active form of thyroid hormone. By the way, drugs like Synthroid and levothyroxine, those are T4 only.

• 19:36Josh Axe?

  So if you're taking a T4 drug and you have leaky gut, you will not convert T4 to T3. Because most of that conversion happens in two areas. The liver, which is part of your digestive system as well, and your small intestine. Okay, your gut. So if your gut isn't healthy and your liver aren't healthy, you will not convert T4 to T3. So you can take all the Synthroid, all the levothyroxine all day long, but you will actually be building all of these other health problems at the same time. And this is why you might take a thyroid medication and you don't feel better. Because the root issue is that your TPO antibodies are high and your T3 is low. And so you can take T4 all day, but will never fix the root of the issue.

• 20:19Josh Axe?

  The more leaky gut you have, the worse thyroid function you have. There is a direct correlation according to multiple studies. So what do you do to fix Hashimoto's thyroiditis? You fix your gut and then your thyroid will improve. Now, I also want to mention how this starts to happen and how there's this sort of vicious cycle that happens. When you have leaky gut, okay, then you have an autoimmune attack. All right, then in some people, they have low thyroid. And then you have low thyroid. You know what else happens with low thyroid? Slow motility. Your metabolism slows, so you have more body fat. Your gut motility slows. So then that can cause SIBO, which makes your leaky gut worse. So you end up in this vicious cycle.

• 21:01Josh Axe?

  And by the way, did you also know that women are five to eight times more likely to have Hashimoto's than men? And if you want to fix that broken cycle for thyroid issues, you have to fix leaky gut. Now, one thing that's not always necessary, but sometimes helpful is testing for leaky gut. And one of the ways you can do this is a zonulin. Test and you can do this by testing your stool or your blood, your serum in your blood. And this is a way you can get a direct measurement. You can also do what we call a lactulose mannitol urine test. That's indicative of leaky gut. You can also do a comprehensive stool analysis like a GI MAP or a GI 360 test.

• 21:43Josh Axe?

  And you can also look for root causes there like SIBO or parasites or H. pylori to see what's going on there. There's also something called an anti LPS antibody test. Food sensitivities can clue you in somewhat, but really the best test today, the standard test is a zinulin test. But I also do think a GI MAP or a GI 360 test, looking at it's a stool analysis can tell you so much about leaky gut and if you have it as well. Now I talked about the connection between leaky gut and your thyroid, okay? But the reality is your gut is connected to so many areas of your body. It's connected to your skin, it's connected to your brain. It's connected to your metabolism. It's connected to creating more GLP-1 actually.

• 22:27Josh Axe?

  When you look at the studies on what most helps your body's metabolism and GLP-1. Certain probiotics, you've probably heard of Akkermansia, but I think many others also support this lactobacillus plantarum. I mean, many probiotics are supportive in supporting GLP-1. And then fiber, which supports the growth of more bacteria. So the reality is, is that healing your gut also supports your metabolism. Now I do want to talk about the connection between leaky gut and what we call leaky brain. Your gut wall and your brain wall are made of some of the same building blocks. Okay. And by the way, this is a pattern that I see in a lot of kids with autism. They have a leaky gut and they have a leaky brain.

• 23:11Josh Axe?

  So what happens is they might eat something or have had something happen. They took an antibiotic or they were born with, with a gut that was leaky. And then they have proteins and things leak through their gut wall, circulate. And because their blood brain barrier is leaky, that gets through the barrier. And then it starts causing inflammation of the brain and that slows development. That can cause, you know, behavior issues, tantrums, a number of issues. But I really believe that a part of the biggest reason why children develop autism today.

• 23:48Josh Axe?

  Is because there's a connection between leaky gut and leaky brain barrier. Okay, so you have leaks through the gut, circulates in the blood, then goes through the blood brain barrier and you have proteins and chemicals and toxins constantly bombarding the brain, damaging it, keeping especially specific areas of the brain that are more susceptible from fully developing. Okay, and so let me walk you through how this works too with your gut specifically and its connection to your brain. All right. Good bacteria in your gut make short chain fatty acids. Okay. These are compounds most commonly called butyrate, propionate and acetate.

