The Gut-Immune Connection

You will sometimes hear people refer to the gut as being important to immune health. But how is it?

Well, there are lots of ways a healthy gut can support overall immune wellness. In the simplest form, our gut lining offers a physical barrier to the body. It allows nutrients to pass in while keeping out foreign particles. This makes the gut selectively permeable.

It is good to think of the gut as a porous filter with only the smallest nutrients allowed to pass through. But the story is not as simple as it sounds! The size of these pores becomes larger at times! I find this fascinating. Bacteria in the microbiome can secrete a molecule called LPS and foods like gluten can make these pores larger. This leads to a transient leaky gut, allowing larger particles like bacterial products, and foreign molecules may enter the bloodstream and stimulate the immune system.

Also if the physical barrier of the gut is unhealthy or we have foreign pathogenic bacteria in our microbiome our gut integrity may not be as strong. A healthy gut lining will have small pores and let in a low number of foreign particles.

A healthy gut lining will also have better absorption of our micronutrients like B12, folate, zinc, Vit C, and selenium which our immune system needs to function optimally. A healthy microbiome also actually makes nutrients like these and this in turn also supports our immune system.

Lastly, behind the gut lining, we have dense clusters of immune cells. These act as a reserve for immune cells to monitor foreign invaders into the body. A healthy gut microbiome may stimulate these immune communities training them to fight bad bacteria. The microbiome may also outcompete foreign bacteria, parasites and viruses.

There are likely more ways out gut and microbiome help keep our immune system balanced and sharp. This is an area of evolving research with lots of exciting discoveries to come in the future!

We can feel when our gut is functioning optimally. We have less bloating, GERD, gas and can eat many foods without aggravation. But the benefits are far-reaching outside the gut,

One interesting area is the gut-brain connection. We will talk more about this in the next post.