One Cause, Many Ailments. Dr. John O.A. Pagano

escape from the bowel into the blood stream and poison the body, causing a silent form of self-poisoning.” (Rubin, 2004-05, p. 58)

      Could there be a more perfect description of the leaky gut syndrome than that? As early as 1928 (perhaps earlier) such a disease entity has been recognized by renowned physicians, such as Dr. Boeker, but largely ignored by the “scientific” community.

      Be that as it may. I had reason to prove it with my first psoriasis patient, Mr. William Culmone, in 1975 when he came into my office with a low back problem (permission to use his full name has been granted). When he disrobed for me to examine his spine it startled me to see that he had another problem as well—psoriasis! Psoriasis is but one of the many diseases which is suspected to originate from a leaky gut.

      Since I was already into the study of psoriasis, not only from a medical perspective, but from the discourses of Edgar Cayce himself, it occurred to me to ask Mr. Culmone if he would be interested in experimenting with me after clearing up his back problem. His answer was “Why not? I tried everything else for fifteen years!”

      Once the low back cleared up, we began our “research.” Since all the measures called for in the Cayce discourses on psoriasis fell within the scope of my chiropractic practice, I felt justified in giving it a try, especially since the patient was fully cooperative. Following the basic concept of the leaky gut as the culprit in such cases we proceeded to follow the suggestions that might possibly bring about a healing of this dermatological enigma.

      It wasn’t long before Mr. Culmone showed signs of improvement. In fact, within seven days the heavy, thick lesions on his back and thighs were reduced by at least fifty percent! Within the following three months, all lesions disappeared. He remained free of all signs of psoriasis for the rest of his life.

      It became very clear from the outset of the regimen that diet played the key role. Why? Because of the beneficial effect a change of diet had on the irritated walls of his small intestine. To a large degree he avoided fats (especially from red meat), inflammatory foods such as the Nightshades, too many sweets, and fried foods, among others. As stated earlier, the results were startling. He was my first case in which I approached the problem using the theory of a compromised intestinal lining. The success achieved set me on a course of therapy, at least in psoriasis and eczema, for over forty years, and continues to this day.

      All other measures, i.e., oils, herb teas, spinal adjustments, steam baths, etc., played an important but relatively secondary role. Often when I lecture, I tell my audience that “I have never helped, alleviated, or improved one case of psoriasis on a patient who did not follow the diet.” Yet, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who achieved what may be called “miraculous” results by doing it on their own simply by following the suggestions in my books Healing Psoriasis: The Natural Alternative and Dr. John’s Healing Psoriasis Cookbook . . . Plus! Impartial evidence of this can be found by logging on to Amazon.com, typing in “healing psoriasis,” and reading over fifty book reviews by people who did it on their own; people I have never seen!

      Further evidence of cases of psoriasis and eczema will be presented as we proceed. The point to grasp here is that if such a protocol can work on cases of psoriasis, a condition that has plagued mankind since the dawn of history and is still considered medically incurable, what can it do for other conditions that are equally devastating to suffering humanity? I submit that taking a hard look at such a possibility is indeed justified!

      If, for example, as medical literature suggests, multiple sclerosis (MS) may possibly be linked to a leaky gut, then why not consider muscular dystrophy (MD) or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in the same vein? Other degenerative diseases such as the devastating scleroderma may or may not have a similar origin, but is it so unreasonable to at least consider the possibility? Such a condition has already been treated successfully and documented and is available in the Cayce archives. Here, in my humble opinion, is where extensive scientific research should be concentrated, on the degenerative diseases and their relation to intestinal permeability—or the leaky gut. Perhaps that is what Cayce meant in his discourse 2002-1 when he said disease has changed little, but classifications, much.

      2

       The Anatomy Involved

      Most everyone with a reasonable amount of education knows we have a mouth that leads into the esophagus, which in turn leads into the stomach, and from the stomach, the intestinal tract, and finally the large intestine, or colon. That’s about it. And in most cases, that’s all that’s necessary to get on in this world as far as digestion is concerned. With a little bit of luck, this sequence of anatomical structures, which constitutes the alimentary canal, will serve us faithfully, if not abused over a long period of time.

      But when something goes awry in any of these sections, repair begins at once and can range from natural healing to open surgery, depending on the nature of the problem. This is nothing new. But what may be considered new to most people is how these organs are put together. The cellular structure that makes up the body is mind-boggling. Since we are concerned primarily with the small intestine, let’s focus on this tube that stretches from the lower end of the stomach to the ileocecal valve that leads into the five-foot-long large intestine (the colon) and through the sigmoid colon and rectum, where the residue of digestion exits the body.

      Fig. P2—The Normal Digestive Tract

      Fig. P3—Where the Leaky Gut Begins

      The Digestive Process

      Food, partially digested, moves out of the stomach after it has been processed to a certain degree by enzymes and acids, and enters the first section of the small intestine known as the duodenum. Here it is further acted upon by body chemicals and passes on as chyme into the next section of the small intestine, known as the jejunum, where most of the transfer of nutrients takes place. The chyme then moves on into the ileum, the longest section of the small intestine, where more transfer of nutrients takes place and residue that is not absorbable mixes with water and waste products of digestion and moves into the large intestine (the colon) for evacuation from the body.

      The entire length of the small intestine is approximately twenty-two to twenty-eight feet. Add to that the length of the colon, five feet, and you have an intestinal tract that is over four times the height of the average individual. If the small intestine were not designed to twist and turn and have numerous convolutions, it could never fit into the abdominal cavity.

      If you take a small piece of the jejunum, the second part of the small intestine, and section a piece of it and put it under a microscope you will find innumerable structures known as intestinal villi that sway to and fro, like a sea of grass or an ocean wave. Their purpose is to receive nutrients from the food and drink you ingest, but they also act as a barrier for unwanted materials. Nutrients are very small (micromolecules) compared to the waste products (macromolecules) such as fat, yeast, undigested protein (peptides), germs, bacteria, etc., which are considerably larger. So the intestinal villi have a two-fold function: as a “guardian at the gate” preventing the large macromolecules from breaking through the barrier, and, at the same time, allowing the helpful nutrients, micromolecules, to pass on through to be absorbed by the lymphatic system and transferred into the bloodstream. The nutrients are then carried by way of the blood circulatory system to every cell of the body for nourishment, growth, and repair. Thus the cycle of life continually takes place.

      Now that’s the best case scenario. What I did not mention was that a lot can happen to that