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Leaky Gut

Are you suffering from leaky gut?

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If you have these symptoms you may be suffering from leaky gut…

Leaky Gut is the name given to damaged and permeable intestinal lining which allows undigested food particles, toxic waste products and bacteria to ‘leak’ through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream.

Symptoms include:

1. Chronic diarrhoea, constipation, gas or bloating
2. Nutritional deficiencies
3. Weak immune system
4. Headaches, brain fog, memory loss
5. Excessive fatigue; insomnia
6. Skin rashes and problems such as acne, eczema or rosacea
7. Cravings for sugar and carbs
8. Arthritis and/or joint pain
9. Depression, anxiety, ADD and ADHD
10. Autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, celiac disease or Crohn’s
This condition needs to be approached from several different angles at once in order to return the body to full health, including: changes to the diet, the inclusion of supplements, reducing the stress factor and rooting out the underlying cause in the first place.
We believe a pleiotropic approach is necessary which means you must approach healing from several angles at once to actually flip the body back to health.

This includes:

• making dietary changes
• adding specialized and targeted supplements
• reducing stressors
• correcting underlying root cause of disease
And when it comes to supplements L-Glutamine is one of the most talked about for digestive health.
At this point, the research is pretty clear on L-Glutamine being a very valuable supplement for anyone dealing with almost most chronic health issues.
Whether it works to help fix the gut wall, improve sleep, recover from exercise or reduce cravings, it is a safe, cheap and readily available supplement to think about trying.
L-Glutamine is easy to take – it plays a crucial role in healthy digestion, brain function and has been well documented in studies to protect against mucosal deterioration in the gut. Glutamine is helpful in reducing the side effects of chemotherapy.

The worse your gut problem is, the more Glutamine will help to you.

You will find our l-glutamine powder here https://sallyanncreed.co.za/product/l-glutamine-powder/
Join our Instagram Page @SallyAnn_Creed and subscribe to our Newsletter https://sallyanncreed.co.za/subscribe/ receive free food lists from The Low-Carb Creed when you join.
This post is subject to our general disclaimer https://sallyanncreed.co.za/disclaimer/.
Tags: glutamine Gut Health Gut Problems IBS L-Glutamine leaky gut Wellbeing
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Choose whey if: You are looking to build or preserve muscle You are training regularly, especially strength training You are over 50 and want to protect against age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia) You are looking for a high-protein snack or breakfast supplement You want a complete protein that fills nutritional gaps Choose collagen if: You are focused on skin health, elasticity, or hydration You are supporting joint comfort or connective tissue recovery You want to support hair, nail, and gut lining health You are over 25 and want to top up what your body is starting to produce less of Choose both if: You want the full broad benefit of muscle support, connective tissue support, as well as hair, skin, and nails support. Nothing about these two proteins competes or conflicts—they complement each other. Whey protein and collagen are two very different proteins, doing two very different jobs. Framing them as rivals misses the point. They are not competitors. They are complements. 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Gut health basics 101

