Leaky gut syndrome.  Sounds gross right? Well it is, but probably not in the way you are thinking. It's leaky gut syndrome, not leaky butt. No poop in this post.

 Leaky gut syndrome is a medical condition where undigested bits of food, and toxins are able to pass through the lining of your stomach and intestines and get into your blood. In a healthy gut, there are lots of bacteria that allow us to digest food properly. When there aren't enough of these little guys, food and toxins are able to leak through and get into your blood.  The thing is, almost all of us have this problem to some degree.

What happens when you get the gut leaks? A lot of bad things. Research into this subject is still somewhat new, but it has been suggested that conditions ranging from food allergies and rashes, all the way to autism and ADD/ADHD may be the result of a leaky gut.

 Why are our guts so messed up? It pretty much boils down to how badly our food supply has been screwed with, and our over reliance on antibiotics. The bacteria in our guts are the "biotics" that the drugs we take are "anti-ing". Antibiotics work by indiscriminately wiping out all the bacteria in your gut, and in fact it's usually the good bacteria that get killed first. So after taking antibiotics, or eating them from hormone loaded meats, your gut has no protection. Throw some pesticides and herbicides into the mix, and all of a sudden you have a sieve instead of a stomach lining, and a laundry list of toxins having a pool party in your blood.

 What can we do? This can be reversed with a sensible diet that is full of good bacteria. You may want to supplement with probiotics too. I've started trying to heal my own gut, after noticing a mild allergy to eggs. Just recently I've been getting groggy after eating eggs, and from everything I've read, it's probably a sign of some gut health issues. I'm taking a probiotic now, eating more fermented foods like kimchi and sauerkraut, and staying away from anything processed. After just over a week with these probiotic foods, my egg issues are gone.
For people interested in learning more, check out Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. She runs a clinic set up to treat people with Gut and Psychology syndrome or Gut and Physiology syndrome (both are called GAPs). There are some miraculous stories of people, children in particular, recovering from diseases that would normally have them throwing back bottles of pills to manage their symptoms without treating the causes. The ones that interest me the most are the children recovering from learning disorders, and mental health problems.  The rise of autism over the past thirty years coincides so perfectly with the advice from nutritional agencies to eat low fat, high carb diets that it is hard to believe there is no relationship between the two.  This research into GAPs seems to be hinting at refined carbs as having a direct influence on the rise of mental health disorders. In any case, kids recovering from learning disorders, and mental health problems is something we all want to see more of! The best part is that it is being done with nothing but real food. No doping the kid into la-la-land and sticking him in the corner of the classroom.

 This stuff is a little different from what I usually talk about, but it all boils down to eating healthy food.  We don't pay enough attention to the quality of the food we eat, and we are paying the price.  We all remember a handful of classmates who were the "ADD kids". They needed all kinds of special attention, and worst of all, piles of medicine, but never seemed to get any better. What if all they needed was a better diet?