Is "leaky gut" real? What the zonulin research shows

Claim

IS LEAKY GUT REAL?

Catch

STILL A HYPOTHESIS

Verdict

REAL BIOLOGY, OVERSOLD CURES

Gut lining cells are held together by tight junctions. In 2000, Alessio Fasano's team described zonulin, a protein that loosens them, and found it raised in celiac disease. In lab tests on gut tissue, gluten proteins (gliadin) triggered zonulin release and increased permeability, more strongly in tissue from celiac patients. Fasano argues that barrier problems may help drive other chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, but that broader idea is still a hypothesis, "leaky gut syndrome" is not a recognized diagnosis, and a widely used commercial zonulin blood test was found to detect other proteins rather than zonulin.

SOURCES

1. Fasano et al. (2000), "Zonulin, a newly discovered modulator of intestinal permeability, and its expression in coeliac disease," The Lancet
2. Drago et al. (2006), "Gliadin, zonulin and gut permeability," Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology
3. Fasano (2020), "All disease begins in the (leaky) gut," F1000Research
4. Scheffler et al. (2018), "Widely used commercial ELISA does not detect precursor of haptoglobin2," Frontiers in Endocrinology

For information only, not medical advice.