What Is Leaky Gut? Why You Need to Heal Your Gut – 9 Ways to Start Immediately!

Can you heal the gut? Do gut healing diets actually work? Here’s how gut healing is possible. 

It houses 80% of your immune system, the food you eat, and your poop. The gut is the clearinghouse for your body’s health. When things aren’t running smoothly down there the answer is often to heal the leaky gut. But what is leaky gut?

When gut health is in order healthy foods impact us more, bad things impact us less, and our body can stop fighting gut inflammation and move on to more important things. It seems like almost any health problem we have from skin rashes, to stomach pain, and mental fog, the answer is “heal your gut.”

But what does “heal the gut” actually mean??

You may know how to heal a cold, a headache, or a skinned knee, but how do you heal the gut?

Someone asked me that after she’d seen the advice without enough explanation a few too many times. It’s an important question to address head-on!

The basic answer is this:

Give your gut a rest!

When you’re sick with a horrible cold, fever, or stomach bug, what do you do? If you want to heal as fast as possible … you take a break and rest.

You may take immune-boosting herbs or try to knock out the nasty bugs with essential oils or homeopathy (and you definitely want to hydrate), but if you don’t slow down and rest first, recovery will be slow.

When you skin your knee a bandage helps keep dirt out and prevent your pants from re-scratching the tender skin. The gut is the same.

When the gut is bombarded with processed foods, harmful pathogens, and foods you’re sensitive or allergic to – gluten, dairy, whatever – it needs a break. It needs a rest from not just those foods, but anything else that will “scratch it” and prevent healing.

It’s like watching paint dry.

If you want the paint to dry … give it a rest before you touch it.

If you want the gut lining to heal… don’t scratch it.

What is Leaky Gut?

Our guts are lined with tiny, hair-like things called villi. These villi stand up so the small intestine can absorb nutrients from food, then pass them on to the bloodstream. Imagine your intestinal wall with little, jelly-fish like fingers standing tall. Like a forest of sea anemones waving in the flow of a tide pool.

These little dudes are like the gateway from gut to blood. When villi work right, they allow the right amounts and types of nutrients to enter the bloodstream. Villi also trap less than fully digested food and attack it with enzymes so the body can finish digesting them. ^(source)

RELATED: How to Get Rid of Stomach Aches.

They should act like Weeble Wobbles as food passes by –  and never fall down.

If your gut is damaged you can have leaky gut symptoms like these:

• Abdominal bloating 1-2 hours after eating
• Less than one bowel movement a day
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Yeast and candida infections
• Bad breath
• Strong body odor
• Increased pulse after eating
• Sensitivity to certain foods
  ^(source)

When that happens,  the villi have been damaged and the line of defense between food and your body are lying down on the job.

The gateway is open.

Partially digested food, pathogens, and the wrong kinds of particles sneak in the backdoor to the bloodstream where they can wreak havoc on your immune system and cause inflammation.

Give it a Rest with a Gut Healing Diet 

To get villi healthy again we need to stop damaging them. Stop sending foods through the gaps that will scratch up your paint job so to speak.

This doesn’t mean you have to go on a water only diet. However it does mean you have to cut out certain foods and emphasize others. Just like you’d put a bandage over a scraped knee and don’t crawl around the floor for awhile.

Rather than experiment one by one to see which foods are your triggers, it’s easier to cut them all out, heal your gut, then reintroduce foods one at a time to see if there any sensitivities remain. Different leaky gut healing diets, like AIP and GAPS, have specific instructions for how to reintroduce certain foods.

Sometimes it feels like there are 100 things you have to do to get healthy.

And in reality, there are like 100 little baby steps. Let’s focus on the big picture, and break everything you can do down to nine different big-picture categories.

#1 Gut Damaging Foods to Stop Eating Right Now

The scratchy foods that bother your gut might be a little different than what bother someone else, but here are some common culprits.

Gluten  – This includes wheat, oats (which are often contaminated with gluten), rye, barley, and others. ^(source)

All grains – Including corn. Some leaky gut healing protocols also nix pseudograins, which include amaranth, buckwheat, and quinoa.

Dairy –Milk, soft cheeses and other unfermented dairy products. Some leaky gut healing diets allow butter, while others don’t. Some plans encourage fermented dairy, like yogurt, while others say stay away. This will depend on if you’re sensitive/allergic to all dairy, even fermented.

