Diet Wise Academy

Malabsorption and Leaky Gut 235

Three main problems

If you want to know more about the digestive process and the functional
anatomy of the alimentary canal, I suggest you check out one of the
many available texts. I merely introduced this outline sketch of what takes
place in the gut in order that you may understand the rest of this chapter,
which focuses on three principal ways in which things can go wrong:

•    The digestive breakdown process may malfunction, leading to

incomplete digestion. This results in foodstuffs being absorbed

in a form capable of setting up specific allergic or intolerance

reactions.

•    Malabsorption, which means that proper nutrients are not

taken up from the bowel, as they should be, or not in sufficient

quantities, leading to impaired nutrition.

•    Lastly, the gut may absorb digestive refuse that it would be better

not to do, a problem we call “leaky gut.”

These evils do not occur on a one-or-the-other basis, but tend to come
together in varying degrees. Indeed food toxins and allergens can cause
malabsorption and leaky gut, because of their destructive effect on the
intestinal living. Let us take each in turn and see how it relates to food
reactions and overload.

Enzyme deficiency

Many people with food intolerance have impaired digestion. Incomplete
digestion of foods which then pass through a leaky gut into the bloodstream
is a major contributing factor to the problem of food allergies and genetic
food incompatibility. It means recognizable food molecules are spread
throughout the body and are thus very likely to set up adverse reactions.
The resulting antigen-antibody complexes may settle in any organ and cause
symptoms related to that organ, a process similar to what we call “serum
sickness,” which was seen after incompatible blood transfusions and still
turns up occasionally after injection of drugs or antidote sera.
There are several things you can do to improve your digestion. The
most basic is to pay attention to how you eat. Take your time; chew your
food very thoroughly. Apart from the fact that ptyalin enzyme is added in