In this episode I talk about the five ways how leaky gut and the risk of HPV are connected. It’s not a well known connection, but it is essential to address leaky gut in order to clear HPV and protect yourself from high-risk strains of HPV. 

I want to make sure you understand what leaky gut is and exactly the ways that it’s making you susceptible to HPV and how we can then address it.

What is Leaky Gut?

When we eat food, we chew it and it should get digested using our digestive enzymes. One job of the intestinal cells is to ensure our food gets fully broken down so that the nutrients can get absorbed from the intestinal wall into our bloodstream. 

You can think of the intestines like a tube, with the walls made up of intestinal cells. As digestion happens, our digestive enzymes break down the food, and the nutrients pass through the cells into our blood to nourish our body.

What often happens, and is in fact very common (I’d say we all likely have at least a mild form of leaky gut), is that microscopic holes develop between the intestinal cells, allowing undigested food particles to leak between the cells. 

Leaky gut can be caused by stress, injuries, toxins like pesticides, certain medications, and gluten. All these things damage the intestinal cells. It is true that our body makes new cells every few days to try to maintain the intestinal lining, but with constant damage, it becomes very difficult for the body to keep up.

Leaky Gut: Causes and Consequences

The intestines have a very large surface area – as big as a tennis court. So you can imagine it requires a lot of work for the body to constantly make enough new cells to maintain a healthy intestinal lining. 

Also, when we are under stress, we don’t digest food as well or make enough digestive enzymes. So when food isn’t fully digested, the undigested food can pass between the intestinal cells. This undigested food reaches the space outside the intestines, where the immune system is present to protect us from foreign invaders.

The immune system mistakes these undigested food particles for viruses and tries to defend against them. This is how delayed food sensitivities can develop to particular foods, called IgG and IgA sensitivities which are different than IgE mediated food allergies. These IgG and IgA sensitivities often develop gradually over days or weeks and the inflammation they trigger can spread to many areas of the body – to the nervous system potentially causing anxiety and depression, to the skin causing rashes, or to the vagina, making us susceptible to HPV.

How Leaky Gut Increases Risk of HPV

There are five ways leaky gut makes us susceptible to HPV:

1. Increasing Inflammation

One of the ways that leaky gut makes us susceptible to HPV is because leaky gut increases inflammation in the body including the vagina, and research shows that inflammation in the vagina increases risk of HPV. 

2. Causing Nutrient Deficiencies

A second way that leaky gut increases the risk of HPV is by causing nutrient deficiencies. As I mentioned the food is leaking through as food particles and we end up not absorbing our nutrients from our food. 

In that case, we’re not getting that iron, vitamin D, vitamin C, B vitamins, etc, that we need. Instead of the nutrients going through the cells, the food is undigested and we don’t get the nutrients from it and so we end up with nutrient deficiencies.

It is well established in research that having leaky gut is related to having nutrient deficiencies and when we don’t have enough nutrients we’re susceptible to infections including HPV. 

3. Weakening the Immune System

The third way that leaky gut makes us susceptible to HPV is because our immune system decreases. So when we have nutrient deficiencies and inflammation as well as just generally with leaky gut and stress, our immune system goes down making us more susceptible to all kinds of infections.

In fact people who have more severe leaky gut are susceptible to sinus infections, bladder infections, you name it, including vaginal infections like HPV.

4. Disrupting Vaginal Bacteria

The 4th way HPV and leaky gut are connected is due to an imbalance in the gut bacteria for some of the same reasons. 

When we have high stress, high toxin exposure, high gluten exposure, they all disrupt our gut bacteria. We need a healthy balance and diversity of our gut bacteria to support our immune system, to make nutrients. When they get disrupted not only does it increase leaky gut but it also increases the release of toxins into our bloodstream.

When the gut bacteria are out of balance, it also causes the vaginal bacteria to become imbalanced. Research shows that an imbalance in the gut directly leads to an imbalance in the vagina. This is because the microbiome (bacteria) in the gut is connected to the microbiome in the vagina. They communicate back and forth and influence each other. 

So if there are problems with the balance of bacteria in the gut, it can cause problems with the balance of bacteria in the vagina. An imbalance of bacteria in the vagina makes increases the risk of HPV (especially high-risk strains) and cervical cancer.