Sugar – White processed sugar, maple syrup, cane sugar, and any sugar in all forms, including high sugar fruits. The GAPS and AIP diet allow some raw honey in moderation. ^(source)

Nightshades – This class of foods includes peppers (including cayenne and paprika seasoning), tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes (not sweet potatoes though), tomatillos, goji berry, and pimentos. ^(source)

Beans and legumes – These are high in starches, carbs, and other things hard for the gut to digest, especially for those with candida issues. The GAPS diet allows only green beans and fermented navy beans, while AIP recommends no beans at all. And peanuts are technically a legume, so they’re out too (at least at first).

Nuts and seeds – The main gut healing diets eliminate all nuts and seeds at first, but some can be reintroduced later.

Fruit – Fruit is packed with fiber and can be a good source of nutrition, but it’s also high in sugar. For a leaky gut healing diet and especially for those who have candida, it’s best to skip most fruits for now.

Vegetable oil – Canola, soy, corn and other processed, refined oils are big sources of inflammation in the body. Studies have shown the high Omega-6 content in unsaturated vegetable oils have lead to serious health issues, like cancer and obesity. ^{Sources: 1, 2}

Processed junk food – If your great-great-grandma wouldn’t recognize it as food, chances are your gut won’t either. This includes processed meats like lunch meat and salami, which have been linked with damage and increased cancer risk.

Alcohol – Even moderate amounts of alcohol can cause significant gut damage. Researchers also found it feeds bad bacteria in the gut, so there’s more of it to slip through the damaged gut lining. While a glass of wine does have some health benefits, gut health experts recommend to skip it for now.

Caffeine –Caffeine messes with our adrenal glands and cortisol levels, which can then effect the endocrine system, the gut, and worsen autoimmune disease. This includes coffee, chocolate, tea, and energy drinks. While caffeine is generally considered anti-inflammatory (yay!) coffee is more complicated.

Our genes may play a role in who benefits from coffee, and who sees damage and inflammation. Bottom line: skip (or greatly reduce) caffeine on a leaky gut healing diet.

#2 Got Candida?

Sugar cravings, digestive issues, fungal infections … these are all signs candida may be the culprit. Candida is naturally found in our gut, but when things get out of balance it can take over and cause problems. You can do a quick saliva candida test to see.

Heal Your Gut, one of my sources, demonstrates:

If you have candida overgrowth, it can help to nix fungus-promoting foods like cheese, mushrooms, vinegar, and more and add more raw garlic to your diet. You can also add in probiotic strains specifically for candida overgrowth.

#3 Does Histamine Not Play Nice With You?

If you have candida issues many leaky gut health gurus recommend low carb diets and maybe stay away from fermented food and vinegar. This is also true for people who have problems with histamine. Headaches, dizziness, nausea, sneezing, congestion, and fatigue are some signs of a histamine intolerance.

Still not sure? Pastor SJ outlines how to reduce histamines here. These foods are some of the top culprits.

• Anything fermented: Alcohol, sauerkraut, vinegar, yogurt, kombucha, etc.
• Cured or smoked meats
• Tomatoes, avocado, eggplant and spinach
• Dried fruit
• Cow milk
• Nuts

I can’t tell you how many doctors have told me skin issues like eczema likely aren’t related to food. Dr Shiela Kilbane is convinced otherwise. In this interview I talked to her about how she became convinced, and how eliminating one food can make a HUGE difference for eczema.

#4 Gut Damaging Toxins to Avoid

There’s more to this gut healing thing than food. Toxins hide in household cleaners and skincare products and can wreck havoc on the gut. Endocrine disruptors from plastics and certain chemicals change what’s in our gut and how well our gut works. Scientists now even point to light at night as a strong endocrine disruptor! ^{Sources: 1, 2}

Here are some non-food things to avoid.

• Food that comes wrapped in plastic. This is easier when we avoid processed foods!
• Conventional cleaning products
• Toxic personal care products, like toothpaste, soap, deodorant, etc.
• Drugs and antibiotics which have a major impact on gut health.
• Avoid blue light at night from screens

Want to be able to easily refer back to this list of gut-healing steps so you don’t forget any of the actionable tips?

I made a printable checklist of what to seek out and what to avoid to promote gut healing, and I’d love to send it to you!

Get the Gut-Healing Checklist

#5 Gut Healing Foods to Focus On

Step one is take away the scratchy, irritating foods. Step two is add in nourishing, gut healing foods to repair the damage. Here’s what you need to focus on to heal leaky gut syndrome.

Fermented Foods

Yes, I know I just got done talking about candida and histamine, but fermented foods can also be great for healing leaky gut. They’re a cheap, natural source of probiotics the gut needs. Some good options are sauerkraut, fermented veggies, and fermented dairy.

If you have issues with candida or histamine then it’s recommended to skip these though. Different healing diets allow fermented dairy, others skip it in the beginning stages, while others say to skip it altogether.

