IS A ‘LEAKY BRAIN’ THE CAUSE OF YOUR ‘BRAIN FOG’?

If you’ve been troubled by any of the symptoms listed below and your doctor(s), including your neurologist, has told you, “We can’t find anything wrong,” you probably should get tested for ‘leaky brain’ syndrome’ (LBS). It’s the same mechanism behind the familiar ‘leaky gut’ (a/k/a intestinal hyperpermeability) which took conventional physicians decades to accept as a diagnosis. I’ve written about leaky gut before.

The LBS diagnosis has actually been written about in conventional neurologic journals but because the diagnostic tests are still too ‘edgy’ (Why should I do a stool analysis? I’m a neurologist.), the root causes of LBS are often overlooked. With LBS, any of a variety of factors has damaged the microscopically thin coatings of tiniest of blood vessels (capillaries) within the brain.

These triggers may include:

• Food sensitivities, non-celiac gluten sensitivity (leaky gut);
• Auto immune diseases;
• Environmental toxins, systemic inflammation, mold biotoxin illness (‘CIRS’), electromagnetic forces (EMF);
• Chronic stress;
• Post COVID ‘long haul’;
• Poor diet and antioxidant status;
• Head trauma (post concussion syndrome);
• Elevated glucose and diabetes;
• Elevated homocysteine from B vitamin deficiency;
• Excessive alcohol or recreational drug use;
• Heavy metal accumulation;
• Myalgic encephalomyelitis-chronic fatigue syndrome;
• Food additives (“Ultraprocessed foods”);
• Sleep issues (chronic insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea);
• Chronic infections.

The symptoms of LBS are pretty straightforward. You simply know your brain is not functioning as it once did. Unfortunately too many patients are misdiagnosed as ‘depression,’ ‘ADHD,’ ‘early Alzheimer’s,’ and inappropriately medicated, often for years.

Dr. Dale Bredesen, author of the bestselling, “The End of Alzheimer’s” evaluates every new patient for LBS and reports finding no shortage of alleged Alzheimer misdiagnosed patients who really had LBS due to mold biotoxin illness, B-12 deficiency, and chronic Lyme.

The common LBS symptoms are these:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Brain fog
• Headaches and migraines
• Cognitive impairment
• Alzheimer’s
• Parkinson’s disease
• ADHD
• Schizophrenia and other psychological disorders

How Is LBS Diagnosed?

The diagnoses of Leaky Brain Syndrome and Leaky Gut Syndrome are often made in tandem. When you review your symptoms with your WholeHealth Chicago practitioner, and your primary symptoms are any of those listed above, she’ll ask lots of questions not only about mental status but also about your digestion. Then she’ll likely order Blood Brain Barrier Screen and Intestinal Antigenic Screen.

If the Leaky Gut test is POSITIVE, she will likely suggest further testing of your intestinal health. These are usually a Comprehensive Stool Analysis with Parasite Check AND a 96 Food Sensitivity test.

If your home has a history of water damage or you see signs of black mold, the off gas from black mold can produce chronic inflammation, including Leaky Brain Syndrome in sensitive individuals. You can easily be tested for this and the toxic mold removed from your body. Your home, too, will need to be tested and remediated.

If you have any history of chronic Lyme Disease, long COVID, or ME-CFS with residual brain fog, this could be a manifestation of LBS and additional testing/treatment may be needed. There are separate articles throughout this website about each of these.

Healing & Treatment for LBS

As you might suspect, the healing process of Leaky Brain goes hand-in-hand with healing any aspect of Leaky Gut if this is found during your work up. Fortunately, not everyone with LBS has a leaky gut issue, but you’ll still get some nutritional recommendations that likely will include:

• Reduce gluten as much as possible. Gluten, an inflammatory molecule found in wheat, elevates a protein in your blood called ‘zonulin’ which loosens the tight bindings between cells of your intestines. Zonulin is one of the villains of both leaky gut and leaky brain.
• Eat plenty of fresh fruit and veggies, organic if possible to avoid chemicals; be conscious of your microbiome by supplementing with a high quality probiotic like ProBioMax Daily DF by Xymogen and regularly eat fermented foods (sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir).
• Avoid the reactive foods that appear on your Food Sensitivity Test.
• Drink about four cups of organic coffee every day. Drink it early enough so it doesn’t interfere with your sleep. Numerous studies have proven the benefits of coffee on brain health.
• The supplement list is rather lengthy but as your LBS heals and your memory improves, your list can be trimmed considerably.

Resveratrol Ultra (Integrative Therapeutics) high potency antioxidant, twice a day

Curalieve (Integrative Therapeutics) high potency curcumin that penetrates blood brain barrier, twice a day

Phosphatidylserine 300 mg. (Integrative Therapeutics) a phospholipid that improves memory, twice a day

PURE-OMEGA (Pure Encapsulations) once a day

Active B Complex (Integrative Therapeutics) twice a day

Alpha Lipoic Acid 300 mg (Thorne) once a day, very high potent antioxidant

Acetyl-L-Carnitine 500 mg (Integrative Therapeutics) protects and heals brain cells

Citicoline 500  mg (Life Extension) twice a day, heals damage of leaky brain

All the supplements are available through our website www.wholehealthchicago.com > APOTHECARY. Everything will arrive promptly and you’ll get a discount as well.

Lastly (Oh No! Not More!), I don’t want to make you paranoid about this but even the (soon-to-be-extinct) National Institutes of Health acknowledge that heavy exposure to Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Fields can cause (their words) ‘neuronal disruption” and the commonest symptoms being fatigue, dizziness, concentration difficulties. Some people are really sensitive to EMF, others blissfully symptom-free. You can get your home EMF inspected just by Googling EMF inspection-Chicago. If any of these symptoms trouble you and want help, schedule with any of our practitioners at WholeHealth Chicago. Leaky Brain and Leaky Gut are quite treatable in a relatively short period.

Be well,

David Edelberg, MD