Autoimmune Diseases

Autoimmune Diseases by Karen Koffler, M.D.

Something very striking is going on.

As a physician, I am seeing an increasing number of patients with autoimmune diseases such as Hashimoto’s, Crohn’s, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and more, than I have seen in the past. And I am seeing it in younger and younger ages. My colleagues are all saying the same thing. What is going on?

At a recent International Conference for Functional Medicine, we got greater insight into what we have been witnessing. The interplay of one’s genes, environmental exposures, and our gut are what lead the immune system to begin what we interpret is an attack on our own tissues. Not any one of these factors in isolation, but the combination is what causes a diagnosis of autoimmune disease. This is incredibly important because it tells us that genes do not determine our fate (and we have known this for quite some time), but that toxic exposures in the setting of an injured gut lining can activate an otherwise quiet gene.

What does our gut have to do with it? Our gut lining has to manage every morsel of food, every drop of fluid that it sees over our lifetime. And what this means is a chronic exposure of millions of molecules every time you eat: nutrients, yes, but also chemicals like BPA lining your to-go coffee cup, pharmaceuticals and mercury in your drinking water, pesticides in everything, microorganisms, and so on. 75% of your immune system is located along the gut wall, like sentinels guarding the castle for these kinds of stowaways.  These sentinels get activated if there is already preceeding injury to the gut wall or by simply getting inundated with exposures. If schmutz that contaminates our food and water then gain access to our blood stream, they can stick to our tissues, altering them, and in so doing, invite an immune attack- a perfectly appropriate response to something understood to be foreign.  In medicine, we look for antibodies in blood tests to tell us about immune activation and label our patients with a diagnosis.

If that wasn’t enough, these exposures also cause direct injury to the good-natured, life-enhancing bacteria that inhabit our gut who are working with us to keep the lining strong and keep us alive and well. An activated immune system and destruction of our good bacteria spell code red for human health.

Now, injury happens through all sorts of very common things: wheat or other proteins in food, ibuprofen or aspirin use, alcohol, reflux medications, birth control pills, antibiotics, infections including yeast, heavy metals like mercury (think tuna), and stress, to name a few. To reiterate, the combination of exposures such as these and gut wall injury leads to activation of our immune system, and while activation is a good thing when exposed to say, strep throat, it is not when you have simply had dinner.

We are now seeing autoimmune diseases not as a fixed issue for someone, but as an indication that security has been breached and the body is doing an appropriate job in trying to contain the threat. What creates the breach is the job of the functional medicine physician to figure out and correct.  Just medicating someone to shut off our immune response is not sufficient. It makes sense to identify and contain the threat. That way the body can actually heal and medication may not even be necessary.

What can you do? Minimize your exposures to the increasing number of chemicals out there: stop spraying with air fresheners, don’t ingest food or drink heated in plastic (ie, do not use the plastic lids when getting coffee to go), be aware that some medications inadvertently cause this kind of harm.  Listen to your gut: symptoms like bloating after a meal is a possible sign of immune activation. Eat organic to minimize exposures. Enjoy fermented foods like sauerkraut, kombucha and yogurt for the healing effects of probiotics. Try bone broth to keep the gut lining strong. And if you have an autoimmune disease, read Amy Myer’s book, The Autoimmune Solution to gain insight on what else you can do to heal yourself. Realize that it is quite possible to reverse autoimmune disease.