• 24:28Josh Axe?

  Those travel from your gut up to your brain. These are essential fatty acids that are good for the brain, especially this butyrate also called butyric acid. All right. The same protein that seals your gut seals your brain. The exact same tight junction proteins that hold your gut closed called zonulin like ZO1. And there's another one called claudin. These also seal your brain. And if you damage one, you damage the other. 70% of your serotonin, by the way, is also made in your gut. There's also a connection there. Not and so serotonin is not made in your brain. It's made in your gut. And this is also why there is a lot of scientific evidence

• 25:08Josh Axe?

  that when you have leaky gut, this can lead to anxiety, depression and brain fog. So this actually starts in your digestive tract. So we're talking anxiety, depression, brain fog. We're also talking about some certain cases of ADHD. We're also talking about autism having a real serious connection between leaky gut and a leaky brain barrier. And what I want to do now is I want to walk you through how we start to correct this via my six step process of how to truly heal leaky gut. All right. Step number one is this, remove, remove the gluten, remove the fast foods, remove the A1 dairy, remove the sugar, the glyphosate, the NSAIDs, the drugs, remove

• 25:53Josh Axe?

  those things that are actually triggering and causing leaky gut, the chronic Stress, right? Constantly. So that's saying yes to everything all the time and just being too busy. Say no to those things. That's the number one step because here's, here's the number one thing to understand. Your body heals itself. Okay. Sometimes even without doing the other things I share with you, doing some fasting, your body could also start to heal and repair itself too. So the number one step to healing leaky gut is remove the triggers. Number two, replace. Your body is probably overwhelmed and missing some things. And so you want to take things like digestive enzymes if you're not producing enough enzymes. HCl, which is hydrochloric acid, if you know your stomach is overwhelmed.

• 26:34Josh Axe?

  Bio support, right? There are certain herbs like Tudka or Ox bile that can also support that, right? So replace, maybe your body isn't producing enough of those things. Now here's the thing. If you get out of your fight or flight response and lower cortisol, typically your body can produce more enzymes, hydrochloric acid and bile. So when you're sitting down eating, take your time, relax, don't be working, don't be watching things. Just relax and chew and then take a short 15 minute walk afterwards. That will go a long way in helping your body heal, but that's number two, replace. Number three, re-inoculate. All right. We need to add back in the probiotics, do prebiotics, fermented foods like

• 27:15Josh Axe?

  sauerkraut and coconut yogurt. Uh, these are very beneficial and probiotic supplements, right? There's a probiotic, you know, when it comes to probiotics, by the way, you want to start low and really build up to very high doses over time with leaky gut. And you typically want to do a blend of a broad strain and a soil-based probiotic. So I would alternate really high dose soil-based probiotic. You could go up to a trillion dose, very high dose there of a soil-based probiotic. Okay. Like a trillion probiotics. And then you want to do more of a broad spectrum that has bifidobacterium, lactobacillus, sarcamesis bellardii, just a broad strain probiotic. And I would alternate them or take one, one part a day and one another part of the day. But you want to just really load up. Now, if you have SIBO,

• 28:00Josh Axe?

  you really just need to stick with the soil-based organisms and not do the broad spectrum probiotic at the start. Okay, if you have SIBO, but for most people, you want to be able to do both. Uh, number four step is repair. We need to heal the mucosal lining, okay? Uh, L-glutamine, doing that is very powerful, five grams twice daily. Zinc, Carnosine, uh, collagen is important. In fact, you know, the, the dominant part of your gut is made of collagen. So glutamine, zinc, Carnosine, collagen, the most important things to really repair your gut. I will say there's some herbs that are also helpful there, like slippery elm and licorice and marshmallow. Those sort of herbs can help soothe an irritated gut lining. Aloe vera actually is good for that as well. And then we need to rebalance, right?

