Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. This disease causes inflammation and ulcers in the lining of your large intestine. Symptoms that you may experience can be diarrhea, abdominal pain, and blood in your stool. It is an autoimmune condition, meaning that it's caused by a problem with your immune system. There are things you can do to help reduce the inflammation and treat your symptoms.
The link to Leaky Gut issues
Another problem that can come from this disease is leaky
gut. Your epithelial lining of your intestines only let small molecules get
through to your bloodstream. Leaky gut is when this lining starts to let larger
molecules such as food proteins, toxins, and bacteria get through. This
triggers an inflammatory immune response and it creates antibodies.
By eating foods that your body cannot digest properly you
are creating more inflammation. This includes food sensitivities. All this in
turn reduces your good bacteria in your gut and allows for the growth of bad
bacteria.
When the flora in your gut is imbalanced it’s called
dysbiosis. These bacterial changes in your gut cause your body to start to ferment
your food in the intestines without being digested. This leads to undesirable
digestive symptoms. Your immune system will also recognize the new bacteria and
yeast as another offending invader. This will cause you more inflammation, more
intestinal permeability, and more immune responses in the bloodstream. When you
have an excess of the bacteria Klebsiella and Prevotella it can also trigger
more inflammation causing ulcerative colitis.
Triggers to cause Ulcerative Colitis
There are different things that may trigger ulcerative
colitis. One of these things is food sensitivities. These are different to food
allergies as a food sensitivity can have a delayed reaction. Your body may not
respond to the certain food for up to 72 hours after it’s consumed. Some
sensitivities can include wheat, yeast, gluten, dairy, and sugar. Notice that
gluten sensitivity is not the same as wheat and yeast. Gluten free is of no
consequence hardly even though it is being sold as a ‘health food’ by the
supermarkets. The reason these sensitivities can trigger ulcerative colitis is
because they cause inflammation. There are many other foods that can do this
and the best way to find out which is to have a test.
Another trigger can be pesticides. Exposure to pesticides
can contribute to autoimmunity issues as pesticides can disrupt the endocrine system.
Food additives and preservatives can also be triggering
for some people. Industrial food additives can cause big problems with your gut
barrier function, and increase the leakages. This can lead to the entry of
foreign antigens, causing an immune response and activate the inflammatory,
autoimmune response.
Another trigger is heavy metals. These can influence your
immune response by altering how you respond to disease. The metals to pay the
most attention to include mercury, lead, cadmium, and aluminium.
Infections can also influence your gut health issues. A
single organism may be able to trigger even more than one autoimmune disease.
If you are struggling with symptoms that are
unexplainable it could indicate ulcerative colitis. Give us a call, message or
text to www.stressfreehealthmanagement.com to
see how we can help you find the cause of your unexplained illnesses.
