How To Heal 20 Years of Gut Damage in 30 Days

When I was 21, my body started attacking itself. Ulcers opened in my intestines. Food became dangerous, and there was a real chance I would lose my colon entirely. I was diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease, and for years thereafter, my life revolved around constant pain, bloody bathroom visits, fear, and the constant question: Why was my gut on fire? Now, after a PhD in metabolism, after medical school, and far more importantly, after nearly a decade of carefully experimenting with myself, tinkering with my body, obsessively as if my third degree were PGP for professional guinea pig. Now I have answers and I have tools, but back then I had no idea what was happening to my body. I was scared, I was terrified, and because of that I suffered more than I ever could have imagined. Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. Now I spend a lot of time thinking about that other question: if I can go back to the moment of diagnosis knowing what I know now, how would I put out that fire within me as fast as possible? This video will answer that question, not just for people with inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's disease, but for anyone whose gut feels broken. Because gut problems exist on a spectrum, and the truth is, unfortunately, most people are somewhere on it. But you don't need to be. Let me show you how to start. So I'd literally bet my colon that these findings translate directly to humans. You can think of your gut like a highway that experiences constant traffic, except the asphalt on the highway is being ripped up and replaced almost daily. These are science-backed, evidence-based options. This isn't fiber fearmongering or carnivore tribe fringe conspiracies. It's not an exaggeration to say that lacking that knowledge could have cost me, if not my life, then at least my colon. Because when your gut is hurting, your life shrinks. Your world becomes pain, fear, bathrooms, exhaustion. But I also know that gut healing is possible. All right, let me lay out how this is going to go. I'm going to start by outlining free and perhaps unexpected foundational tools to support gut health, tools that you can implement immediately. Then in part 2, we're going to turn to some dietary principles beyond the obvious, and hint, it's not fiber. And then in part 3, we're going to turn to the ultimate peptide stack for gut health, nothing you need to inject, but powerful peptides you can take by mouth with multiple elements of gut healing, calming inflammation, supporting tight junctions in your gut, healing leaky gut, and quelling the inflammatory storm inside your intestinal cells. Now admittedly, some of these tools are free, but some of them are investments. But if I may insert a personal quip drawn from my own experience, I've found it's sometimes worth investing in quality food and yes, supplements sometimes, otherwise you might end up spending over $2,000 out of pocket for a colonoscopy right after you move to the United Kingdom to do your PhD while living on a somewhat limited scholarship stipend and then needing to eat nothing but 79 pence sardines from Tesco Market for months to make up for it. Sorry, too personal. But let's begin with the most accessible and underrated tool you have in your toolkit right now: breathwork. Now, if you're close-minded, admittedly like I was when I was first diagnosed, this probably sounds like a bunch of woo-woo fluff. I know, breathwork. It seems far-fetched to imagine that something as simple as chilling out and taking a breath could heal an inflamed gut. But let me open your eyes to some astounding science that begins with a hardcore fact: you can directly feed your gut bacteria without even eating. How does that work? Well, you have glands in your gut, in particular ones called Brunner's glands, presumably named after some guy called Brunner with a big ego. That aside, these secrete something called mucin, which nourishes beneficial gut bacteria. And at a very high level, this helps build resilience in your gastrointestinal system, resilience I lost at a point in my life. The question then becomes, how do you activate Brunner's glands to generate the mucin to feed the gut bacteria? Well, your gut is directly connected to your brain via something you might have heard of, the vagus nerve. It's the superhighway connecting your brain to your gut. And this nerve, its activity is influenced by brain activity or mental states. So in effect, there is a direct line, a superhighway going from your brain to these Brunner's glands in your gut that can feed or starve gut bacteria. And the consequences could be tremendous. For example, if you cut the vagus nerve or negatively alter the input going from the nerve to the glands in your gut, it can cause severe bloating. This is what happens in mice when you cut that nerve. Look at how the stomach enlarges. It can also cause impairment of intestinal