Gut and Psychology/Physiology Syndrome (GAPS)

INTRODUCTION: PART 2A

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

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!

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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 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, and the concept of a microbial community taught in their medical schools, after Ilya Metchnikoff the "radical scientist" of his time received in 1908 the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his work in immunology.

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 cholera but never got sick. He tested on two volunteers of which one was not affected 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 everyday 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 human digestive tract is a very long tube open to the external enviroment 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. So 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 Sydrome Dr. 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.

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, 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 until they are removed through stool. Comparing the usage of microbes in the bioremediation process of contaminated soil, from the same book Dr. 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 ...

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 through out 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 controlled by our microbes; so the health of your newly born cells will be predetermined by the health of your microbial community.

Cell regeneration is quite 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 cell regeneration process is about two to four days for these cells. Microbes in this process not only act as protectors of these cells but they also produce substances which nourish them and provide them with energy. If the microbial community is imbalanced the cell regeneration process goes wrong: amongst other things, the maturation of the enterocyte cells goes well beyond two to four days, the cell cycle activity in the crypts (the birth place so to speak of these cells) gets significantly suppressed leading to the birth of less cells and of unhealthy cells. The state of the cells themselves will be abnormal making them unfit to properly digest and absorb food leading to malnutrition. As this degenerative cycle repeats the ground is laid for disease as the gut wall becomes increasingly porous and leaky.

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

Those "building materials" are high fat animal foods as they are not only biochemically similar to our cells but they are also the only foods the human stomach can fully digest: meat, fish, eggs, raw or fermented dairy. Only foods which are properly digested are absorbed as nutrients to feed our very hard working, hungry organs ensuring they are not malnourished. A little known fact is that plants, for the most part, are "Indigestible" to the human stomach and so are unable to nourish us to any extent! They do have a role in the human body as cleansers/ detoxifiers, keeping us clean on the inside and are very much a part of the GAPS diet which allow them.

The role of the microbes as well as GAPS foods will continue in next blog post.

References

1) Lewis Danny (7 May 2015). "Probiotics Exist Thanks to a Man Who Drank Cholera". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 21 June2022