If you’re dealing with unexplained fatigue, brain fog, joint pain, stubborn weight, or a new autoimmune flare, the root cause may be sitting in your small intestine. Leaky gut — clinically known as intestinal permeability — is measurable, well-documented, and reversible when you know what to do. This guide breaks down what’s happening at the gut wall and gives you a structured first week of repair.
What Leaky Gut Actually Is
The lining of your small intestine is one cell thick. That single layer is the wall standing between everything you swallow and your bloodstream, deciding what gets absorbed and what stays out. Those cells are held together by tight junctions — protein zippers that open to let nutrients through and stay closed against everything else.
When those zippers get stuck open, undigested food particles, toxins, and bacterial fragments slip into circulation and trigger an immune response that was never meant to happen there. That’s leaky gut.
This isn’t a wellness buzzword. A 2019 review in Gut by Camilleri laid out the mechanisms and how researchers measure intestinal permeability in humans. Di Vincenzo and colleagues published a 2024 review in Internal and Emergency Medicine connecting gut microbiota, permeability, and systemic inflammation. Neurath’s 2025 paper in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology called the intestinal barrier pivotal in health, inflammation, and cancer. And Malesza’s 2021 Cells review documented how a high-fat, Western-pattern diet drives the damage.
Why Leaky Gut Drives So Many Symptoms
When the barrier leaks, the immune system starts reacting to proteins it was never supposed to meet. Over time, that chronic low-grade reaction becomes the common thread underneath autoimmunity, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, eczema, thyroid dysfunction, and weight that won’t budge.
Inflammation isn’t the cause — it’s the signal pointing upstream to the leak. Diet and environmental exposures, not genetics, drive most of that fire.
This is personal territory. Years ago, fibromyalgia had me in bed by 4 p.m. I hadn’t yet been diagnosed with celiac disease, and it took three and a half years to connect the dots. Once gluten came out and the gut lining started rebuilding through nutrition, the fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue reversed. Every body is bio-individual, but the principle is universal: find the hole, then fix it.
Common Signs of Leaky Gut in Women Over 45
- Bloating, gas, or unpredictable digestion
- Brain fog and afternoon energy crashes
- Joint pain or new food sensitivities
- Stubborn weight that doesn’t respond to calorie cutting
- Skin issues — eczema, rosacea, adult acne
- Thyroid symptoms or autoimmune diagnoses
- Mood swings and sleep disruption
Your First-Week Leaky Gut Repair Protocol
One week won’t close every junction. But one week of feeding the barrier instead of beating it up tells your body you’re finally listening — and most women feel a measurable shift by day five.
Foods to Add
- Bone broth, simmered long and slow. Collagen and glutamine are the raw materials your gut lining rebuilds from (Aleman 2023 reviewed the specific ingredients that support barrier repair).
- Steamed leafy greens and colorful vegetables at every meal
- Wild-caught fatty fish — salmon, sardines — two to three times a week for omega-3s
- Two tablespoons of raw butter daily as a steady anti-inflammatory habit
- Whole-food fats: avocado, nuts, seeds, ghee, coconut
- Fermented vegetables (sauerkraut, kimchi) in small daily doses if tolerated
Foods to Pull Out for Seven Days
- Gluten, in every hiding place — sauces, soups, seasonings
- All dairy during the reset (pasteurized cow dairy is the main offender; raw dairy is a separate conversation)
- Added sugar and industrial seed oils
- Bottled salad dressings. Dress food with fresh lemon, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper, or a homemade whole-food vinaigrette instead.
The Lifestyle Lever Most People Skip
Sleep. Seven to nine hours, dark room, screens off an hour before bed. Barrier repair happens overnight, and a short-sleep week will undo a clean-nutrition week. This isn’t optional — it’s where the healing actually lands.
If you’re managing a diagnosed condition, run dietary changes past your naturopathic or medical provider before starting.
Where to Get Professional-Grade Probiotic Support
For probiotics and gut-barrier supplements that actually contain what the label claims, the dispensary worth using is Fullscript. The sourcing is clean and the potency is real, which matters because most drugstore probiotics arrive at the shelf with a fraction of the live organisms promised on the box.
For advanced or medically complex situations where nutrition alone isn’t enough, Dr. Glidden’s program at leavebigpharmabehind.com is a strong resource. For foundational gut repair, the structured protocol below is the right starting point.
Get the Guided Version: 7 Days to Reset Your Gut
If this is the week you stop chasing symptoms and start working at the root, 7 Days to Reset Your Gut is the guided, structured version of everything above — meal framework, daily actions, and a coaching walk-through so you’re not figuring it out alone. Normally $97, available to readers for $27.
Start 7 Days to Reset Your Gut — $27
Keep Going — Free Weekly Guidance
For weekly evidence-backed articles on gut health, hormones, and energy for women over 45, subscribe to the free Unbound Health newsletter on Substack: substack.com/@angelaatkins. New pieces land every week.
Your body isn’t broken — it’s asking to be heard, and every meal is a vote you get to cast.
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