Gut and Psychology/Physiology Syndrome (GAPS)

This blog is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as health or medical advice.

INTRODUCTION: PART 2A

This blog post is a continuation of Introduction Part 1, my first "That Gut Feeling" post, in February, so if you have not done so please read it as it provides context for this post.

I am excited to include the first Game Changer's Video: The making of GAPS Meat Stock (Very Different), so please check it out in the GAME CHANGERS section of the blog!

The Higher Education Lag

A few years ago, I took an online physiology course at Duke University; there we studied all the systems of the human body including the digestive system. During the entirety of the course, the word "microbiome" or "microbes" was never mentioned!

It was a bit of a surprise, as by then, being the new frontier in Western science, it had been somewhat amply researched and some of its roles—which is the purpose of this post—known. I came to realize that new scientific information trickles slowly into the curriculum of universities and medical schools , certainly in the West.

This was not the case for this subject in the former Soviet Union, where microbes had been researched intensively for well over a hundred years. The concept of a microbial community was taught in their medical schools ever since Ilya Metchnikoff, the "radical scientist" of his time, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908 for his foundational work in immunology.

Ilya Metchnikoff: The Cholera Experiments

Metchnikoff was a keen observer who made a number of invaluable discoveries throughout his lifetime. For example:

During the 1892 cholera epidemic in France, he was surprised by the fact that the disease affected only some people but not others when they were equally exposed to the infection. To understand the differences in susceptibility to the disease, he drank a sample of live cholera bacteria but never got sick. He tested this further on two volunteers, of which one was completely unaffected while the other almost died. He hypothesised that the difference in cholera infection was due to differences in intestinal microbes, speculating that those who have plenty of beneficial ones would be healthier. (1)

He developed a theory that aging was due to pathogenic microbes in the gut and that lactic acid in probiotics could prolong life; he therefore drank sour milk every day of his life. Honoured as the Father of the innate immune system, he would go on to receive a number of scientific awards and honorary recognitions for his work.

The Inner "Soil" and the Magical Mucus Blanket

The human digestive tract is a very long tube open to the external environment from its beginning to its end. According to some researchers, the absorptive surface of this tract is about the size of a tennis court, maybe even larger!

This long tube is covered from beginning to end with a thick layer of microbes living as a complex community in their own biofilm, a sticky substance they produce to make homes for themselves. A major part of this biofilm is mucus, which is produced by the gut wall itself. This mucus forms the basis for what we can call the "soil" inside us, serving not only as a barrier between the gut wall and the microbes but also as a major habitat for those microbes. In her book "Gut and Physiology Syndrome", Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride writes:

"Mucus looks quite magical under the microscope; it contains large molecules shaped like bottlebrushes, each made out of a central protein backbone with strings of sugar coming from it. These molecules are called mucins; they give mucus its gel-like consistency. Between these bottlebrushes there is a whole 'soup' of nutrients for microbes to live on ... but only in the outer layers of the mucus cover. As we go deeper into the mucus, it contains chemicals and immune factors which do not allow microbes close; by the time we penetrate to the gut wall it looks almost sterile. Every mucus membrane in the body produces this magical cover ... whether it is our nose, throat, sinuses, lungs, digestive system, urinary tract or elsewhere."

The Inner Guard: Defense, Detoxification, and Chelation

One of the major roles of the microbes in the digestive tract is to protect us from invaders and toxins. They have many tools with which to do this, one of them is by producing and excreting powerful antifungals, antivirals, and antibacterials, as well as many other substances, most of which have not yet been researched. This not only keeps their own community in order and balanced but protects the gut wall from any microbes and parasites that come from the outside.