• 28:46Josh Axe?

  We need to get better sleep. We talked about lowering the stress, taking walks, doing things to just repair. Sleep's important. Number six is reframe your thoughts, your beliefs, your identity, your faith. A lot of times we have childhood trauma and we are constantly living in a state of worry or anxiousness or fear. That will keep you in that fight or flight state. We need to bring that down, spend more time in prayer, reading your Bible, getting involved in a, you know, at places like church, but really get connected and do things to get out of that fight or flight state and overcome childhood drama and just be in a state of contentment, joy and happiness. You know, there's an old saying, uh, that laughter is the best medicine. And I believe that's true. I think back when my mom had cancer, we had her watching a lot of funny movies. I mean, you want to heal and have belly laughs.

• 29:31Josh Axe?

  That actually is healing to the body. And by the way, number six here, this is one that it's just the easiest one to just skip over. I think most of the time we, we understand that, okay, I gotta get rid of the inflammatory foods and I've got to take some supplements and I, I think most people understand that. But your mind and your spirit are such great drivers of devastating your health or healing. It's really important to focus on, as I mentioned earlier, stress is the number one driver of leaky gut and there's studies on this. So there are four things I want you to do in terms of your mindset to heal from leaky gut. Number one, replace fear-based thinking. Identify what you're afraid of, write it down, think about it. Okay, here's what I'm afraid of, or here is this thing from childhood that I continue

• 30:16Josh Axe?

  to have issues with, write it all down. What still bothers you from the past and what is bothering you today, causing you to have, and write down what the main emotions are you're experiencing. Like I could do this for myself. The biggest emotion I struggle with is frustration, impatience.

• 30:34Josh Axe?

  And so I think to myself, why am I frustrated? Because I just want, I want to move forward faster and faster and faster. Well, for me, maybe it's because at some point in my life I had, and again, I could do this whole exercise, but go back and think about, well, I felt like at some point that I was rewarded by my parents. And I felt like my productivity was something that, part of where I get my self-worth and value, right? So I'm always trying to do more and more and more. And then also, maybe I got applauded for moving quickly through things. So, but think about it for yourself, okay? So for you, maybe it's fear, maybe it's worry. But write down, what are the emotions you experience most? When did it start? What's that childhood trauma that happened? And then what's going on today? And then what I want you to do is write down the truth based on what the Bible says you should have, right?

• 31:19Josh Axe?

  So I think about this in terms of, you know, reading the book of Matthew in the Bible, Matthew 5 and 6, around the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus says, "I take care of the lilies of the field and the birds of the air." And, you know, you're much more important than they are. So I'll take care of you, right? So, so I can start to think about those things, or where Jesus says, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." And I think about, okay, what does that mean? But replace the fear-based thinking with faith-based thinking, okay? Have Bible verses, memorize them and go to them regularly. Number two is prayer. Prayer activates the vagus nerve. It switches the body from fight or flight to rest and digest. And that is that zonulin switch. We talked about switching it on and off. Prayer puts you in that state.

• 32:04Josh Axe?

  If you can read your Bible, and if you can be in a state of prayer, and just sit there and quiet and also listen, that activates your healing. Number three is a gratitude practice. This is proven to reduce cortisol. This is the trigger again that elevates zonulin. Going on a gratitude walk, you're killing two birds with one stone, okay? So you're able to go and walk, and say everything you're grateful for on that walk. Could be a 10-minute walk. That is incredibly healing for leaky gut. Number four is an identity shift. Stop saying, "I have autoimmune disease." Stop saying, "I have leaky gut." Stop saying, "I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis." Start saying, "I am healed. I am completely healed, okay?" Do not identify with your disease.

• 32:47Josh Axe?

