Heather Bedard, C.H.E.
The statistics on autoimmune disease in America are mind blowing. It is estimated that 8% of Americans currently have at least one autoimmune disease and women are 2.7 times more likely to develop an autoimmune disease than men.[1] We will get into the why of that a little bit later.
What does an autoimmune disease mean? Autoimmune basically means that your body attacks different tissues in your body, mistaking them for antigens and causing weakening or destruction of tissues. In other words, your body is attacking itself. It is very common for people to have more than one autoimmune disease. Left unchecked, this dysregulation of the immune system can spiral out of control.
I’m sure you’re wondering, “What in the world would cause your body to turn on itself??” There are many different causes for autoimmune disease, but typically it can be narrowed down to being the result of poor diet and lifestyle habits. Diet and lifestyle can be extremely important components, because a poor diet can lead to high estrogen levels, damage to the gut, and chronic infections. This leads to chronic inflammation, allergies, and asthma.
One of the markers for autoimmune disease is inflammation. While genetic susceptibility is a factor, usually it is a combination of the factors that I mentioned above, that trigger the onset of disease. Even if you are susceptible, less than 10% of genetically susceptible people will progress into a disease that warrants a diagnosis. This means that that there is a strong possibility that for those that do, there is an environmental or other trigger. Your genetic expression is triggered by diet and lifestyle, which is another reason to approach the prevention of autoimmune diseases from this angle. Furthermore, even if you are not genetically susceptible, being chronically ill and receiving vaccinations can override your lack of susceptibility.
On the topic of susceptibility, there is a reason that women are more likely to develop more autoimmune diseases than men. That reason is hormones. I’d highly recommend, if you are a woman, to read the article, “Happy Hormones”, to learn more about that. While a woman’s major hormones, like estrogens, fluctuate quite a bit, male hormones (or androgens) are immune suppressive. That means that that they suppress the immune system. While that doesn’t sound like a good thing, in this case it is helpful. Testosterone has even been shown to suppress antibody production in people who have systemic lupus erythematosus.[2] Many women experience an increase or decrease in their symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and thyroiditis in correlation to their menstrual cycles.[3],[4]
So we know that hormones can play a part, and inflammation has a part to play as well, so what is in our power to do, to address both of those issues? It is important to remember, as with all health issues that we address, that getting to the underlying issue is most important. Just addressing symptoms isn’t going to keep disease from progressing, and drug treatment usually just leads to worsening health. The causes of all autoimmune diseases are similar and so are the treatments. It can be helpful to think about autoimmune disease as one disease that has different characteristics in different people. It depends on where your weaknesses lie. Diet and lifestyle can be one of, if not the, biggest contributing factor to autoimmune disease and therefore it is one of your best defenses. As we learned in the “Happy Hormones” article, what you eat and drink affects your hormone levels. Additionally, the foods you eat can raise or lower inflammation.
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases states: “The choice of healthy sources of carbohydrate, fat, and protein, associated with regular physical activity and avoidance of smoking, is critical to fighting the war against chronic disease. Western dietary patterns warm up inflammation, while prudent dietary patterns cool it down.”[5]
Let’s look at some of these dietary details that we should know if we want to lower our inflammation, heal our bodies, and hopefully prevent autoimmune disease from being triggered.
Animal foods are high in arachidonic acid which leads to inflammation.[6] That is one of the reasons that it is pretty high up on our food pyramid. You don’t have to be a vegetarian or vegan, but greatly reducing your intake of these foods can help to prevent many diseases including cancer, heart disease, etc… That being said, vegetarians and near vegetarians do have lower blood levels of arachidonic acid than their counterparts that eat a typical western diet.[7] On that same note, rheumatoid arthritis patients who ate a raw vegan diet including lactobacilli-rich and chlorophyll-rich drinks saw improvement in their symptoms.[8]
Good news, an optimal dietary pattern can help treat and prevent disease without having to do crazy fad diets, count calories, or track macros!
Secondly, being overweight contributes to inflammation because fat cells produce inflammatory cytokines. Also, good news, an optimal diet can help you lose weight without having to do crazy fad diets, count calories, or track macros!
Thirdly, highly processed foods, especially grains, sugars, high fat foods, dairy and oils also can also contribute to inflammation levels in the body. Interestingly enough, six patients who had rheumatoid arthritis participated in a very low-fat diet and had complete remission.[9] Unfortunately, symptoms returned within 24-72 hours after eating a high-fat meal with foods that included chicken, cheese, and coconut oil. The authors of the study state, "...dietary fats in amounts normally eaten in the American diet cause the inflammatory joint changes seen in rheumatoid arthritis."
Fourthly, if you have been diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, it is really important that you look into removing gluten from your diet. There is a process called molecular mimicry in which foreign peptides look similar to the tissues of different organs in your body resulting in your body producing T and B cells that actually fight to destroy you. For instance, the molecules in gluten look similar enough to your thyroid that your body begins to attack that organ due to the inflammation gluten has caused in your gut resulting in leaky gut. Removing gluten can particularly help people with Hashimoto’s, Grave’s, rheumatoid arthritis, and more.
Fifthly, fasting can be a powerful support for autoimmune patients.
Because this is such a complicated topic, and the symptoms can be so severe, it is also so important that we don’t focus on just mitigating symptoms, but look at our healing methods and treat the whole person. Our goal is to prevent, stop, or reverse disease, and critically…prevent the onset of additional autoimmune diseases.
I hope you can see, and be encouraged, that although a diagnosis of autoimmune disease will result in lifestyle changes (some more drastic than others) there is hope and options, and you really can heal and improve, and get back in tune with your body.
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[1] http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/11/04-0367_article.htm
[2] Blank M, Mendlovic S, Fricke H, Mozes E, Talal N, Shoenfeld Y. “Sex hormone involvement in the induction of experimental systemic lupus erythematosus by a pathogenic anti-DNA idiotype in naïve mice.” J Rheumarol 1990;71(3):311-7.
[3] Latman N. “Relation of menstrual cycle to the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.” Am J Med 1983;74(6):957-60.
[4] Kim S, Liva S, Dalal M. “Estriol ameliorates autoimmune demyelinating disease: implications for multiple sclerosis.” Neurology 1999;52(6):1230-8.
[5] https://www.niams.nih.gov/health_Info/Autoimmune/
[6] Giugliano D, Ceriello A, Esposito K. “The effects of diet on inflammation: emphasis on the metabolic syndrome.” J Am Coll Cardiol 2006;48(4):677-85.
[7] Phinney S, Odin R, Johnson S, Holman R. “Reduced arachidonate in serum phospholipids and cholesteryl esters associated with vegetarian diets in humans.” Am J Clin Nutr. 1990 Mar;51(3):385-92.
[8] Nenonen M, Helve T, Rauma A, Hänninen O. “Uncooked, lactobacilli-rich, vegan food and rheumatoid arthritis.” Br J Rheumatol. 1998 Mar;37(3):274-81.
[9] Lucas C, Power L. “Dietary fat aggravates active rheumatoid arthritis.” Clin Res 29: 754A, 1981.