barrier function, basically leaky gut, and it can starve bacteria. Quite literally, this is a direct pathway by which your mental state, your mind, your mood can heal or harm your gut. And without getting too deep into the nitty-gritty, although if you want to dig into the 163 panels of data in the source paper, Have at it. The punchline is this: stress reduction helps activate the glands in your gut via the vagus nerve to heal your gut and gut lining, whereas chronic psychological stress destabilizes and harms your gut. It starves off the bacteria. The obvious caveat here is that much of the controlled experimental data were collected in animals. However, the exact same biological operating systems are within us humans, me, you as well. So I'd literally bet my colon that these findings translate directly to humans. The question then becomes, how do you activate the vagus nerve in a way that helps nourish your gut through these pathways? That's where breathing comes into the picture. Perhaps the most effective technique is something called the Physiologic Sigh. Here's how you do it. Take one deep inhale through your nose. Then before exhaling, take a second smaller inhale or like an air sip, so on top of the first. Then slowly exhale. All the air out of your mouth. That is one physiologic sigh. Repeat that for 1 to 5 minutes and you'll feel your body calm down almost immediately. And in sync with that, you're probably activating your vagus nerve to activate Brunner's glands to secrete mucin and feed those gut bacteria and help your gut lining. But you can extrapolate. Any mode of stress reduction should theoretically work, which is the great part. You can personalize it. If you like meditating, meditate. I don't really like meditating, but I probably should get into it. If you like taking a hot bath, I like that a lot more, take a hot bath. Or if you like to cuddle up with your girlfriend and force her to watch Harry Potter with you while you occasionally do a terrible impression of Dobby the house-elf, do that too. Master has presented Dobby with clothes. Dobby is free. I shouldn't have said that. I should not have said that. Bottom line, this is a powerful and underutilized tool. Don't forget it, and it's completely free. Now before moving on to tools that are a little bit more of an investment, let me double-click on the fact that some form of time-restricted feeding is also important. This doesn't need to involve strict prolonged fasts like 24-hour fasts. Something as simple as a 12-hour eating window each day and avoiding food 3 hours before bed should give enough time for your gut to recover and heal itself each day. At a very high level, you can think of your gut like a highway that experiences constant traffic, except the asphalt on the highway is being ripped up and replaced almost daily. You need time for the construction crew to come in and relay the asphalt so the highway moves smoothly. Just give your gut that break. It doesn't need to be anything radical. It can be something as simple as not eating between 7:30 PM and 7:30 AM. But remember, if you're relaxing properly, your gut bugs might be getting fed anyway. Now comes to healing your gut through food. And most people think of fiber first, but that is a mistake. There are actually strong controlled human data showing that fiber is a little bit of a gamble when it comes to gut inflammation. Some people have an anti-inflammatory response to fiber. Others have a pro-inflammatory response. Yes, fiber can cause inflammation and damage the gut in some people. That is what the strongest human randomized controlled trial data suggest, including this paper out of Stanford. That does not mean fiber is bad. It means context matters. But there's something else that does seem to lower inflammation far more consistently across humans. Fermented food. Think things like sauerkraut, kimchi, properly fermented pickles, kefir, especially kefir made from goat milk or sheep's milk because it has A2 casein which is less inflammatory than A1 casein found in cow's milk. Whole different kettle of fish. Anyway, these foods are much more likely to reduce inflammation in the gut. Now, I'm going to restrain myself from diving too deep into all the nerdy nitty-gritty mechanisms because seriously there is a ton of fascinating science here. And if you want a really great review on the topic that you want to sift through yourself, this 2024 paper out of Stanford is excellent. It is academic art. It walks through mechanisms involving short-chain fatty acids, DPLA, HCA3 signaling, 3,3-PA, HCA2 signaling, and so on if I remember it correctly. Much, much more. It's really cool. Anyway, the big picture takeaway is simple though: fermented foods appear to be far more consistently anti-inflammatory than fiber. So what I'd suggest practically speaking is starting with the blandest of fermented foods, something like sauerkraut. Personally, I like Real Pickles organic sauerkraut. I have no