Autoimmune Disease: Natural Solutions

Autoimmune Disease: Natural Solutions

- R. Pierce, Biloxi, MS

Q: Autoimmune diseases seem to be so prevalent these days. Why is this? Is there anything we can do?

A:There are between 80 and 100 autoimmune diseases, and only one of them—one of them— has a known, identified trigger.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute. That means we know the cause of only one specific autoimmune disease—celiac, which is triggered by gluten, 100 percent of the time. The rest are something of a mystery.

The list of autoimmune diseases is pretty daunting. Multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease (colitis and Crohn’s), ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), thyroid disease (Graves and Hashimoto’s), psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis are all autoimmune diseases, and that’s just a partial list. What’s more, experts like Tom O’Bryan, author of The Autoimmune Fix, and Amy Myers, MD, author of The Autoimmune Solution, regard autoimmunity on a spectrum, with the fully diagnosed, identifiable “disease” state being just one arbitrary point on that spectrum.

Most of us probably fall somewhere on this spectrum, and have some degree of autoimmunity dysfunction— some less so, some more so. And we should all be paying attention. Autoimmune dysfunction is likely happening well in advance of any noticeable symptoms.

In one fascinating study, Melissa Arbuckle, MD, PhD, looked at the patient history of 130 vets in the VA hospital system, all of whom had been diagnosed with lupus, a systemic autoimmune disease. Those in the service have their blood drawn regularly throughout their tours of duty, so Arbuckle looked back at their records. Every single one of them had markers for no less than seven different antibodies—years before they actually showed symptoms and got a lupus diagnosis.