  Start identifying that you are a healer and that you're an overcomer. And if you can do that, I believe you're going to see great healing in your life. And this is a step that you do not want to skip when it comes to overcoming and healing leaky gut. Okay, now I want to walk you through the top foods for healing leaky gut. So number one here is bone broth. Bone broth works because it's high in glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline. It's literally what your gut is made up of. And so there's this ancient Chinese medicine principle that says like supports like. So if you eat a food or an organ, it supports that organ. Think about it like this, if you're trying to build muscle, you eat the muscle meat of animals. It has the right amino acid profile, very similar when you drink bone broth.

• 33:28Josh Axe?

  You're getting the amino acids that your gut is made of. That's why it's so important. It's the number one food for healing leaky gut. Number two, steamed pumpkin, steamed orange foods. Carrots, pumpkin, butternut squash, sweet potato. They have a type of fiber that's much easier to digest than certain other types of food and great for the gut there as well. So steamed pumpkin, it's a gentle type of prebiotic fiber. Number three, fermented vegetables. This is where you're going to get your probiotics. Do coconut yogurt, sauerkraut, especially two of my favorites. They're going to be great for you to do there as well.

• 34:08Josh Axe?

  Remember, part of what happens in leaky gut is you tend to get overgrowth of candida and H. pylori. We want to move those out of the way. And when you have good bacteria, it will act as a protector for your gut lining. Number four, coconut oil and medium chain triglycerides. Coconut oil contains lauric acid, which is a natural antimicrobial. Actually can help kill candida and bad microorganism overgrowth. It's also really easy on the gut lining. So coconut oil is a wonderful oil to use. I'll also say extra virgin olive oil and its polyphenols are actually good for supporting the growth of good bacteria as well. So that could also be added to that oil list. And then wild caught fish like salmon.

• 34:51Josh Axe?

  Salmon is high in omega-3 fatty acids like EPA and DHA. That's going to reduce inflammation. Now, in addition to wild Wild salmon, you could do sardines, you could do halibut, and also throw other types of meat, chicken and grass-fed beef and bison, lamb. Those are also great as well if you have leaky gut. However, salmon of all of them and fish is the easiest of all of them to digest. But you can do all types of organic meat on a leaky gut diet as well. Number six here is aloe vera. Just like aloe vera helps heal a burn on your skin. It helps heal ulcers and it helps heal damage in your digestive lining. In fact, part of your digestive lining, you have what we call the mucosal layer.

• 35:35Josh Axe?

  Aloe is almost mucousy itself. It actually helps cover and coat and heal the mucosal layer of the gut. So it's incredibly beneficial and healing as well. I do want to mention aloe vera is very cooling to the digestive tract. So if you have IBS with diarrhea or cold extremities or hypothyroidism, you want to sort of offset the cooling nature of aloe by drinking ginger herbal tea or adding some ginger into a smoothie because ginger is warming. That'll kind of bring more balance to your body when you're doing this. Number seven is raw manuka honey. Manuka honey contains MGO, a compound that kills candida and bad microorganisms. It's the number one sweetener you should be using if you have any type of leaky gut. So manuka honey is amazing.

• 36:20Josh Axe?

  It also acts as a prebiotic. Number eight, pasture-raised eggs. Cook up those eggs in extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil or a blend of the two. Really great, easy forms of digestible protein there as well. And then steamed vegetables. This could be zucchini, green beans. We talked about carrots, butternut squash. But doing steamed vegetables or foods in a soup, very easy to digest and baked pears. The easiest of probably all fruits to digest there as well. Now you might also do blueberries or baked pear. So some baked fruit makes it even easier to digest and is a great option there as well. And I just want to say in terms of a meal plan overall, some of the best things to do when it comes to healing leaky gut is doing a lot of soups.

• 37:05Josh Axe?

  All right, so a classic chick- And vegetable soup or a beef stew. That is the ideal or doing, you know, meat like a grass-fed burger or a filet of salmon with steamed vegetables. That's sort of the ideal meal plan you want to follow when you have leaky gut. And of course, you want to cut out all of the gluten, the refined sugar, the A1 casein, alcohol, processed oils and fast foods. Those are going to inflame the gut. So we want to get those completely out of your diet. This is where I would start for the ultimate gut healing protocol and food list.

