How the gut affects the skin

Q & A with Dr. Lee:

1. What type of skin conditions did your kids deal with (or are dealing with)?

Eczema

2. What are the worst triggers food-wise? (I assume it’s mostly food related?)

My son – eggs, dairy, soy, wheat, gluten, and believe it or not, sugar, even from natural sugars from eating too much fruit. So I assume he may develop Candidaisis if he consumes too much fruit.

My daughter – eggs, dairy, and too much sugar.

AND STRESS and not enough rest and/or sleep. ​

3. What foods have the best healing effects for gut issues?

​They usually eat:

• ​Grassfed meats​
• ​Pastured meats​
• Organic alkaline fruits – some citrus, no stone fruits, lots of watermelon
• Organic vegetables – mostly cooked veggies. Raw tender greens are ok but not raw hearty or root vegggies.
• ​Good fats – food like rich bone broth (with fats) made with bone marrow since my kids can’t have dairy, omega 3 like salmon or mackerel, sardines
• Collagen – from bone broth​ made with joint bones like knuckles, chicken feet. Even long bones are good. (see above about fat)
• Fermented – any fermented foods, like kimchi, pickles, water kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut…they all should be homemade since there are not pasteurized. Pasteurizing anything kills all bacteria, including the good ones that you need for gut health. So it’s best to make them in small batches at home since you don’t pasteurize. Store bought pickles or canned pickles are boiled before canning so those are not fermented, therefore, useless for gut health. Same for sauerkraut.
• Boiled vegetables – since they are very gentle on the stomach and easily digestible.

NOT ALLOWED

• No grains but my kids can tolerate little bit of rice.
• No legumes
• No beans
• No alcohol (they don’t drink kombucha but some people can tolerate it. They prefer water kefir)
• No nuts (they have allergies to some nuts so they just avoid them all)

Disclaimer – many people are ok with eggs and dairy. So my recipes use those two and people could make them if they can tolerate them. Eggs and dairy are nutritious so I use them but not for my kids, unfortunately.

4. Do you have a quick easy-to-understand way to describe what happens with the gut and how it affects the skin?

​​When the gut is unhealthy, the lining is not as strong and are not intact. There are weakened spots that may have microscopic gaps between the cells where digested or undigested food particles escape into the adjacent blood vessels. This phenomenon is commonly known as “Leaky Gut”.

Also, unhealthy lining itself might be inflamed, not able to either digest the food or recognize food as allergens and your body reacts to them. They cause an immune response, like when your white blood cells react to cold virus and attack them to protect your body, causing you to get mucus production and fever.

Similarly, your body responds to those undigested food particles as if they are foreign bodies that need to be attacked. In essence, those food particles are foreign but normally, they are recognized as friendly particles that your body needs to survive….as food, as fuel, and as an energy source. But when the gut is unhealthy, it does not recognize them as such. So your body reacts, creates all kinds of reactions against them, like inflammation, and in case of eczema, over stimulation of membranous cells division. It’s an autoimmune response to foods and other allergens.

You can see eczema on the surface but imagine, what’s going on inside your body on the membranes of organs. Same thing is happening but you can’t ‘see’ them. ​
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5. What is your background/experience as a doctor? How can people find you?

​I am a retired Chiropractor. Now, I write about holistic health, healthy recipes, mainly Paleo, and non-toxic living on my site drkarenslee.com​