Autoimmune conditions definitely require a more advanced functional medicine approach, and there are no tools or testing that tell us EXACTLY WHY autoimmunity occurs.
However, since many of you reached out to ask about how to approach autoimmunity, I am sharing a few clinical pearls on this today.
Overview of today’s email:
- The 7 primary contributing root causes to autoimmunity
- Elaborating on 2 of the contributing factors
- Some resources
1. 7 Contributing Root Causes of Autoimmunity
The following are from a multiple sources of my previous functional medicine education. I have listed these in order of what I feel seems to be primary contributors, from top to bottom.
- Mindset and Beliefs (this is one of the most important - and most difficult - to address! See next tip)
- Nervous system (stress is still the number one trigger of chronic health issues, but also consider someone's ACE score)
- Gut health and microbiome balance (remember, 70% of the immune system is around the gut via the GALT!)
- Nutrition (briefly addressed with last email)
- Chronic infections (oral dysbiosis, gut "bugs", reactivated viruses, etc)
- Other sources of inflammation (especially oxidative stress)
- Toxins and ineffective detoxification pathways (genetics can be at play with this)
2: Elaborating on 2 of the above
MINDSET AND BELIEFS
Women are most likely to be impacted by autoimmunity, and women in our modern world often have underlying shame and a belief that we are “broken” (often related to the images and media we are exposed to, which share an underlying message that we are missing something or not “perfect”).
These beliefs lead to a literal and figurative “self-attack”, which leads to a cycle of inflammation and desperate attempt to repair what is (not) broken.
“Self-compassion is an anecdote to shame, so self-compassion is a necessary part of healing autoimmunity and chronic illness” - Erin Holt
SOURCES OF INFLAMMATION
High arachidonic acid and low omega 3 intake significantly affects the immune response. The following "prescription" is from the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) Immune Module:
If you suspect low omega 3 intake and/or see a suboptimal omega index, beyond optimizing an anti-inflammatory diet, consider the following (and per the IFM content, these start to make changes at the cellular level by around 4-6 weeks of use):
- 3000mg good-sourced omega 3 fish oil Monday through Friday (omega 3 oil stays in the blood stream for up to 3 days after consuming; I personally like to prescribe it to "mimic" food intake)
- 3000mg GLA (borage oil has highest content, followed by black currant and evening primrose); take with omega 3s to inhibit conversion to arachadonic acid
- 1-2 Tbsp fresh ground flax (equates to around 5 grams of ALA), at least 3 days a week
3: Some resources
Podcast: Building your autoimmune toolkit
Article: Omega 3 Fatty Acids in Inflammation and Autoimmune Diseases (2013)
This topic is tough and definitely requires more education (often involving molecular medicine), but hope the information was helpful!
Meg
P.S. Join me TODAY for the last brainstorming session on the Functional Medicine Collective Mentorship! Click here to register for the 30-45 minute 10am MST chat! No recordings will be available (sorry!)
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