Are Your Food Allergies Making You Fat?
Mark Hyman MD
Your digestive system may be making you fat. It’s hard to believe – but very true. I want to explain the
bugs in your digestive tract, why they upset your gut’s immune system, and how they just might be behind
those extra pounds.
I have observed this phenomenon in hundreds of patients. Recently, remarkable new research has
confirmed this phenomenon.
I have developed very effective treatments for it, based on understanding the way in which all the body’s
systems -the gut, the immune system, detoxification system, hormones and more – are connected. There’s
powerful evidence that addressing these key causes of weight gain and illness can help you shed pounds.
For example, I’ve seen patients who lose significant amounts of weight, just by cutting food allergens from
their diet. And I have also seen people lose 20 to 30 pounds, simply by balancing the bacterial ecosystem in
their intestinal system.
One patient, a 38-year-old woman, had chronic inflammation, fluid retention, acne, fatigue, joint pain, as
well as irritable bowel syndrome with bloating and gas. She had tried every known diet, but was unable to
lose weight.
This woman’s problem: She could not lose weight because she was inflamed. The imbalances in her gut
and the food sensitivities resulted in the inflammation.
But when we had her eliminate the foods to which she was allergic or sensitive, and gave her some healthy
bacteria to heal her gut, she lost 35 pounds in a few months – and all her other symptoms went away too.
The big debate in medicine is which comes first: inflammation or obesity. I have always believed that we
become inflamed first, and gain weight second – which makes us even more inflamed, perpetuating the
cycle. Now incredible new research bears this out.
Let’s review this research, explain how food allergies can lead to weight gain, and provide you with three
steps you can take to eliminate foods you may be allergic to and rebalance the ecosystem in your gut.
Inflammation And Weight Gain
Let me tell you a little more about these studies linking inflammation and weight gain, and explain their
implications for treating obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and more. Both studies were done in Europe,
where researchers are generally more open-minded.
The first study, published in December, 2007, looked at two groups of children. The first group was
overweight and the second was normal weight. The researchers measured three key factors connected to
inflammation.
First, they looked at high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker that shows the general level of
inflammation in the body. Then they looked for plaque or thickening in the carotid arteries (the main
arteries that supply the brain) with an ultrasound. Third, they looked at blood tests for IgG, or delayed food
allergies.
What they found was startling.
The overweight kids had a three-fold higher level of CRP and a two and a half fold higher level of IgG
antibodies to foods. This is astounding, since in most medical studies a difference of 20 to 30 percent is
considered significant. And in this case, the differences were 300 and 250 percent, respectively.
The overweight children also had much thicker carotid arteries, which are a sign of early atherosclerosis
and an indicator of heart disease. The study suggests that these food allergies are a CAUSE of the
inflammation and obesity, not a consequence.
The authors of the study explain that damage to the gut can lead to a leaky gut, allowing food particles to
be exposed to the gut’s immune system. This then triggers a system-wide immune response, leading to
inflammation all over the body and producing obesity by increasing insulin resistance.
We already know that inflammation from any cause – bacteria, food, a high-sugar, high-fat diet – will
produce insulin resistance, leading to higher insulin levels. And since insulin is a fat storage hormone, you
store more fat – mostly around the belly.
The authors of the study go on to say that we should consider elimination of IgG food allergens as a way of
treating obesity and preventing heart disease. That means you don’t limit calories, just foods that cause
allergies that in turn cause inflammation. This study draws a remarkable link that has received little
attention by conventional medicine. So what exactly causes a leaky gut? Well, the next study may help
explain just that.
How Your Gut Begins To Leak
The researchers of a study published in the July, 2007 issue of Diabetes, performed a complex but powerful
study to tease out which comes first – the chicken or the egg.
What they did was quite ingenious. They took thin mice and then fed them a very high-fat diet.
High-fat diets change the bacterial flora in the gut. Toxin-producing bugs are promoted by the high-fat diet
while anti-inflammatory and protective bugs die off. (And there are over 500 species of bugs in your gut all
fighting for territory.)
In fact, our highly processed, high-sugar, high-fat, low-fiber diet – plus many drugs like antibiotics,
steroids, anti-inflammatories, acid-blockers, and hormones – completely alter the bacterial ecosystem in the
gut, leading to breakdown, inflammation, and a leaky gut.
The researchers found that mice fed the equivalent of an American diet produced more of a bacterial toxin
called LPS, which then leaked into the body through their leaky gut.
In humans, these toxins then latch onto immune cells, stimulating them to produce a firestorm of
inflammatory molecules such as TNFa, IL-6, and IL-1 (cytokines), which in turn block your metabolism
and produce insulin resistance, fatty liver, and obesity.
When you eat a bad diet, bad bugs flourish. Your whole gut ecosystem is upset and the outside world
“leaks” in across a damaged gut lining.
Even more interesting, the researchers also found that even with a normal diet, injecting LPS into the mice
led to the SAME problems – inflammation and obesity. These mice didn’t eat a bad diet. Just injecting
toxins into them made them fat.
In fact, when you eat a bad diet, bad bugs flourish. Your whole gut ecosystem is upset and the outside
world “leaks” in across a damaged gut lining. The result is not just obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, but
so many allergic, autoimmune, and inflammatory diseases.
The researchers explain how giving antibiotics to rats and cleaning out the bad bugs can prevent diabetes.
They explain that by adding soluble fiber to the diet, they can increase the population of the good bugs like
bifidobacteria and decrease the bad bugs – leading to weight loss.
But it doesn’t just happen in lab rats. I have found the same effects when my patients take the special
soluble fiber called konjac root or glucomannan. The good bacteria feed on the fiber and reduce
inflammation.
And there is more to the gut story. It seems that you are not the only one eating lunch. The bugs in your gut
also feast – and they control your fat storage and the calories you absorb. So people with healthy bugs in
the gut lose weight, and those with bad bugs gain weight.
Let me review this briefly again, because these concepts are so far from what we normally think about the
causes of obesity.
When you eat a typical American diet, you foster the growth of bad bugs in the gut. They then damage the
gut lining and produce toxins that are absorbed into your system.
Because of the damage, partially digested food particles also leak into your bloodstream. Then your
immune system reacts to the toxins and foods, producing a firestorm of inflammation.
That inflammation then leads to a fatty toxic liver and insulin resistance, which lead to higher levels of
insulin in your body. And insulin is a fat-storage, disease- and aging-promoting hormone.
So an unhealthy gut makes us fat and sick because it makes us toxic and inflamed.
This is groundbreaking research that needs to shake up our thinking about how to help people lose weight
and get healthy.
3 Steps To Eliminate Food Allergens And Re-Balance Your Gut Ecology
When you eat a bad diet, bad bugs flourish. Your whole gut ecosystem is upset and the outside world
“leaks” in across a damaged gut lining.
. Try an elimination diet for 3 weeks. Cut out the most common food allergens, including gluten, dairy,
eggs, corn, yeast, and peanuts. Some people are sensitive to soy, so you can also cut that out.
.
. Eat a whole-foods, plant-based, high-fiber diet. This is essential to feed the good bugs in your gut and
to provide the nutrients you need to functional optimally.
.
. Take probiotics daily to boost the healthy bacteria in your gut. Look for those that contain 10 billion
CFU of bifidobacteria species and lactobacillus species. Choose from reputable brands.
Within a very few short weeks – even if you do nothing else – you will see a dramatic difference that
comes from cooling off inflammation by healing your gut.
Remember, if you want to get rid of that gut, you have to fix your gut.