Psychosocial stress-induced intestinal permeability in healthy humans: What is the evidence?
Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data
Narrative review examining mechanisms and human data without systematic search or meta-analytic methods.
PubMed 37842017 · doi:10.1016/j.ynstr.2023.100579
What was done
This narrative review synthesized in vitro, animal, and human research investigating the impact of psychosocial stress on intestinal barrier permeability, focusing on mast-cell-dependent mechanisms and factors underlying translational discrepancies.
What was found
No quantitative findings or numbers are reported in the abstract. While preclinical studies consistently show that psychosocial stress increases intestinal permeability, published human studies have not provided unequivocal evidence that this relationship occurs in healthy individuals.
Why it matters
This paper highlights major translational gaps in gut-brain axis research, urging caution before generalizing animal models of stress-induced gut barrier dysfunction directly to healthy humans.
Limits
As a narrative review, the abstract details no systematic search protocol, sample size, or quantitative synthesis. Human experimental models face ethical limitations on stress intensity and technical difficulties in reliably measuring in vivo intestinal permeability.
Cited by
- context Chronic high stress causes telomere shortening, accelerates aging, impairs gut barrier integrity, and contributes to 90% or more of disease.
- context Chronic psychological stress causes increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and alters the gut microbiome composition.