Lots of Liquids

Our kidneys need enough water to do their job and eliminate toxins in the body. Not enough water and constipation can become an issue too, which is another key way the body gets rid of toxins. Water, herbal tea, and bone broth are all excellent options.

Try to stay away from anything sugary (like soda or juice), alcohol, and caffeine. Homemade bone broth (not chicken flavored water in a box from the store) is fabulous for healing the gut. Broth is high in minerals, gelatin (use the coupon KS10 for 10% off!), and nutrients for leaky gut repair.

Healthy Fats

Fat was good, then it was bad, now it’s good again? Certain vegetable oils, like hydrogenated ones, are inflammatory and hard on the body. However, good fats are important for healing the gut.

Saturated animal fats from pastured or grass-fed animals are high in anti-inflammatory Omega 3 and have been the backbone of traditional eating for centuries. Minimally processed vegetable oils are also excellent choices.

The GAPS diet allows butter if tolerated, and both GAPS and AIP encourage ghee or clarified butter.

Here are some healthy fats to focus on.

• Coconut oil
• Olive oil
• Ghee or clarified butter
• Lard and tallow from pasture-raised animals
• Butter (maybe, see above)

Vegetables

Vegetables seem to be the backbone of any healthy eating plan and a gut healing diet is no exception. Green vegetables and seaweeds are high in chlorophyll to help the body cleanse toxins. And sulphur rich vegetables, like garlic, onion, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, and cabbage, help our body make glutathione, our main drainage antioxidant.

It’s best to stay away from starchy veggies which feed candida and are hard on a healing gut though, like potatoes, beets, and parsnips.

Fruit

While fruit does have health benefits, it’s also high in sugar, which spells trouble for healing leaky gut. Low sugar citrus fruits like lemons and limes are helpful though since they’re high in the antioxidant vitamin C and cleansing. Low sugar, antioxidant rich berries are another good option in moderation and include raspberries and blueberries.

Start Fresh

Healing the gut is a lot like reverting to being a baby – you hardly eat anything and then add gentle, soft things one food at a time. Except most babies eat grains first…unless they follow a more traditional baby diet. My last baby’s first foods were bone broth, soft-cooked eggs, and avocados – perfect gut-healing foods.

It allows your gut to start over.

#6 Supplements and Herbs for Healing the Gut

You don’t need all of these supplements by any means, but they all can offer some leaky gut healing benefits. The digestive system starts long before our colon begins, so addressing issues further up the line (like heartburn from low stomach acid), is a necessary piece of the puzzle.

• Cod liver oil for vitamins A and D
• Digestive Enzymes
• HCL (aka stomach acid)
• Probiotics – Soil-based probiotics are often recommended for those with SIBO. See my recommendations for brands of probiotics below.

Supplements to Increase Glutathione:

• N-Acetyl Cysteine
• Quercetin
• CoEnzyme Q-10
• Astaxanthin
• Turmeric/curcumin

Herbs for Cooking and Supplements

These herbs are a nutritious addition when used in culinary amounts in food and great for a healthy, happy gut. It’s easy to throw together a list of helpful herbs, but everyone is different and not every medicinal herb is the best fit for everyone. It’s important to do your research and/or talk with a natural health practitioner before you take any herb in large, therapeutic doses.

• basil
• parsley
• coriander
• black pepper
• turmeric
• cinnamon
• cloves
• dill
• mint
• garlic
• ginger
• oregano
• paprika
• rosemary
• thyme

Some Quality Probiotics

• Just Thrive Probiotics – this one can be taken during antibiotics and not be rendered ineffective, which almost all other probiotics are! It’s the top-recommended probiotic overall by Paleo Mom Sarah Ballantyne. 😮 (Be sure to use the code Katie15 for 15% off; also found on Amazon and from Perfect Supplements where you can use the coupon KS10 for 10% off!)
• Seed Daily Synbiotic – the new player in the field but recommended by superstars like Chris Kresser for its unique probiotic/prebiotic synergy. Here’s my full review including a number of surprises for my thinking and a 15% off code!
• Note: If you’re struggling with digestion, especially constipation, or you feel like you really need to populate your gut with healthy probiotics, I would recommend Saccharomyces Boulardii in addition to any other you choose (except any above which include this strain). Saccharomyces Boulardii is research-proven to get through the digestive tract without being killed, which is rare. 
• Balance One probiotics with a unique time-release formula (use the code KITCHENS15 at either Balance One’s site or even Amazon to save 15% either place! Wow! Use the code at checkout on Amazon btw.)

