Expert interview: Dr. Lance Baumgard and Dr. Kip Karges on leaky gut

In this Expert Talk video, Dr. Lance Baumgard from Iowa State University and Dr. Kip Karges from Lallemand Animal Nutrition answer questions about managing leaky gut.

What is a leaky gut and its causes?

Leaky gut is essentially the infiltration or the transfer of unwanted molecules that reside inside the gut into the animal through the barrier of the intestine or the rumen.

There are quadrillions of unwanted molecules that live in the cattle GI tract, the same as in humans, and if any of these unwanted molecules infiltrate this barrier, they’re going to cause an immune response and the associated inflammation and negative consequences that come with it.

The gut needs to absorb valuable nutrients, such as amino acids, fatty acids, carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water.

But most of what’s inside the gut, in the lumen of the gut, the animal does not want to infiltrate that gut barrier, when I’m referring to as healthy gut is preventing these unwanted molecules from getting in.

Why is gut health so important?

From a nutrition standpoint, we look at how do we manage nutrients coming into an animal and turning that into some type of economic gain for us.

From a standpoint of livestock performance, IE average daily gain on a beef steer or maybe it’s daily milk production on a milk cow. When we manage nutrition, that’s what we’re talking about: Right feed, right place, right time, right amount.

In most of an animal’s immune system, up to 80% resides inside of the GI tract. This immune system is there for a reason, it’s to protect the host from invading pathogens.

But if there is too much leaky gut or they become hyperpermeable, these invading antigens will stimulate the immune response.

And the activated immune response requires an enormous amount of nutrients, primarily glucose and amino acids.