If this drug can effectively block the
release of zonulin for a prolonged time, it would be a new blockbuster effective for Celiac disease, all autoimmune conditions and perhaps even cancer.
Read on to learn about the utility
of zonulin testing and other measures of intestinal permeability in clinical practice.
Abnormally high
levels of zonulin, can cause these openings to become too large and permeable.
Gliadin, a protein found in wheat, and bacterial exposure are particularly potent
stimulators of zonulin release (7, 8).
Recent evidence suggests that overstimulation
of zonulin in susceptible individuals could dysregulate intercellular communication promoting tumorigenesis at specific organ sites -LSB--RSB-.
So everything we're doing is trying to reduce stimulation or
production of zonulin because zonulin's kind of that — the energy that pulls that gut junction apart.
While the physiological
roles of the zonulin system remain to be uncovered, zonulin is thought to be potentially involved in intestinal innate immunity.
Additionally, a recently published paper suggests that many of the canonical studies used to support the clinical
utilization of zonulin were not measuring zonulin at all!
The
legitimacy of zonulin testing can also be assessed by comparing it to other, well - validated methods.
Gluten leads to increased intestinal permeability if you have a gluten allergy / sensitivity or not (via
activation of the zonulin pathway).
The anchors inside of the cells (purple boxes above) are proteins and go by the
names of Zonulin 1 (ZO1), Zonulin 2 (ZO2) and Zonulin (ZO3).
First, in many of these studies I listed in the previous section linking elevated zonulin with disease, only a fraction of the patients with the condition showed elevated
levels of zonulin.
Over at the Massachusetts General Hospital of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Alessio Fasano's
discovery of zonulin, an endogenous molecule, marked a turning point in our scientific understanding of autoimmune disease [3].
The authors conclude: «the Immundiagnostik ELISA kit supposedly testing serum zonulin (pre-HP2) levels could identify a variety of proteins structurally and possibly functionally related to zonulin, suggesting the existence of a family
of zonulin proteins...» Whether other kits have the same issue is unknown, but these findings definitely call the accuracy of zonulin testing into question.
Though zonulin is cleared rapidly from circulation, the presence
of zonulin in the blood triggers an immune response and the production of zonulin - specific antibodies.
High levels
of zonulin can be which can be triggered by gluten, parasites, candida, and harmful bacteria.
In the small intestine, gluten triggers the release
of zonulin, a protein that regulates the tight junctions between epithelial cells and therefore intestinal, but also blood - brain barrier function.
The presence of gliadin in the intestine has been shown to trigger the release
of zonulin.
When there is an over expression (too much)
of Zonulin, the tight junctions open up too wide or for far too long — that is when problems start to arise.