For Little Ones (we use all of these):

• Mary Ruth’s liquid probiotic is a liquid probiotic that doesn’t need to be refrigerated and tastes like…nothing! It’s my new favorite for administering to kids! (Use code KCRF15 for 15% off!)
• WellBelly by WellFuture (9 strains of probiotics in apple and banana carrier – it’s a powder)
• Buddies in my Belly probiotic powder (2 strains of probiotics + potato starch carrier and prebiotics) or chewable tablets

• Biokult – highly recommended by many, including the GAPS diet
• Klaire Labs Pro-biotic complex V-caps or Ther-Biotic Complete (25 billion CFU)
• Probiophage DF (7 dairy-free strains)
• Transformation Enzymes (5 billion CFUs that may get through digestive tract…)
• Primal Blueprint (6 strains, 10 billion CFUs)
• Pharmax high potency (4 strains + FOS) or long-term HLC maintenance (2 strains)
• Pro-Bio from Enzymedica (8 strains)
• Syntol from Arthur Andrew Medical (13.6 billion CFUs with prebiotic, spore germinating blend, yeast cleanse)
• Smidge (8 strains, formulated for sensitive digestive systems, allergen-free, also have an infant probiotic powder)

Digestive Herbs for gut healing 

These herbs stimulate and tone the digestive system and are considered safe for most people. Burdock and dandelion are also prebiotics that feed beneficial gut bacteria.

• Dandelion
• Burdock
• Fennel

#7 Healthy Habits to Start (or Keep Doing!) for Healing the Gut

Regular exercise is important, but it’s also helpful to heal a leaky gut. Try low-intensity options like walks, yoga, or interval-style workouts for no more than 20 minutes.

Chill out

According to Harvard medical school “stress can trigger and worsen gastrointestinal pain and other symptoms, and vice versa.” Relaxation techniques, prayer, deep breathing, and mediation can all help calm a racing mind and relieve stress.

Here’s a helpful technique from Live Pain Free:

Catch Some Zzz’s

Without enough sleep our body can’t make the repairs it needs to be healthy, but it also has a direct impact on our gut health. Our circadian rhythms and gut microbiome are connected and when that natural rhythm is disrupted our gut health suffers.

It works the other way around too. When our gut is out of whack, it can make it hard for us to get quality sleep.

#8 Jumpstart Gut Healing With Drainage Pathway Support

When your liver and digestive system are overloaded with toxins, it can be hard to heal. Here are some simple ways to support your drainage pathways and jumpstart a gut healing plan.

• green vegetable drinks
• increase water intake
• a food cleanse
• sauna
• dry brushing
• epsom salt baths
• oil pulling
• resolve outstanding emotional issues too!

Phew! Was that 100 little steps to take to work on gut healing yet? It might be getting close…and if you’d like more, experts will walk you through it:

#9 Programs and Resources to Heal Your Gut

I’m guessing about every adult in America (and most kids too!) would benefit from some gut-healing protocols. But you don’t have to do this alone or make things up as you go along.

There are a few different diet programs formulated specifically to give guts a rest or heal them. Some are meant to be temporary until you heal and others people with chronic diseases may need to follow forever.

Some recommended strategies, like the GAPS diet, may take over a year to complete. Many others are only 3-4 weeks… very doable.

The main gut healing diets are:

• GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) Diet
• SCD Diet
• Maker’s Diet
• AIP (Autoimmune Paleo)

I cover how those gut healing diets compare here.

If you want to try a grain-free or gut-healing diet, these resources might help you:

• Grain-Free Elimination Diet Meal Plans : all my resources and recipes, all in one place
• Coconut Flour in Baking here at KS
• Beyond Grain and Dairy or Baking with Coconut Flour by Starlene Stewart
• Traditional Cooking School cooking eCourses, including allergy-friendly cooking
• 60-Day Gut Healing Protocol from mindbodygreen

The next obvious question…”How do you know when your gut is healed?“

Want to be able to easily refer back to this list of gut-healing steps so you don’t forget any of the actionable tips?

I made a printable checklist of what to seek out and what to avoid to promote gut healing, and I’d love to send it to you!

Get the Gut-Healing Checklist

Sources Used on Healing the Gut:

• Heal Your Gut by Lee Holmes, Certified Holistic Health Coach
• 3 Weeks to Vitality by Mary Vance, Certified Nutrition Consultant
• Inflammation Free Zone by Amy Hager, RDN, CDE
• The Herbarium from The Herbal Academy of New England
• Trust Your Intuition by Jenni Wilson, MH
• Live Pain Free by Robin Konie, CLMA RSNT
• Gut Thrive in 5 (link no longer available)