Neural Biology and the Blood/Brain Barrier

 The membrane around the brain is called the blood-brain barrier. It serves a similar role to the gut lining. It is very thin and semi-permeable. Examples of things that should pass through the barrier are ketones and glucose. Primary fuel sources for the brain.

The epithelial lining of the gut (small intestine) is one cell thick. Your nutritional protocol can lead to pathological intestinal permeability otherwise referred to as Leaky Gut Syndrome. When you have leaky gut syndrome, non-digested food particles and various toxin pass through the gut wall lining into the blood stream. When these “toxic” substances, mainly proteins, get into the blood stream the immune system goes on full alert to neutralize the toxin. This causes inflammation the body’s defense system. Should this be an isolated incident the immune system will neutralize the toxin very quickly and the body will revert to a state of homeostasis.

Typically leaky gut is not an isolated incident, it has developed over time, maybe many decades, and as a result the immune system remains on high alert almost indefinitely. This becomes known as systemic inflammation, it can be body-wide and as a result the body releases hormones such as cortisol creating a constant state of flight or fight. This downgrades the immune system to such an extent that it can longer effectively summon the resource to fight normal acute inflammation situations like a bee sting, or ingested pollen. This is the number one form of stress in the human body in society today. Furthermore, after prolonged leaky gut syndrome, the bad guy proteins escaping from the gut into the blood stream get cunning and disguise themselves as good proteins by bonding with good proteins in the body, known as molecular mimicry. At this point the compromised immune system gets confused and attacks these combined protein molecules, not differencing the fact that good body proteins are going to get attacked and “eaten” during the inflammation response. The body is actually “eating itself” this almost always leads to an auto-immune disease, of which there are hundreds such as crones, MS, allergies, vitilgo, arthritis etc.

Now, these toxins that are in the blood stream travel through the body to the brain. Constantly bombarding the brain blood barrier with toxins and the results of inflammation leads to a tear in the blood brain barrier. This allows the toxins etc. into the brain itself having breached the barrier. This causes inflammation of the brain. The results of an inflamed brain causes neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s brain fog, reduced cognitive skills,  reduction of will-power, ADD and various autism spectrum anomalies etc. This phenomenon more recently being referred to as “ Leaky Brain”.

The constant state of stress caused by the inflammation increases the hormone cortisol and neurotransmitters epinephrine otherwise known as adrenaline. So the neurotransmitters  (which travel through the sympathetic nervous system) start sending out incoherent signals to the body from the brain. Now the body is confused and at best you feel out of “whack” at worst you set yourself up for disease. At worst it can lead to cell mutation which leads to cancer. Incoherent messages from the brain to heart causes the brain and heart to be out of harmony. This can lead to the heart pumping blood to the extremities (legs and arms) to facilitate the fight or flight response. This takes vital blood flow from the digestion system further compromising all the issues associated with incomplete digestion.

Good sleep management is critical to good brain health. During the deep sleep portions of your sleep cycle the brain get detoxified and metabolic waste exist the system via the lymph pathways. Normal body detoxification utilizes the lymph pathway as the bodies garbage truck system. The pathway utilized by brain detoxification is called the glyph system. So if you don’t get enough deep sleep the brain does not get sufficiently detoxified and the toxins just build up. This just adds to the brain inflammation process leading to neurological diseases as described earlier.

Bearing in mind that cortisol, the fight or flight hormone is constantly on high alert during times of stress both mental (anxiety, etc.) and nutritionally triggered by leaky gut. In order to reduce cortisol in the blood stream you need to get enough deep sleep and intentionally reduce mental stress by utilizing mindful meditation.

Also, bear in mind that a diet high in refined carbs combined with lack of sleep and high stress leads to constant insulin spikes which lead, to insulin resistance, leads to pre-diabetes and eventually full-blown type 2 diabetes. It also leads to excessive fat storage elevates the body weight set point and downgrades the ability of the body to retrieve stored body fat for fuel resulting in obesity.

The cranial brain also communicates all the time with the gut brain, incoherent messaging from the brain leads to grehlin and leptin resistance, as the body has to pump out more and more of these hormones to effectively control the appetite and satiety messages to the brain, which results in the down regulation of fat burning genes. This has the effect of never feeling full, always feeling hungry and craving more carbs, stacking on more and more fat with no hormonal messaging permitting the release of fat from the fat cells to burn as fuel. Again resulting in obesity.

So bottom line, leaky gut leads to leaky-brain leads to life-threatening diseases, accelerated aging, reduced life span and certain reduced quality of life.

What’s the answer then? Induce a state of nutritional or therapeutic ketosis through eating “real food” regenerating the gut wall and reversing leaky gut syndrome. Getting enough deep sleep to detoxify the brain, and reduce the stress in your life by mindful meditation and correct ancestrally evolved DNA nutritional requirements. Doing so will regulate your gene expression through epigenetics and you will live a long healthy life, die old and quick.

My Be Lean For Life protocol intentionally has these pillars: Nutrition ( Keto), intermittent fasting, sleep management, stress management, meditation, epigenetics, and neural plasticity used in combination to create the very best version of your self, otherwise know as the meaning of life.