They work closely with the immune system, engaging it to appropriately respond to invaders. They also protect us from damaging chemicals we may consume with food and drink, or other harmful chemicals produced as by-products of digestion. They do so by neutralising those substances and, if unable to, they chelate them—that is, they hold on to them tightly until they are safely removed through stool. Comparing this usage of microbes to the bioremediation processes used to clean up contaminated industrial soil, Dr. Campbell-McBride writes:

"... If the gut flora cannot destroy the chemicals it will chelate them... Like the claw of a crab, chelators in your gut flora grab hold of toxins until they are taken out of the body...This happens to toxic metals (such as mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and aluminum), carcinogens and many other chemicals....gut bacteria are some of the strongest chelating agents we know protecting us from the most harmful chemicals in existence ... bacteria can neutralise and chelate chemicals even when they are dead;...research shows that when the gut flora is damaged and cannot neutralise and chelate toxins, our digestive system absorb large amounts of toxic metals and other damaging chemicals ..."

The Miracle of Rapid Cell Regeneration

Cell regeneration is a marvelous process in the human body whereby our hard-working cells die and are replaced by newly born cells. It is an ongoing process throughout our lifetime which allows our body to regenerate, rejuvenate, and to heal from damage. For example, in three to four months you will have a "new" liver, as most of your liver cells will shed and be replaced by newly born cells. Animal research has shown that the whole process of cell regeneration is deeply influenced by our microbes; so the health of your newly born cells will be predetermined by the health of your microbial community.

Cell regeneration is incredibly rapid in the gut lining, where special epithelial cells called enterocytes work extremely hard to complete the digestion and absorption of nutrients from food. The normal cell regeneration process is only about two to four days for these specific cells. Microbes in this process not only act as protectors of these cells, but they also produce substances which nourish them and provide them directly with energy.

If the microbial community is imbalanced, the cell regeneration process goes wrong. Amongst other things, the lifespan and maturation of the enterocyte cells goes well beyond two to four days, and the cell cycle activity in the crypts (the birth place, so to speak, of these cells) gets significantly suppressed. This leads to the birth of fewer cells and highly unhealthy, malformed cells. The state of the cells themselves becomes abnormal, making them completely unfit to properly digest and absorb food, leading to severe malnutrition. As this degenerative cycle repeats, the ground is laid for chronic disease as the gut wall becomes increasingly porous and leaky.

Rebuilding the House: Healing and Sealing with GAPS

One of the core ways we use the GAPS diet is to specifically target this rapid cell regeneration process of the enterocyte cells in the gut lining. We take advantage of this rapid cycle to repair the lining by providing it with the most appropriate structural "building materials" (nutrients) with which to rebuild healthy enterocyte cells from the roots up. At the same time, we introduce real probiotic foods to re-establish microbial balance to the orchestrators of this process, and by doing so, we will "heal and seal" that porous, leaky gut wall.

Those foundational "building materials" are high-fat animal foods. They are not only biochemically similar to our own cell walls, but they are also the only foods the human stomach can fully digest: meat, fish, eggs, and raw or fermented dairy. Only foods which are properly digested can be cleanly absorbed as pure nutrients to feed our very hard-working, hungry organs, ensuring they are no longer malnourished. A little known fact is that plants, for the most part, are indigestible to the human stomach, acting instead as sweeping cleansers rather than structural building materials.

REFERENCES & HISTORICAL CONTEXT

• (1) Historical Note on Metchnikoff: Metchnikoff, E. (1905). Immunity in Infective Diseases. Cambridge University Press. [Documentation of early 1892 cholera self-experimentation and susceptibility research].

• The Biology of Mucins and Gut Biofilms: Campbell-McBride, N. (2020). Gut and Physiology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autoimmune Illnesses, Arthritis, Gut Problems, Fatigue, Hormonal Problems, Neurological Disease. Medinform Publishing.

• The Principles of Bacterial Chelation (Bioremediation): Monachese, M., Burton, J. P., & Reid, G. (2012). Bioremediation and tolerance of toxic heavy metals and metalloids by micro-organisms and probiotics. Nutrients, 4(11), 1697-1712.