affiliation, it's just what I like. Start with a small amount and then gradually work your way up to as many as 6 servings per day depending on your tolerance. And you can mix them together too. I actually like taking the sauerkraut and putting it with just a little bit of stevia in some full-fat Greek yogurt. Delicious. This is the brand I like. I like to put it in a little Greek yogurt, which is Pretty good. Now, back on the topic of fiber. If you're really desperate and your gut is severely compromised, there are actually data suggesting that fiber elimination can actually help with true inflammatory bowel disease. Believe it or not, this has been clinically validated and is sometimes prescribed by clinicians for children with inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease, who don't respond to treatments. And it works in 60 to 85% of cases. We also have a decent mechanistic understanding of why this may work. Eliminating fiber in a compromised gut situation can alter the composition of the microbiome and activity of particular microbes, in particular inflammatory gut bugs, sometimes called pathobionts, like Bacteroidetes burdellii. That might help explain why fiber-free carnivore diets appear to be therapeutic in at least a subset of people with true inflammatory bowel disease. If you're interested in this topic, we actually published an open access paper on it that you can check out if you're interested. One of the strengths of the paper, I think, is we got to include patient testimonials. So go read it, completely open access. It might open your eyes. You can also combine these approaches approaches in innovative ways. For example, a short-term, maybe month-long fiber elimination diet as a reset, and then slowly introduce fermented foods. But the important point is, these are science-backed, evidence-based options. Doesn't mean every one has a double-blind randomized control trial, but these are science-based. This isn't fiber fearmongering or carnivore tribe fringe conspiracies. And the last thing I'll mention before we jump over to the ultimate peptide stack for gut healing is probiotics, which naturally go hand in hand with fermented foods. Now, you absolutely do not need to take the probiotic I take, which is one from Winalabs, but let me explain why I find it particularly interesting. In general, probiotics are a little bit of a hit or miss. Some people respond great, some people don't respond at all. But one thing we are all exposed to that genuinely concerns me is microplastics. They're sneaky, they're ubiquitous, they're everywhere, they're impossible to avoid completely, and these particles get in through your gut lining and accumulate in tissues like your heart and your brain, and yes, your gut lining itself, where they can cause substantial damage by activating immune cells and stimulating inflammation. I have a lot more content on this topic in particular, which I'll link below if you're interested, but what I find compelling about this probiotic by Winnow Labs is it was engineered by a team of people I genuinely trust. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn. He received his PhD in molecular biology and biochemistry. Good scientists, good humans, who basically curated a set of microbes that essentially binds up plastic like biological Velcro. And the idea is that these bacteria help trap the microplastics inside the gut so you can excrete them rather than absorb them into your intestinal lining and into your body at large. The bacterial strains they selected are proven to bind microplastics. You can see it here. However, I want to be very transparent about this. There are not yet any clinical trials showing that long-term use of this probiotic reduces whole body microplastic burden in humans. This isn't some sort of magical microplastic vacuum. Nothing like that exists, and I want to be clear about that. Think of this as a high-quality probiotic combined with a promising microplastic shield mechanism layered on top. I want to be real with you about where the data currently stand. That said, this company is small and scrappy, which is another reason I like it, and it's trying to tackle a really important problem with an innovative solution. And as they grow, I genuinely hope that I can help them fund clinical trials needed to rigorously test these ideas. But with that, time for the climax, the ultimate peptide stack for gut healing. And I want to emphasize, I'm going to keep this intentionally tight, just like you want the tight junctions in your gut, which we're going to figure out how to do with lirazotide. But please know, I have deep dives on each of these compounds where I rigorously go through the data, show you the graphs, talk about how they did the studies, along with roughly 50 pages of written notes covering the papers I reviewed and sifted through to develop this stack. There are 3 compounds we're going to talk about: BPC-157, lirazotide, and something called