5. Increasing Toxicity

The 5th way that leaky gut increases the risk of HPV the toxicity level. As I mentioned when the bacteria are out of balance there is an increase in toxin production from bacteria that produce toxins. 

Combine bacterial toxins with leaky gut and it results in more toxins leaking through the intestinal lining getting into your bloodstream increasing toxicity and creating more work for your liver. 

As toxicity increases, it increases your risk of HPV and cervical cancer.

Healing Leaky Gut to Get Rid of HPV

I would say it’s so important to address your gut health because having leaky gut and imbalanced gut bacteria end up increasing your risk of HPV and abnormal cells not only on the cervix but also vaginally and other areas of the body. 

In fact I see cases where if we only try to go after the virus and we don’t pay attention to the gut then we may temporarily see the virus go away but it ends up coming back again.

I look at those cases and I say “what are we missing?” and what we missed is addressing the gut!

So please don’t overlook the importance of addressing your gut. Even if you don’t have any symptoms. Yes, in 50% of cases leaky gut does not create digestive symptoms. Many women say they have no digestive issues, yet after testing they find out they have leaky gut. So even with no symptoms, I recommend that you do an accurate food sensitivity panel to check for leaky gut.

The best way to identify leaky gut is with a very high-level accurate food sensitivity panel. Please don’t just do any sensitivity panel out there. They are not all created equal. 

I recommend a very specific food sensitivity panel through my office and you can get it through my website. That’s the one I recommend because I want you to have the right information to be able to make decisions about your diet and the severity of leaky gut.

This panel shows us how severe is the leaky gut and which foods do you need to avoid in order to help heal the leaky gut. Otherwise people randomly avoid foods without knowing exactly which their body reacts to.

It is common that we react to the foods we eat most often – that is the definition of leaky gut! Once you have the IgA/IgG food results, you can follow my protocol to actually heal the intestinal cells and reduce the reactivity to foods. 

The intestinal cells can recover, and we can get the gut bacteria back on track, we can drop inflammation, address nutrient deficiencies, reduce the toxicity and boost your immune system. We can address all of this. 

This is why it’s so important – as we address gut health, we can decrease HPV risk, and we can prevent it from coming back because you’ll know how to maintain your gut and vaginal health going forward.

I teach you how to do this in my Say Goodbye to HPV Program, as well as the Heal HPV Worldwide Workshop, and the Heal HPV Kickstart Program. If you want to learn how, and to follow in the footsteps of women I’ve helped be free of HPV risk, I encourage you to join me.

I encourage you to sign up for the upcoming FREE Heal HPV Worldwide Workshop and also think about signing up for one of my programs. In the programs, I can guide you to fully heal from HPV and leaky gut. We address the root causes that are making you susceptible to HPV. 

Sign Up Now (Free!)

If you are ready to get rid of HPV now, you can sign up for my Say Goodbye to HPV Program here. In the program I guide you step by step to implement my protocol, with support, and expert guidance. The Say Goodbye to HPV Program is online and available everywhere.

My newest offering is the Heal HPV Kickstart Program, a comprehensive online training series designed to kickstart your journey towards clearing HPV and reclaiming your health. You’ll get access to exclusive videos and step-by-step guidance to start taking steps to fend off HPV and keep it negative.

Register Now

I will help you gain freedom from the high-risk types of HPV. And in doing so, we will reduce the risk of getting cervical cancer or other HPV-related cancers.

To learn more about my Stress and Trauma Recovery Protocol® which involves optimizing cortisol and adrenaline levels using nutrients, herbs and C.A.R.E.™, my proprietary program to support clean eating, adequate sleep, stress recovery and exercise, you can read all about it in my latest book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health.

For the most comprehensive support, even with the most difficult health issues (physical or mental), you can meet with me one-on-one, which is available to you no matter where you are in the world (via phone or zoom). You can set up a one-on-one appointment here.

Thank you all so much for joining me today. If you are new, I invite you to subscribe and send me comments and reviews. I appreciate all of you listening and I look forward to connecting with you again in the next episode of How Humans Heal.

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