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Anxiety is a pretty common issue for the vast majority of people. Gut problems are becoming just as common. Is there a connection between a leaky gut and anxiety? Let’s find out!

What is a leaky gut?leaky gut and Anxiety

Leaky gut is an increasingly common diagnosis. With social media shedding light on common symptoms and raising awareness of gastrointestinal symptoms of digestive problems, more people are noticing what is happening inside their bodies. 

Leaky gut is a condition that happens when the intestinal lining becomes weakened. Protein complexes called tight junctions control how permeable your intestinal tract is. They allow molecules to pass through the intestinal lining to travel throughout the body. 

When our gut becomes inflamed, these junctions can no longer remain as tight as they should. This allows bacteria from the gut microbiome to move through the barrier and enter the body. This sets off immune system reactions because bacteria shouldn’t be in that area. 

The body sends in cells to fight off the bacteria wherever they are found. This increase in immune reaction also increases inflammation throughout the body. This is why a leaky gut is associated with so many diseases. 

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is a feeling of fear, dread, and/or uneasiness. While everyone has experienced anxiety at one point or another, chronic anxiety can become problematic for people who experience it often or at extreme levels.

The APA considers anxiety to be a future-oriented, long-acting response that is focused on diffusing a threat. While occasional anxiety is completely normal, when it moves onto other variations it can affect your life pretty significantly. 

Anxiety is broken down into several groups. The most common forms of anxiety are:

  • Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD)
  • Panic disorder
  • Social anxiety disorder
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
  • Phobias

While anxiety disorders often run in families many other things can cause anxiety disorders. This can include:

  • Chemical imbalances (specifically neurotransmitters and hormones)
  • Alterations of the amygdala
  • Adrenal problems
  • Medical problems (cardiovascular, thyroid, diabetic conditions, etc.)
  • Medications or drug use
  • Tumors that express fight-or-flight hormones (adrenaline and noradrenaline)
  • Traumatic experiences
  • Stress
  • Personality
  • Illnesses 
  • Environmental factors

Many of these issues have a gut disturbance as well. So is the gut actually the stem of all of the problems? Let’s find out.

Leaky Gut and Anxiety

While many issues have dysbiosis as a symptom, this is a chicken-and-egg type of thing. Most of the time we don’t know which came first to cause the other, but we do know that they affect each other to create a seemingly endless cycle. We also know that oftentimes when you address the gut dysfunction, the rest of the symptoms seem to improve. 

The gut-brain axis has been a major focus for many conditions of the brain like schizophrenia, autism, depression, and others. The gut and brain influence each other through several methods. 

  • Neurotransmitters
  • Hormones
  • Cytokines
  • Metabolites and other molecules
  • Nutrients
  • The vagus nerve
  • The amygdala
  • Central nervous system
  • Enteric nervous system
  • The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis

All of these things work together to communicate and alter the gut, brain, and everything in between. 

The amygdala is part of your brain and central nervous system. It is our processing center that allows us to feel emotions based on what’s happening around us. As a result, the amygdala has a large hand in our anxiety and fear response.  

Parts of our other nervous systems include the enteric nervous system (the nervous system that resides in our digestive system) and the vagus nerve. Both of these help the brain and central nervous system know what is going on in the abdominal area of our body. They can send and receive signals on what to do based on how our digestive system is functioning. 

When we have a leaky gut, it will let the brain know that help is needed in this area which triggers the immune and inflammatory reactions. The inflammation doesn’t just stay in this area though and can affect everything in the body including the brain, leading to anxiety.

Oftentimes, when we are experiencing anxiety, there is a stress component to it. When the stress response happens, the HPA axis is engaged, and it sends out hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Both of these hormones contribute to anxiety symptoms like a quickened heart rate and feeling unsettled. 

Heightened cortisol levels can negatively affect brain function and increase gut permeability (i.e. leaky gut). As a result of the leaky gut, inflammation levels rise throughout the body. Studies have shown that there is a link between inflammation and anxiety.

When our gut digests the foods we eat, healthy foods can help to repair the gut permeability and reduce inflammation. 95% of our serotonin (a neurotransmitter) is produced in the gut. Many other hormones and neurotransmitters are also created and released from the gut. Repairing metabolites, nutrients, and molecules can reduce inflammation throughout the body including in the brain. 

Cytokines as a result of a poor diet can influence the body in the same way. However, instead of reducing inflammation, they contribute to inflammation. This keeps the body in the fight-or-flight state and keeps us feeling anxious or panicked.

So how can we help the leaky gut to control anxiety?

How to Improve Leaky Gut and Anxiety Naturally

When it comes to anxiety, using the gut-brain axis to manage symptoms is a great place to start. Doctors often prescribe medications for anxiety, but they can contribute to dependence, addiction, and potentially more disturbance of the gut microbiome. 

First things first, you’re going to need to adjust your diet. Prioritize foods full of antioxidants, fiber, protein, prebiotics, probiotics, and polyphenols. These foods help boost the healthy strains of microbes while starving the pathogenic strains. Diets high in unnatural sugars and preservatives feed the unhealthy strains and starve the good bacteria. 

In addition to eating healthfully, you’ll want to live a generally healthy lifestyle. That means:

  • Getting sunlight daily
  • Staying hydrated
  • Avoiding processed and unhealthy chemicals
  • Spending time outdoors in the fresh air
  • Exercising/moving your body daily
  • Enjoying time with people that make you happy
  • Reducing stress
  • Increasing time spent feeling grateful and mindful

Studies have shown that doing all of these things has helped reduce anxiety and a leaky gut significantly. If you have social anxiety it may feel overwhelming to try and spend more time with people, but if you do it in a way that feels safe to you and you have a goal of trying to do so more frequently, it will help significantly. When you are around others you actually diversify your microbiome which helps your anxiety to calm down in the long run. 

If all of this feels like too much, start with taking Atrantil. It was created to help reduce gastrointestinal issues and helps to calm and repair the digestive tract. The antioxidants, prebiotics, polyphenols, and postbiotics help with leaky gut and therefore have the potential to help with anxiety as well.

Talking to your doctor about different therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), gut-directed hypnotherapy, or other therapies can help as well. Figuring out a plan that feels good for you and has the goal of repairing your gut while improving your mental well-being is going to be your best option. So while that will look different from person to person, it will be worth it in the long run to do what is best for you. 

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