• inflammatory bowel diseases such (eg. Crohn's and ulcerative colitis)
• chronic inflammatory arthritides
• acne
• psoriasis
• eczema
• urticaria
• irritable bowel syndrome
• autism
to name just a few. Is leaky gut the cause, an effect, or a consequence of something common to all of these conditions?
In a sense the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus can be considered to be "outside" of the body with special structures (intestinal walls) and processes (digestion) in place to allow it to select what it needs and dispose of everything else as waste. The "inside" of the body is a much more controlled environment that needs to be protected from the ingested material being processed and disposed of. This is maintained by cells that are conformed in "tight junction" interactions where their membranes are sealed together by multiple strands of special protein complexes that form a barrier that is virtually impermeable to fluids.
Acetaldehyde exposure, as studied in relation to alcoholism where it is a known toxic byproduct of excess alcohol consumption, can result in the disassembly of the proteins in the junctional complex. In other words, acetaldehyde can punch holes in the intestinal wall = leaky gut syndrome!
See Basuroy et al. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15718285
Acetaldehyde that stems from ethanol metabolism appears in the liver where aldehyde dehydrogenase enzymes are prepared to cope with it (within reasonable concentration limits) and turn it into harmless acetic acid. Acetaldehyde that is released in the gut by yeast metabolism immediately adjacent to the intestinal cells forming the tight junction complexes is a surprise to the body that it cannot deal with.
The first steps in the investigation of a crime scene involve the close scrutiny of the immediate surroundings including the inhabitants residing nearby. Again we have a direct link between a toxic agent (acetaldehyde), capable of causing permeability disruption; with a source (Candida Albicans), a commensal resident in the region of the damage; and a scavenger of this toxin (sulfurated flax oil) that could account for the dramatic results obtained by the testimonial authors of past years when they took Wondro.