Posted 07 April 2006 - 03:04 AM
At the risk of sounding like a broken record with my find the root cause, get testing, don't-just-throw-supplements-at-the-symptoms mantra -- if you have increased intestinal permeability, there is a reason for that. It may be excessive alcohol, overuse of NSAIDS, antibiotics, food allergies, dysbiosis, chronic stress, or something else. In any case, if you don't remove the cause of your leaky gut from the equation, you can take all the right supplements to heal gut mucosa and get absolutely nowhere.
Interestingly, intestinal permeability increases in everyone with aging. It is one aspect of aging that calorie restriction has absolutely no effect on.
That S. boulardii yeast looks like a winner -- coincidentally I was just reading about it in Digestive Wellness this afternoon. I'm probably going to try some myself.
Another supplementation idea for leaky gut that is not that often mentioned is phosphatidyl choline, and its polyunsaturated form, Polyenylphosphatidylcholine (PPC). Its supposed to be good for healing the mucosa and also has a variety of liver related health benefits. I'd like to find out how effective plain old phosphatidyl choline is in comparison.