I just listened to a Dr. Steven Gundry presentation on his supplement, Total Restore, designed to counter Leaky Gut. Is his scientific explanation of this syndrome accurate, that it is caused by disruption of the gut lining by lectins, creating gaps that permit uptake of endotoxins and other microbial products that spread through the body and damage many tissues? Is this a significant source of inflammation?

This is not simply conjecture but a reasoned hypothesis based on abundant experimental evidence that the phenomenon is real. And by pinpointing a primary mechanism for its occurrence, he is moving the goalposts with respect to the scientific understanding and eventual effective resolution of the problem. This breaches a fundamental natural barrier to assault from the environment, particularly the microbial realm. Given that, topologically, the entire gastrointestinal tract is technically outside the body, this is why it is filled and teeming with microbes of all kinds, and thus represents a local hazard to health. Because the body, ironically, contains this local concentration of microbes, some of them being pathogens, and many elaborating constituents composed of materials that would trigger the immune system as they do not belong within the body and would be seen as foreign, this causes an inflammatory reaction. So a buildup through dissemination of such byproducts seeping through openings in the gut wall, even of a microscopic size, will contribute to generalized inflammatory responses and this will be more pronounced in areas where there is a buildup through accumulation of absorbed foreign material, and thus, is an ongoing hazard to health.