Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I'm your host Monica Reinegel, and this

week I'm talking with Tamara Duker-Freiman about Leaky Gut Syndrome. Several times a

week I get emails or calls on the Nutrition Diva listener line requesting an episode on

Leaky Gut. Is this a real thing? How do you know if you have it? How can you heal or prevent

a Leaky Gut? Well, to help me sort through what has become a veritable mountain of myth

and misunderstanding, I've invited Tamara Duker-Freiman, a registered dietitian nutritionist who specializes

in digestive disorders back to the Nutrition Diva podcast for an encore. Earlier this year,

she joined me on the podcast to talk about her book, The Bloded Belly Whisperer, in which

she explains the many different possible causes of belly bloating and how to tailor an

approach to your particular situation. I know that episode and the book were incredibly helpful

for many of you, and if you heard it, then you know that Tamara really knows her stuff, so I can't

think of a better person to help us understand this mysterious and, according to some people,

extremely common thing frequently referred to as Leaky Gut. Welcome back to the podcast, Tamara.

Thank you. So let me first just set the stage for our listeners. Leaky Gut and Leaky Gut syndrome

are terms that are thrown around a lot in certain corners of the alternative health world,

and they're starting to pop up more and more on mainstream consumer health channels.

And the basic idea is that something, and that might be a food or an additive or an environmental

toxin or an illness or even stress, causes the cells that line the digestive tract to become

inflamed and irritated. And then as a result, the tight connections between these cells become more

permeable, or in common parlance, Leaky. And then, according to this theory, that allows toxins,

bacteria, or partially digested food to leak out of the intestines and into circulation, where they

cause all kinds of symptoms, which are collectively described as Leaky Gut syndrome. And those symptoms

...