• 37:43Josh Axe?

  Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend, Dr. Dave Jockers. In fact, we've been friends for more than 20 years. He runs the podcast, The Dr. Dave Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast. Dr. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your podcast is about.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. We dive deep on functional nutrition, really how to personalize your nutrition plan for better energy, mental clarity, better hormone balance. And we talk a lot about cellular health, mitochondrial function, cell membrane. We do a deep dive on every major nutrition topic and natural health topic. So everything you need right there at your fingertips. Dr. Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast.

• 38:18Josh Axe?

  Well, I encourage you, run out and listen to the Dr. Jockers Show. Again, I'm a big fan of it. I think you will be as well.

• 38:26Josh Axe?

  All right, now let's dive into the top eight supplements for healing leaky gut. Number one here is L-glutamine. L-glutamine is amino acid that your body needs in order to repair your gut lining. It's number one, five grams twice a day. Zinc Carnosine, we know zinc is your immune mineral. It's your repair mineral. So in order to repair and heal your gut, you have to have zinc. Zinc Carnosine at 75 milligrams twice daily is the best dose. And I know this because I've worked with so many patients on this, helping them heal their gut. Number three, doing collagen peptides or something like a bone broth based protein powder. That's going to give your body what it needs to repill the gut. Number four are probiotics.

• 39:07Josh Axe?

  Now, if you have SIBO, you want to do soil-based probiotics. If you don't have SIBO, you want to do, one day do a soil-based organism. Probiotic, another day, a broad spectrum probiotic. Your broad spectrum probiotic or soil-based probiotic should also have our number five supplement for healing leaky gut. And that is Sarkamis bilardii. That should be part of it there as well. It's especially good if you have issues like candida. Number six, if you can tell your digestive system's weak, you can take digestive enzymes or hydrochloric acid and/or something to support bioflow or breakdown in digestion of fats like Tudka. Those can be great as well.

• 39:52Josh Axe?

  These kind of help support better breakdown and digestion of foods if your digestive system is overwhelmed. Now, one other big thing just to note as well is when you're eating, take your time, relax. You don't want cortisol to be high while you're eating. So watching a screen or TV or just being busy, like working while you're eating, will actually keep you from being able to digest your food. So just take the full-time relax, go on a walk after your meal for 15 minutes. That's been shown in studies to help heal your gut. Pretty amazing. We got to keep cortisol low. You got to get in that rest or digest state if you want to fully heal your gut. Number seven here, slippery elm and marshmallow. These can be done as teas or powders. I typically encourage people to do these as herbal teas.

• 40:37Josh Axe?

  Licorice root would also be on that list. So licorice root, slippery elm, marshmallow root. This helps soothe your mucosal lining of your gut, healing and sealing up leaky gut. And then I'd also say turmeric and ginger. Those are going to reduce inflammation. Ginger also helps strengthen your immune system, helps heal the gut lining. What I would do is I would take turmeric and ginger and then either licorice or slippery elm and just throw in some tea bags and make a daily tea that you drink twice a day to help heal your gut lining. And that would be a wonderful combination there to help heal and seal your gut lining. Now, I want to talk about fiber for a minute and prebiotics for leaky gut. Okay. And I want to kind of help you fine tune what's best for you.

• 41:23Josh Axe?

  If you're dealing with constipation. Cilium husk tends to be one of the better types of fiber for leaky gut. Okay. However, if you are sensitive to bloating, then cilium husk is not the best. Okay. But it is the best for if you're dealing with constipation. Now, if you are low in good bacteria and we need to feed the good bacteria in your gut, you want to do things that are more prebiotic driven than cilium, even though I love cilium, especially for constipation. Again, it's number one for that. But if you also really know you need to build up your good bacteria and maybe you also have a loose stool, then others can work better. So I want, I want to help you fine tune what type of fiber is best for you. Because by the way, I see this all the time.