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Most of them live in your large intestine. Together, they are called your microbiome, and they are one of the most extraordinary things about being human. ❤ Your gut microbes can weigh around 200g in total ❤ You carry around 38 trillion microbial cells in your body, comparable to the number of your own human cells ❤ The genes inside your microbiome outnumber your own genetic code by around 150 to one ❤ Every person's microbiome is entirely unique. Even identical twins have different microbiomes These little tenants do far more than digest food. They make certain vitamins for you (like vitamin K and some B vitamins), they train your immune system, they produce compounds that talk to your brain, they help maintain the lining of your gut, and they ferment fibre into substances that keep the whole system healthy. Which is why the phrase "trust your gut" turns out to be much more literal than we ever realised. A little glossary of the words you might keep hearing Microbiome and microbiota Almost interchangeable, though technically slightly different. The microbiota refers to all the microbes themselves. The microbiome refers to the microbes plus their genetic material and everything they produce. In everyday conversation, both are used to mean roughly the same thing. Probiotics Live beneficial microbes that, when consumed in adequate amounts, can be helpful to your health. Found naturally in fermented foods like yoghurt, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and miso. Also available as supplements. Prebiotics The food that your gut microbes love to eat. Prebiotics are types of fibre and plant compounds that we cannot digest, but our microbes can. Found in foods like onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus, oats, bananas and legumes. Postbiotics This can have two meanings. Postbiotics are inactivated microorganisms and/or their components or compounds produced by the microorganisms that have been shown to provide a health benefit. Unlike probiotics, the microorganisms themselves are no longer alive. This is the category that pasteurised or inactivated beneficial microorganisms can fall into eg Sally-Ann Creed® Akkermansia Postbiotic. Synbiotics Any product or food that contains both prebiotics and probiotics together. The idea is that you provide both the beneficial microbes and the food they need to thrive. Fermentation The process by which microbes break down carbohydrates in the absence of oxygen. It happens in your gut every day, and it also happens in the making of sourdough, yoghurt, wine, beer, kimchi and sauerkraut. Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) The beneficial compounds your gut microbes produce when they ferment fibre. Butyrate is the most famous one and is the preferred fuel source of the cells lining your colon. 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The vagus nerve A long cranial nerve that connects your brain directly to your gut (and to most of your other organs). It is one of the main highways along which your gut and brain communicate. Why any of this actually matters The reason gut health has become such a huge topic is because researchers keep discovering that the gut influences so much more than digestion. Immunity. A significant proportion of your immune system resides in tissue lining your gut, sometimes referred to as gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT). A well-supported gut microbiome helps train and regulate your immune response. Mood and mental health. The gut and brain communicate continuously through what we now call the gut-brain axis, involving the vagus nerve, immune signals, hormones and microbial metabolites. Interestingly, most of the body's serotonin is produced in the gastrointestinal tract, although this serotonin does not directly cross into the brain. Researchers are continuing to investigate how the microbiome may influence mood, stress and mental health through these interconnected pathways. Skin. Researchers are increasingly studying connections between the gut microbiome and inflammatory skin conditions such as acne, eczema and rosacea, an emerging area sometimes called the gut-skin axis. Hormones. Certain gut microbes help metabolise oestrogen, which means gut health may play a subtle role in hormone balance, particularly for women. Weight and metabolism. Emerging research suggests the microbiome influences how we extract energy from food, how full we feel after meals, and even our tendency to store fat. Sleep and energy. Sleep and the gut microbiome also appear to have a two-way relationship. Studies have found associations between sleep patterns and differences in gut microbial communities. Small, everyday ways to support your gut The most powerful things you can do for your gut are almost embarrassingly simple. Eat more plants, and eat more different plants. Diversity of plants supports diversity of microbes. Include some fermented foods. A spoonful of sauerkraut with a meal, a small glass of kefir in the morning, or a serving of plain live yoghurt with breakfast can all help. Feed the microbes with fibre. Prebiotic fibres from oats, legumes, onions, garlic, leeks and slightly underripe bananas are especially useful. Cut back on ultra-processed foods. Highly processed foods tend to be low in fibre and high in additives that some research suggests can disrupt the microbiome. Sleep and move. Both regular sleep and regular movement have been shown to positively influence the microbiome. Be careful with unnecessary antibiotics. Antibiotics can be life-saving when needed, but they also disrupt the microbiome significantly. If you need them, they are worth taking. If you can avoid unnecessary ones, that helps. Manage stress. Chronic stress genuinely affects gut function and microbial balance. Anything that supports your nervous system, like breathwork, time in nature, or good sleep, also supports your gut. A little something from us Because we love this topic so much, we have put together a range of gut-supporting supplements: a probiotic (live beneficial microbes), a prebiotic (the fibre that feeds them), and a postbiotic (an inactive form of a beneficial bacterium). Each one supports a different part of the same beautiful ecosystem, and they can be used on their own or together depending on what your gut needs. Explore our range: ❤ Prebiotic (Maxifos Prebiotic Powder) → ❤ Probiotic (Maxibiotic 20) → ❤ Postbiotic (Akkermansia Postbiotic) → If you have any questions or want to learn more, please contact our dietitian at dietitian@sallyanncreed.co.za ❤ This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat or replace medical advice. If you have any concerns about your gut health or are managing a digestive condition, please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner before making significant changes to your diet or supplement routine. References 1. Marco ML, Cunningham M, Bischoff SC, et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of gut health. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 2026;23:432–448. 2. Salminen S, Collado MC, Endo A, et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on the definition and scope of postbiotics. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 2021;18:649–667. 3. Marco ML, Sanders ME, Gänzle M, et al. The International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP) consensus statement on fermented foods. Nature Reviews Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 2021;18:196–208. 4. Ross FC, Patangia D, Grimaud G, et al. The interplay between diet and the gut microbiome: implications for health and disease. Nature Reviews Microbiology. 2024;22:671–686. 5. Loh JS, Mak WQ, Tan LKS, et al. Microbiota-gut-brain axis and its therapeutic applications in neurodegenerative diseases. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy. 2024;9:37.

