Health Matters
by Dr. Thomas K. Lo, Advanced Chiropractic & Nutritional Healing Center
Natural Approaches to Autoimmune Conditions: Part 1
One in every 10 people is affectedby an autoimmune condition. There are currently over 80 different kinds of
known autoimmune diseases.
What is Autoimmunity?
The job of a healthy immune system is to protect you from infections and diseases. Your immune system does this by attacking viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens that are trying to enter and harm your body. A normally functioning immune system can tell pathogens from cells that are part of your body, and they harm only pathogens.
However, if you have an autoimmune condition, your immune system has trouble differentiating between foreign pathogens and parts of your body. It will end up attacking your cells, organs, and tissues instead of pathogens by mistake because it confuses them with foreign invaders.
Certain autoimmune conditions only affect one organ or one area of your body. For example, autoimmune hepatitis affects your liver, and alopecia areata causes hair loss.
Other types of autoimmune conditions may affect various areas and multiple organs.
Rheumatoid arthritis may affect multiple joints across your body but may also affect your eyes and lungs.
Systemic lupus erythematosus can cause widespread problems, including joint pain, rashes, hair loss, kidney issues, mouth sores, and more.
The most common autoimmune conditions include:
Celiac disease
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
Graves’ disease
Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs)
Rheumatoid arthritis
Reactive arthritis
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Addison disease
Sjögren syndrome
Type I diabetes
Psoriasis
Multiple sclerosis
Pernicious anemia
Myasthenia gravis
Major Factors Causing Autoimmune Conditions
The exact cause of autoimmune conditions is unknown. It seems that rather than one cause, multiple factors may play a role. Some autoimmune conditions tend to run in the family, so genetics may play a role.
Besides genetics, though, several dietary, lifestyle, and health factors may increase your risk of developing an autoimmune condition. Some of the major causes are listed below.
Leaky Gut and Low Stomach
Acid Levels
Your gut affects your entire body, including your immune system. Poor microbiome balance or gut dysbiosis may increase digestive issues, chronic inflammation, and the risk of autoimmune conditions.
It can also cause poor nutrient absorption, increase toxin build-up, and reduce detoxification.
Stomach acid is a digestive fluid created in your gut to help you digest food. Its main component is hydrochloric acid (HCL), along with potassium chloride and sodium chloride. With the help of HCL, your stomach can transform a large solid meal into a semi-liquid soupy substance called chyme that can move through the rest of the digestion process without a problem.
If your body doesn’t produce enough HCL and stomach acid, it won’t be able to provide a healthy gut environment, so the body won’t be able to break down and digest food properly. It may increase digestive issues and gut microbiome imbalance, increasing the risk of leaky gut syndrome.
Leaky gut syndrome is one of the major root cause factors behind immune dysfunction. Under normal circumstances, your gut lining is semi-permeable. It’s able to allow micronutrients to pass through into your bloodstream, but stop bigger food particles, toxins, and pathogens.
However, if you are following a poor diet, exposed to too many environmental toxins, experiencing high stress, dealing with low stomach acid levels disrupting healthy digestion, and dealing with poor microbiome balance, it may cause the small semi-permeable holes to become bigger. When your gut lining has a bigger hole that allows toxins, microbes, and large food particles to pass into your bloodstream, we call this leaky gut.
When toxins, microbes, and food particles enter your bloodstream due to leaky gut, your immune system will recognize them as harmful invaders. It will attack them to protect you.
Unless you do something about it, these particles will keep on flooding your bloodstream. Your immune system will keep on attacking them, leading to chronic inflammation.
Over time, your immune system will become overwhelmed and confused. Eventually, it won’t be able to differentiate between unwanted substances and your body, leading to autoimmune issues. Also, leaky gut syndrome may increase food sensitivity.
Consuming foods that you are sensitive to will increase inflammation.
High Toxin Load
Our world is full of environmental toxins, including exhaust fumes, air pollution, cigarette smoke, chemicals in cleaning, personal hygiene, body, and beauty products, plastics, toxins in tap water, pesticides, and so on.
According to the Environmental Working Group, there are over 80,000 toxic chemicals used regularly in the United States.
The body has a built-in metabolic detoxification system to address this problem by converting fat-soluble toxins into inactive water-soluble metabolites. Unfortunately, with so many toxins and chemicals around, our bodies get overwhelmed. So, high exposure to environmental toxins and poor detoxification may increase chronic inflammation and oxidative stress.
Pesticides & Herbicides
Pesticides and herbicides such as glyphosate are some of the major environmental toxins that may affect you and increase your risk of autoimmunity if you are exposed to them in the food you eat.
Pesticides are chemicals used in farming to kill, prevent, reduce, destroy, or repel pests. Herbicides are used to manipulate or control undesirable vegetation.