• 42:06Josh Axe?

  People are putting on some of these companies that are doing probiotics. They're throwing in some of these types of fiber like raw potatoes, which if you have leaky gut, or if you have bloating or gas, you don't want that. That's, that's very hard to digest. You've ever sat there and ate a raw potato or unripe banana? So anyways, if you have leaky gut or you have bloating, you want to do more gentle types of prebiotic fiber. And one of my favorites is called PHGG. That's partially hydrogenated guar gum. It's called sun fiber. Okay. This is really great. It's low FODMAP. It's the slowest fermentation. There's a hundred studies on it. It increases the type of bacteria in your gut called Akkermansia. It's a great, great option. You want to do about five to seven grams a day of this. Another one that's more gentle and low FODMAP is acacia fiber.

• 42:51Josh Axe?

  So that's another good option. You could kind of do one or the other, the PHGG or the acacia fiber. For some people like apple pectin. You might be more familiar with modified citrus pectin, but types of pectin, they're good detoxifiers, especially if you think you're toxic or have some toxicity issues. Apple pectin is good. And then I like cilium. Okay. So those are some of my favorites for prebiotics to support probiotics. I want to walk you through, because there's so much conversation today about, do I do a prebiotic? Do I do a probiotic? Do I do a postbiotic? And some of you might maybe even heard of parabiotics. I want to walk you through these. Okay. Prebiotics are the fertilizer for probiotics. Okay. It is typically food that feeds bacteria. Okay. It's fiber from oats.

• 43:35Josh Axe?

  Or from onions, or from garlic, or bananas. But it's it's specific types of soluble fiber the body can feed off of, or probiotics can feed off of. Right? The probiotic is the live beneficial bacteria. You're gonna find that in yogurt, in kefir, and sauerkraut, and kimchi, those places. And then you have postbiotics. These are the compounds produced by the bacteria. So think about the grass, like the prebiotic. The probiotic is the cow eating it. It's live. And then it's pooping out, defecating out, postbiotics. Okay, and that could be butyrate, or propionate, or these short chain fatty acids we talked about that are great for the brain. Right? The gut produces it, helps heal the brain.

• 44:19Josh Axe?

  So postbiotics are really great, especially for those like taking butyrate. For people who may be having issues related to the gut-brain connection. And then there's something called parabiotics. These are actually some of the dead probiotics. Um, like, let's say, for instance, you pasteurize and kill a type of bacteria found in yogurt or milk, naturally occurring. There actually are still some benefits there of what's been dried up or killed. You know, you've heard this discussion before about you want to take live probiotics, not dead ones. That's true, you do want to get live probiotics. But even the dead probiotics, they actually do have some benefits, we know now, according to the medical research. Now, I want to mention, I put together a PDF for Healing Leaky Gut here.

• 45:03Josh Axe?

  That walks you, it's 25 pages, and I go through all of the supplements in more detail than we had here. I go through the foods to eat, I go through a seven day eating plan. And by the way, you can get the protocol for free. It's in the show notes, simply go to the show notes, click on the Healing Leaky Gut Guide PDF on where to download it. And you can download it for absolutely free there in the show notes. Now, I want to close with this, sort of the biblical view of the gut. In John 7:38, it says, "Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." Out of the belly, right? You think about laughter and joy coming out of the human body, okay? Belly laughs.

• 45:45Josh Axe?

  In scripture, the gut isn't just about digestion, by the way, I want to mention as well. The gut and digestion are connected to your intuition, your emotional health, your spirit, being led by the spirit, but more than anything, joy. It's sort of, it's connected to joy. And so, one of the things you do when a practice is thinking about, are you having fun in life? Are you enjoying yourself? Write down things you love to do and schedule doing those things. The Bible is clear on other things as well for our health. Fasting can have great benefits. Picking one day a week and doing some intermittent fasting, having a Sabbath rest, right? One to two days a week where you just don't work. Take Saturday or Sunday, zero work whatsoever, a total day of rest and rejuvenation, and then practice prayer, practice gratitude.

