“Our intestinal lining is not smooth. We have these little hairy things called ‘villi’ on our small intestine and they filter the molecules and break down things that are too big. But what happens when we’re stressed, is that these little hairy things (the villi) die, so it means that bigger molecules start coming in. So suddenly you have tons of things penetrating into your immune system that formerly didn’t. And that causes inflammation or a ‘leaky gut’. So you stop being able to absorb nutrients. We see this a lot with people who have sleep deprivation and stress because there’s just so much going on, the whole metabolic system stops working and your body can’t take what it needs. So I check to see if there is a healthy bacterial environment, and check to make sure the person doesn’t have any parasites or yeast infections like candida. I also test for food intolerances.”