KPV. Each does something slightly different and complementary, and each needs to be taken a little bit differently. Let's start with BPC-157. This is a peptide often used as an injectable for sports and orthopedic injuries, but when taken by mouth, it may help repair the intestinal terrain itself. At a high level, it's involved in tissue repair and regenerative signaling. It supports blood flow, mucosal healing, and restoration of the gut lining directly. It's generally best taken on an empty stomach once or twice daily at 250 to 500 micrograms with the goal of maintaining a regenerative environment for your gut healing. But moving on, the next is called lirazotide. This one is different. It was actually originally developed for celiac disease to improve gluten tolerance, and that's where the strongest human controlled trial data exists. Effectively, it acts like a shield against compounds that can increase intestinal permeability. Leaky gut. The way it works is by blocking something called zonulin signaling. Zonulin is not a supervillain— well, in a way it is— but zonulin is a molecule that is involved in creating leaky gut, or in academic language, increasing intestinal permeability. This allows inflammatory compounds to pass through the gut lining into the body, creating whole body inflammation. And importantly, this phenomenon doesn't just happen in celiac disease. It can happen in a lot of us subclinically, even if we don't know what's happening. Leaky gut, or increased intestinal permeability, occurs across a a wide range of inflammatory conditions and in my opinion is probably underdiagnosed. But by blocking zonulin signaling, lirazotide helps keep the tight junctions between your intestinal cells sealed and stable. In other words, lirazotide helps keep your gut lining tight. This one should be taken a little bit differently though, roughly 15 minutes before meals, usually around 0.5mg. The rationale here is that the meals themselves may contain compounds that increase zonulin, and increase intestinal permeability, so timing matters. Larazotide is intended to stabilize the tight junctions right before food, microbial products, or inflammatory triggers stimulate zonulin release, because it's a zonulin blocker. So BPC-157 on an empty stomach and larazotide 15 minutes before meals. The last compound is called KPV, which occupies yet another niche in the gut healing ecosystem. Rather than targeting tight junctions like larazotide, KPV is especially focused on suppressing inflammatory signaling within inflamed gut cells themselves. It enters the gut cells and immune cells and inhibits inflammatory pathways like NF-kappa-B signaling. But what is especially fascinating about KPV is that it behaves almost like a smart inflammation-seeking missile. I guess inflammation-coming missile. Anyway, the mechanism is dependent on a transporter called PEPT1. Which becomes more abundant, more highly expressed in the gut and immune cells when inflammation increases. So the more inflamed a tissue becomes, the more transporters for KPV are available to enter the cell. That potentially makes it a highly targeted therapeutic agent. It goes where the inflammation is. And as a quick aside, there are also intriguing preclinical data suggesting it might have relevance in colon cancer biology, but I'll leave that for the long-form letter, which is linked below. But taken altogether, This creates a powerful gut defense system. BPC-157 and KPV, both taken on an empty stomach, usually between 250 and 500 micrograms, they support tissue recovery and reduce inflammation through complementary mechanisms. Meanwhile, Larazotide works like a permeability shield and should be taken before meals. But if you do want to experiment with them, the company I personally use is called Wingspan. I use them because their products are manufactured in the US in an FDA-registered facility and they are cGMP certified. And after a lot of asking around, it was the brand most consistently recommended to me by people whose opinions I genuinely trust. But now let me step back and level with you. Everything I just covered, basically none of it I knew on the day when I was diagnosed. And it's not an exaggeration to say that lacking that knowledge could have cost me, if not my life, then at least my colon. Which is why I made this video. It's my sincere hope that wherever you are on the gut health spectrum, there's something in here you can use today. Or give to someone else who's suffering, or keep in your back pocket for a day when you need it. Because when your gut is hurting, your life shrinks. Your world becomes pain, fear, bathrooms, exhaustion, and just survival rather than actually living it. I know that because I lived it, or didn't. But I also know that gut healing is possible. So if you found this valuable, please share it with someone you love, leave a comment, leave a like, Help this information reach more people. And above all, stay curious. And thank you.