• 46:30Josh Axe?

  Do everything you can in order to build more joy, more contentment, more peace, and build your spiritual and mental health. And if you do that, you're gonna have great benefits on not only healing leaky gut because you can and will, but also just overall healing your body. All right, now, as you dive into the PDF download I have where it walks you through exactly how to heal leaky gut, I want to answer some of your most common questions because there are a few that I get constantly. One is, how long does it take me to heal leaky gut? Or how long till I feel better? People will see the most relief in about, I would say, one month to three months. You can see radical healing improvement in just one to three months. Full healing for a lot of people might take three to six months, but for the most people,

• 47:15Josh Axe?

  if they follow the protocol that I laid out in the PDF, you will see incredible healing. Or if you do many of the things I talked about in the show here, your body will heal. Another question is, can kids do this protocol? Yes, absolutely. They can do the protocol. And by the way, it'd be great for your whole family to do together. Everyone will get healthy together, but yes, kids can follow that protocol. Pregnant or breastfeeding, it's mostly safe. By the way, there's one other thing I forgot to mention that I do want to mention. If you have a chronic infection, in addition to the six steps I talked about, you may want to take one month and do a cleanse. Let's say, let's say you have a parasite. You may want to do the parasite cleanse. Or if you know you have a major issue, you may want to take oil of oregano for a couple of weeks

• 48:00Josh Axe?

  or anti-parasite herbs or anti-hpylorae herbs like berberine. You may want to add those to the protocol and take them while you're doing it for anywhere from two weeks to four weeks, and then just continue with the protocol. But if you're breastfeeding or pregnant, you want to skip that part of it. But you should be able to do everything else. Another question, do I have to give up gluten forever? Try 90 days and see how you feel. And here's the deal, I had gluten this morning. My wife made einkorn sourdough bread. So, so here's the reality. In most cases, if you switch over and do sourdough of an ancient grain or spelt or something like that, you can do it. Okay? And so you're not missing anything. Listen, I, we, we made burgers this weekend. We did sourdough bread with those. It was delicious. It was better than if I would have had a bun.

• 48:44Josh Axe?

  So you don't necessarily have to, but try it for 90 days and see how you feel. What if I have SIBO? I address SIBO quite a bit. Here's the reality with SIBO, you just need to be more careful with your fiber. And by the way, you really need to reduce stress with SIBO. Okay, with SIBO, you only want to do the soil-based organisms. So not the full-spectrum probiotics, just the SBOs. You want to walk around your meals even more so and just relax, follow, follow the stress reduction even more. Do licorice root, that's really good for SIBO. And then do the PHGG or the acacia fiber and not the other types of fiber if you have SIBO. Another question here, will my autoimmune disease go into remission? Often, yes.

• 49:27Josh Axe?

  With consistency, I've seen it happen thousands of times. So in many cases, yes. All right, so here's what I want you to walk away with. And remember, leaky gut is way more common than people realize. Okay, and the consequences are also way bigger than people believe. It's tied to autoimmune disease. Again, I couldn't stress this enough. The number one cause of autoimmune disease today is leaky gut. Also, remember, it can drive hormone imbalance and metabolic issues. It also accelerates cellular aging, causes you to age much more quickly. Here's the path forward. Remove what's harming you. Repair what's broken. Re-inoculate what's missing and reframe how you think.

• 50:10Josh Axe?

  And in 30 to 90 days, your gut can be entirely healed and completely restored. Now, a couple of things before we take off. Take action right now. Wherever you are, subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. And also it'll allow you to continue to learn and grow in your wisdom. So you can not only help yourself, but you can help others. Also, share this with someone that's struggling, whether you want to share it on your social media platform or text it to a friend. Thank you so much for sharing this. And I just want to let you know as well, I'm praying for your health. God bless you and I can't wait to see you on the next episode of the Dr. Josh Ak Show.