The Cleveland Clinic's website states that leaky gut is a "hypothetical condition." Yet Cleveland Clinic physician, Mark Hyman, claims that leaky gut is at the foundation of autism, depression, cancer, diabetes, and much, much more—and has solutions to sell you.
Derek investigates the manipulative and contradictory world of functional medicine.
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On the Cleveland Clinic website, leaky gut syndrome is defined as following.
Leaky gut syndrome is a hypothetical condition that's not currently recognized as a medical diagnosis.
It's based on the concept of increased intestinal permeability, which occurs in some gastrointestinal diseases.
One example of that disease is celiac disease, probably the most well-known.
But this term leaky gut has been around for a while in wellness spaces.
In fact, let's listen to Mark Hyman, who runs the Center for Functional Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, talk about leaky gut.
Anybody with chronic gut issues like irritable bowel, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, inflammatory bowel disease.
If you have skin issues like eczema, acne, psoriasis, for sure you have a leaky gut.
Okay.
Well, a bit further down the page on the Cleveland Clinic website, it says, Many people have vague gastrointestinal symptoms, and many times the causes are frustratingly elusive.
In the absence of straight answers, leaky gut syndrome has emerged in the mainstream as a catch-all diagnosis for general indigestion and possibly many other conditions.
But true intestinal hyperpermeability is too specific and too extreme to explain most people's symptoms.
So you can see where the problem is starting to form here.
You have a very vague catch-all diagnosis that has been termed leaky gut, predominantly by functional medicine practitioners like Dr. Mark Hyman, and that opens up an array of possible solutions.
And if there's one thing you've noticed if you've ever followed Hyman on any social media platform, it's that he has a lot of solutions to sell.
I'm Derek Barris and this is a Conspiratuality Bonus Episode.
your gut isn't leaking.
Let's listen to Hyman explain a little bit more about leaky gut.
It's one of the most important things to understand about your health and whether you have it or don't.
And it's because it drives so many of the diseases we see today in modern civilization.
So many things from diabetes, obesity, to heart disease, to cancer.
To autoimmune disease, to asthma, to depression, to autism, to ADD, I mean, you name it, basically, it's connected to our gut and our microbiome.
Oh man, the amount of times that I hear microbiome and autism, and I've read a number of books on autism, and there does seem to be some connections to gut health, but it is so speculative right now.
And the number of wellness influencers who take that and run with it At treating it as if it's evidence that you need this probiotic or this intervention, it's really egregious.
We talked a bit about this in our recent coffee enemas main feed episode.
Add in the number of people who are selling tests and products and kits for microbiome testing.
I've talked to a number of researchers over the four years of this podcast.
And one of the murkiest domains is the microbiome.
But again, here you have something that is actually quite a fascinating field of study that is emerging where experts are spending time really trying to understand it.
And there is an individualized element to the microbiome which fits into the perceived dynamic of what functional medicine is, and I'll get to that briefly.
But people rush in with poor evidence all the time and they make these leaps in their imagination to be able to sell things.
This is the basis of so much of the wellness grifting that we see.
Okay, let's take a big picture look for a moment because I found myself in interesting territory recently.
Because I've been looking into and criticizing certain aspects of Andrew Huberman and now Mark Hyman.
And it's a bit different than a lot of the wellness influencers that we cover.
So if I come out with an episode on J.P.
Sears or Mickey Willis, these are people who are not medical professionals in any capacity.
So it's a little bit easier to take what they're saying and show the errors in their thinking because they don't come from any sort of scientific background.
When you get to someone like a Huberman or a Hyman, it's a little bit different.
Huberman is a neuroscientist.
Hyman is a family physician.
And what we've noticed is it gives them a bit of cover.
Because they have expertise in one field, people will allow them to therefore Thank you for
