What is ION Gut?

ION Gut is a unique and ground breaking product for healing the gut mucosa developed by Dr. Zach Bush. The gut lining is easily damaged, and ION Gut is unique in its ability to restore the tight junctions of the gut which maintain healthy regulatory function.

ION Gut has been shown both in the laboratory and clinically to help support the functioning of the gut barrier and improve gut health by strengthening tight junction cells. In experiments, toxins like herbicides and gluten have been shown to degrade the gut barrier. ION Gut has been shown to promote the strengthening of the tight junction gut barrier in small and large gut membrane cells for an optimal gut environment.

Below is the suppliers explanation of how ION Gut is your body’s first line of defence. We have made some minor alterations to the text below to make it more understandable for lay people, and we hope you find it useful.

ION Gut has been shown both in the laboratory and clinically to help support the functioning of the gut barrier and improve gut health by strengthening tight junction cells. In experiments, toxins like herbicides and gluten have been shown to degrade the gut barrier. ION Gut has been shown to promote the strengthening of the tight junction gut barrier in small and large gut membrane cells for an optimal gut environment. Tight junctions are the special protein strands that lace cells together into a continuous membrane, creating an intelligent barrier, a firewall that extends from the sinus cavities to the colon.  When tight junctions degrade, leaks in this barrier overwhelm immune system surveillance, which must generate an antibody for every category of intruder that leaks through the wall.  70% of the immune system is on the other side of that membrane.  If it is busy tracking intruders, the immune system never gets to other priorities. With ION Gut helping our gut lining, our immune system can return to regeneration and repair. Since your brain is listening to your gut, you’ll relax too!

The main element in ION Gut is the terrahydrite extract also known as lignite extract. Lignite comes from decomposed prehistoric matter. The lignite extract is composed of millions of what are nicknamed 'carbon snowflakes' derived from ancient soil ecosystems. As plants decompose, they first form peat, which then turns into humate, then lignite, then leonardite and finally to coal. All of these are rich in carbon. One of the differences between all of these elements is the amount of time and pressure have been applied to them. In the human body a small amount can be used to get your communication network running efficiently.   Bacteria communicate in the same way your cells do, through moving patterns of charges called redox signaling.  Think of ION Gut as a liquid switchboard, allowing millions of messages to simultaneously flow through the matrix, promoting regulation and balance throughout the body.

In summary, ION Gut works in the follow ways:

1. Supports membrane integrity and give your immune system a chance to rest!
2. Gives the bacteria the terrain they need to communicate, diversify, and deliver micronutrients, thereby promoting better hydration and nutrition.
3. Establishes a healthy spectrum of signals radiating from the gut microbiome (in other words, the bacterial balance in the gut) to every cell in your body.  Genetic expression, though epigenetics, is hugely influenced by the signals from the microbiome.

More detailed information

Please watch the following for more detailed information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzyLxuiUz0U

Should I take probiotics at the same time as using ION Gut?

According to the product developer, Dr Zac Bush, it is better not to use probiotics when using ION Gut, except for a brief period if you need to take antibiotics for any reason.  That’s because Dr Bush states that no probiotics can mimic the body’s own microbiome, and using restore will gradually favour the proliferation of your own body’s microbial balance. However we sit on the fence on this question because we have done a bit of kiniesiology testing and dowsing and our initial findings are that people who are taking ION Gut can benefit from taking probiotics at the same time. However if your gut instinct (excuse the pun) is that you should take probiotics at the same time, we would suggest using a wide spectrum probiotic such as Bio-Kult or For Every Day in order to avoid a proliferation of one culture and / or rotating probiotics every few weeks.

The Manufacturers Suggested Usage

The suppliers suggested dosage is to take 1 teaspoon 3 x per day. (Total of 1 tablespoon daily).

No refrigeration necessary. 
Shake before use as sediment naturally occurs. 
To prevent contamination, please avoid drinking directly from bottle or cap

Our Own Suggested Usage - for sensitive people

Please note, our recommended usage is different to the manufacturers. Firstly, the label recommends taking it on an empty stomach 30 minutes before food. However we think it is better with food for the first few weeks for sensitive individuals.  Secondly we know you want to get better quickly, but our advice, especially for sensitive people, is to be patient, and start very slowly. We recommend sensitive people to go out and buy a small dropper or small spray bottle from your pharmacy, and fill it up with the product. Then follow a programme that looks something like this. 

First week. Take 1 drop per day. (Yes we really did say, 1 drop!).
Second week, 1 drop 3 x per day
Third week 2 drops 3 x per day
Fourth week 3 drops 3 x per day
Fifth week increase to 5-6 drops 3 x per day
Sixth week, take 1 teaspoon 3 x per day
Thereafter stay on this dosage. If you are not improving after a month on this dosage, increase to 1 tablespoon 3 x per day.

Please note 1 drop usually = one spray if you use a spray bottle

Why do we give this advice? 

For some people, the results of taking ION Gut become apparent very quickly - especially with symptoms such as brain fog. But there are others who have had a less than perfect gut microbiome for a long time who occasionally get worse before they get better on the full dosage – we are talking here about problems such as fatigue, intestinal distension and flatulence. These people are not ready for the full dosage and this is the reason for the suggested usage above. It may take longer to work, but the long term result will be well worth the wait.

INGREDIENTS:

Purified water, Terrahydrite (Aqueous humic substances), and less than 1% mineral amino acid complexes.

INGREDIENTS AS ORIGINALLY MARKETED AS 'RESTORE'  (even though it's identical)

Purified water, chloride, sodium, lithium, calcium, phosphorus, sulfur, bromide, potassium, iron, antimony, zinc, copper, gold, magnesium, alanine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, methionine, threonine, valine. 

**All of the earth-derived amino acids and minerals listed above are present in only trace amounts, well below the established recommended daily allowance (RDA).

The ingredients above make no sense to me. How than can that do anything?

Before we answer this question, please note the ingredient referred to below as "lignite" extracted when it was marketed as "Restore For Gut Health" under the manufacturing name of  "Restore4Life", is the same as what they now call "Terrahydrite (Aqueous humic substances)".

We put this question to the manufacturers and developers, and this is what they said. "To focus on the ingredients would be misleading.  People are so trained to shop and think in terms of ingredients that they miss important distinctions regarding efficacy and safety.   This is why we emphasise the results of our product, the tight junction strengthening, rather than the ingredients. The raw ingredient, a lignite extract in the chemical family of fulvic molecules, has been available in the supplement industry for many years. However the carbon redox molecules in this family are incredibly diverse, with multiple charges and relationships. No raw lignite extract, including the raw material we use, has the biological effects of ION Gut or passes our safety studies."

If the raw ingredient has been around for so long, what's so special about ION Gut where it comes to gut healing?

This is what they said. "The best way to describe what is different about our end product is how it functions.  This is what makes ION Gut special.  There is not any lignite extract which we have tested, and we have tested many, including our raw material, before we take it through the process that turns it into Ion Gut, which has the biological effect of signaling on the tight junctions or has the ability to increase cell longevity in kidney cell cultures at concentrations of over 20% in the media.  Our proprietary process is the key to the results we see in the lab and the clinic". So basically, they put the raw ingredient through a special process known only to Dr Zac Bush and his team, which then enables ION Gut to have the desired effect.