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"All disease begins in the gut" — Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine
What Hippocrates knew 2000 years ago, we’re only just discovering: Our gut is responsible for a lot more than processing the food we eat. With the surface area of a football field, our digestive tract is a vital immune barrier, protecting us from disease and contamination. By expelling and killing foreign invaders, it accounts for 70 percent of our immune system.
Leaky gut occurs when the tight junctions that seal the intestinal tract malfunction. These junctions control which nutrients and nourishment passes into the blood stream. As food is digested and moved out of the body, a healthy digestive tract prevents toxins, microbes and undigested food particles from seeping out.
When the junctions break down, all kinds of particles contaminate the bloodstream that should have never gotten through. The immune system responds to the particles as if they were foreign invaders.
Eventually the result is chronic inflammation, which leads to a variety of problems, such as allergies, autoimmune disease, eczema, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, rheumatoid arthritis, weight gain and diabetes.
Studies in respected medical journals, like The Lancet, The British Medical Journal and the International Journal of Gastroenterology have found that leaky gut causes several autoimmune diseases and many other health issues, including fatigue, arthritis, acne, depression and food allergies.
Some of our “best ideas” have backfired and are actually tearing our guts apart and destroying our health:
- Hybrid grain that grows fast but is nearly indigestible
- Refined sugar that creates insulin resistance
- Antibiotics that kill even the friendly bacteria we need
- Pesticides that deplete the soil until vegetables lose 85 percent of their nutrients
Eat Dirt with Dr. Josh Axe
"Eat Dirt will identify the specific gut types of leaky gut syndrome. Once viewers identify their own Gut Type
Our lifestyle does the rest. Almost everyone has swallowed ibuprofen for a headache, consumed processed foods, failed to eat enough fiber, taken an antibiotic, or experienced chronic stress. All of these undermine the integrity of the gut.
Leaky gut is a hot topic in health communities these days, but no one has identified the five most common Gut Types and designed a specific program to heal each gut type—until now.
“Eat Dirt” will identify the specific gut types of leaky gut syndrome. Once viewers identify their own Gut Type, they can heal their gut more quickly, by following a plan that is designed specifically for them.
Viewers will learn the symptoms of leaky gut, and that leaky gut can make you fat and tired, or plagued by aches and pains. Prebiotics and probiotics found in soil (“eat dirt”) are key players in keeping our guts healthy, but all too often, we have been cut off from them in our sterile modern lives.
Viewers will also discover exactly what foods to eat and to avoid, what supplements can speed up their progress and how important it is to take probiotics.
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Dr. Josh Axe is on Facebook, Google +, Pinterest and YouTube.
