Over the past few years, gut health has gone from something only those with chronic digestive issues speak about, to something we’re all trying to improve on the daily.
But could gut health be the key to unlocking great skin? Holistic health expert and homoeopath, Josephine Zappia, thinks so and, here, she explains exactly why.
The Gastro-Intestinal Tract and Gluten
The best known and most obvious problem here is Celiac Disease. Gluten intolerance has a wide spectrum of expression, ranging from full-blown celiac disease to minor inconveniences that are often dismissed as part of normal life. The most frequent skin problem linked to gluten is dermatitis.
‘Asymptomatic gluten-sensitive enteropathy is found in 75 to 90 % of patients and in some of their relatives’1 Asymptomatic indeed, no digestive complaints, nothing else but a skin problem.
Gluten creates a leaky gut, and a leaky gut allows gluten and many other foreign toxic substances to penetrate the body. They need to be eliminated, and the skin is one of the acting organs for elimination, therefore many cases of eczema, dermatitis, or any other skin pathology often are gluten-related.
Try eliminating gluten from the diet and see what happens. Even if the skin does not change, your general health and long term prognosis will improve. If simply removing the etiology (maintaining cause) does not change the skin, it will at least put the deeper imbalance to the forefront, with signs and symptoms relating to you holistically, and not created artificially by a toxic substance. You can then proceed with real treatment from a modality like homeopathy and watch as the magic unfolds.
Allergens & Casein’s Involvement
Casein, the protein in milk that binds to calcium, is extremely irritating to the immune system. It creates inflammation in the intestinal mucosa, stimulating mucous production. Mucosal inflammation is the first step towards a ‘leaky gut’, and having both gluten AND casein together multiplies the risk of this happening, especially with repetitive exposure.
If you’re prone to inflammatory conditions such as asthma, eczema, or acne, casein is one to look out for and avoid.
{NB. Through my professional homoeopathic eyes, a suppressed skin condition frequently leads to asthma, and the asthma can only be relieved by re-establishing the skin disease at least temporarily by a course of a specific homeopathic remedy. Then the skin should be treated from within by a suitable diet and homeopathic constitutional remedy, and it will disappear permanently}.
Chronic diarrhoea is the most common gastrointestinal symptom of intolerance of cow’s milk in children, and children with this response also tend to have a higher frequency of dermatitis.
Dairy products commonly contain residues of antibiotics, steroid hormones and pesticides which weaken the immune system. If cow’s milk is introduced too early in life to susceptible children, it can trigger the onset of inflammatory conditions such as asthma, eczema, and multiple allergic conditions. The pH environment of an infant’s stomach is not yet appropriately acidic, it’s practically neutral, allowing milk proteins to travel undigested through the stomach into the intestines, where it inflicts harm and the proteins are absorbed straight into the baby’s bloodstream.
When the lining of a sensitive baby’s intestines is irritated by the attack on these proteins (possibly indicated by diarrhoea or colic), more proteins are able to cross into the bloodstream to cause an increased immune response throughout the body, such as eczema and asthma.
Off the back of that, there is growing evidence to show that some chronic diseases in adults can originate in utero, so it is also recommended for adults to prioritise a diet enriched with vital nutrient-rich foods and void of toxic substances, which is imperative for the proper function to help the GUT heal and in turn optimises skin health.
We are not only what we eat, we are also how well we digest and absorb our food. Poor digestion and absorption can lead to an array of health problems including chronic skin disease.
Casein is very difficult to digest and needs a specific enzyme, rennet, which is found specifically in calves, usually from the injected supplementation from farmers, to increase digestion and accelerate growth.
Irritable Bowel Syndromeis often associated with cases where there is a food sensitivity, mostly gluten and casein, however wheat is another harmful component that is said to directly cause damage to many tissues and organs by easily penetrating through the intestinal wall. It resists metabolism, accumulates in the tissues and creates havoc, inclusive of inflammatory skin conditions such as acne and eczema.
- Merck Manual, Seventeenth Edition, p.830