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Have you noticed that "AI" seems to have appeared everywhere? It is on our phones, in our search results, even being used in some of the tools we use for work. Depending on who you ask, it is either the greatest invention since the internet, or the beginning of the end. We don't think either is quite true. We thought it might be nice to write a blog on what AI is and without any hype and without any doom. Where AI came from and how it actually works. What is AI? Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to computer systems that are designed to perform tasks that would normally be associated with "human intelligence" such as recognising speech, translating languages, solving problems or generating text. Chances are, you've already been using AI for years without even realising it. When your phone predicts the next word you're typing When Netflix recommends a programme When Google Maps reroutes you around traffic When your email filters out spam, that's all AI The type of AI that has become famous over the past few years is called a Large Language Model (LLM). Instead of memorising answers like a giant encyclopaedia, these models learn patterns from enormous amounts of text, including books, websites, scientific papers and publicly available information. When you ask a question, they use those patterns to generate what they predict is the most helpful response. But that is all it is. This is one of the most important things to understand about AI. It doesn't think the way you do or felt pain or ever been hungry. It doesn't know who you are unless you tell it. It generates responses based on patterns it has learned. And that's why AI can be incredibly helpful, but it also should never replace your own judgement or the advice from a qualified healthcare practitioner. A short history 1950 The mathematician Alan Turing published a paper called "Computing Machinery and Intelligence", which asked the now-famous question, "Can machines think?". He proposed what became known as the Turing Test: if a person could not tell whether they were talking to a human or a machine, the machine could be said to be intelligent. This paper is considered the beginning of AI as a serious idea. 1966 A researcher at MIT called Joseph Weizenbaum created ELIZA, one of the first chatbots. It mimicked a psychotherapist by rephrasing whatever you said back to you as a question. If you typed: "I'm feeling anxious today." ELIZA might reply "Why do you think you're feeling anxious?". It was simple, and yet people using it began to open up to it as if it were a real person. Weizenbaum was reportedly unsettled by how easily humans formed emotional bonds with a machine. Nearly sixty years later, we are seeing exactly the same thing with modern AI chatbots. 1997 When the computer beats the chess champion. IBM's chess-playing computer Deep Blue defeated the reigning world champion Garry Kasparov. For many people, this was the moment they realised computers could outperform humans in tasks once thought to require uniquely human intelligence. 2017 A group of Google researchers published a paper called "Attention Is All You Need", which introduced a new AI architecture called the transformer. Instead of reading one word after another like older computer systems, transformers learnt to understand the relationships between all the words in a sentence at the same time and today, almost every modern AI chatbot including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot is built using this breakthrough. 2022 On 30 November 2022, OpenAI released a chatbot called ChatGPT. Within five days, it reached one million users. Within two months, it had reached 100 million users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history at the time. To put that into perspective, we researched that Instagram took around two and a half years to reach the same number. By early 2026, ChatGPT had grown to around 900 million weekly active users, showing just how rapidly AI has become part of everyday life. What are people actually using AI for? If you are new to AI these are some examples that it is being used for: Summarising a long document into three bullet points Helping a child understand tricky maths homework Suggesting recipe ideas for whatever is left in the fridge Translating a menu on holiday Preparing questions to ask a doctor before an appointment Explaining a medical or scientific term in plain language Brainstorming a birthday present Here are a few real examples we tried, to give you a sense of what that looks like in practice. An everyday example, turning what you have in the fridge into three dinner ideas in seconds. A learning example, using AI to make a tricky word easier to picture. For example, you could ask AI to explain what fibre is or summarise a scientific paper on vitamin D. But if you ask whether you need vitamin D, that's a question that still requires your medical history, blood tests and advice from your healthcare professional. The exciting bit and the slightly worrying bit One of the reasons AI feels so remarkable is that it can appear to "understand" us. You can ask it to explain a blood test, rewrite a difficult email, plan a week's meals or even help you understand a research paper. Often, the answers sound thoughtful, confident and surprisingly human. But there is something important to remember. AI is designed to produce the most likely answer based on patterns in the information it has learned from. It does not independently verify every fact before it responds, and it can occasionally produce information that is inaccurate or outdated while sounding completely convincing. This is sometimes called an AI hallucination. For example it might invent a paper that doesn't exist or give a wrong date for an event. It is one of the reasons we always recommend checking important medical, legal or financial information with trusted sources. Will AI replace us? If history can tell us anything is that technology, rather than eliminating jobs, usually changes them. Calculators did not replace mathematicians. GPS did not replace pilots. The internet didn't replace teachers. Instead, they changed how people worked. The same is likely to happen with AI. Many repetitive tasks may become faster, allowing professionals to spend more time doing the things that require human judgement, empathy, creativity and experience. Which AI should you use? You may have heard names like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot. Our IT colleague explained it to us that the different types are like different makes of cars. ChatGPT (OpenAI) is for everyday questions, writing, brainstorming ideas, learning new topics, explaining complex concepts and coding. It is one of the most widely used AI assistants in the world. Claude (Anthropic) is known for writing and working with long documents. Many people enjoy using Claude for reports, creative writing and detailed analysis. Gemini (Google) is Google's AI assistant that works closely with Gmail, Google Docs and other Google services. It is particularly useful for people already using Google. Microsoft Copilot is built into Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. Copilot is designed to improve productivity by helping users draft documents, analyse spreadsheets and summarise meetings. Our thoughts AI isn't magic, it isn't alive and it is not perfect. But it could be one of the most important tools humanity has ever built. Like the internet before it, it will almost certainly change the way we learn, work and solve problems. Use it to learn. Use it to save time. Use it to explore ideas. But for important decisions, especially those involving your health, keep asking questions, keep thinking critically and keep speaking to trusted professionals. Technology will continue to evolve.Human judgement will always matter. If you have any questions or want to learn more, please contact our team at admin@sallyanncreed.co.za ❤ This article is for educational purposes only and is not intended to diagnose, treat or replace medical, legal or financial advice. AI tools can be a useful starting point for learning, but important decisions, especially those relating to your health, should always be discussed with a qualified professional.

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