Leaky gut is the term for a breach in the intestinal lining. You see, your gut should be a tightly sealed area so that the undigested food you eat stays inside where it belongs. However, when you ingest wheat, lectins and gluten work together to give you a real one-two punch to the stomach, causing a condition known as leaky gut.

Lectins throw the first punch by causing intestinal permeability. Then, gluten throws the second punch by triggering the release of zonulin (no, we aren’t making up these intergalactic sounding names). The evil zonulin destroys the seals in the walls of the intestines, making it possible for an intestinal breach to occur.

Once the intestinal breach exists, lectins, along with other particles, like partially digested food and toxins, can “leak” into the bloodstream. Your body views these escapees as unwelcome foreign invaders and begins a direct attack on these particles, leading to autoimmune mayhem and opening up the door to disorders like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn’s, colitis, thyroiditis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and arthritis.

Essentially, all of these components of wheat are working together to deplete your micronutrients and increase your risk for serious illness and disease. However, we want to stress that a gluten-free diet alone is not going to solve your leaky gut troubles. Typically, people who suffer from gut issues and follow a gluten free diet also experience deficiencies in calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, iron, and B12. The vitamin B12 helps keep the amino acid homocysteine at the right level, which may help decrease the risk of heart disease and is essential to red blood cell production.

In our new book, The Micronutrient Miracle, we're sharing our very best tips on how to complete what we like to call, a pantry purge. We're essentially teaching you how to ditch the toxic foods and ingredients and how replace them with nutrient dense ones!

So what do you say? We have a little challenge for you! For the next 28 days, we want you to whack the wheat as well as all of the other products in which wheat and its most notable sidekick, gluten, are hiding!