By Mark Hyman MD on June 17, 2011
Inflammation is a “hot” topic in medicine. It appears connected to almost every known chronic disease: from heart disease to cancer, diabetes to obesity, autism to dementia and even depression. Other inflammatory diseases such as allergies, asthma, arthritis and autoimmune disease are increasing at dramatic rates. As physicians we are trained to shut off inflammation with aspirin, anti-inflammatory medication such as Advil or Motrin, steroids and increasingly more powerful immune-suppressing medication with serious side effects. But we are not trained to find and treat the underlying causes of inflammation in chronic disease. Hidden allergens, infections, environmental toxins, an inflammatory diet and stress are the real causes of these inflammatory conditions.
Autoimmune diseases, specifically, now affect 24 million people and include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, thyroid disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and more. These are often addressed by powerful immune suppressing medication and not by addressing the cause. That’s like taking a lot of aspirin while you are standing on a tack. The treatment is not more aspirin or a strong immune suppressant, but removing the tack.
If you want to cool off inflammation in the body, you must find the source. Treat the fire, not the smoke. In medicine we are mostly taught to diagnose disease by symptoms, not by their underlying cause. Functional medicine is the emerging 21st century paradigm of systems medicine that teaches us to treat the cause, not only the symptoms, to ask why you are sick, not only what disease you have.
Functional medicine is a different way of thinking about disease that helps us understand and treat the real causes of inflammation instead of finding clever ways to shut it down. Medicine as it is practiced today is like taking the battery out of a smoke detector while a fire burns down your house!
Autoimmune conditions are connected by one central biochemical process: A runaway immune response also known as systemic inflammation that results in your body attacking its own tissues.
Autoimmunity: What It Is and How It Occurs
We are facing an epidemic of allergies (60 million people), asthma (30 million people) and autoimmune disorders (24 million people). Autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, celiac disease, thyroid disease, and the many other hard-to-classify syndromes in the 21st century. These are all autoimmune conditions, and at their root they are connected by one central biochemical process: a runaway immune response also known as systemic inflammation that results in your body attacking its own tissues.
Your immune system is your defense against invaders. It is your internal army and has to clearly distinguish friend from foe — to know you from other. Autoimmunity occurs when your immune system gets confused and your own tissues get caught in friendly cross-fire. Your body is fighting something — an infection, a toxin, an allergen, a food or the stress response — and somehow it redirects its hostile attack on your joints, your brain, your thyroid, your gut, your skin or sometimes your whole body.
This immune confusion results from what is referred to as molecular mimicry. Conventional approaches don’t have a method for finding the insult causing the problem. Functional medicine provides a map to find out which molecule the cells are mimicking.
Interestingly, autoimmune disorders occur almost exclusively in developed countries. People in poor nations without modern amenities like running water, flushing toilets, washing machines and sterile backyards don’t get these diseases. If you grew up on a farm with lots of animals, you are also less likely to have any of these inflammatory disorders. Playing in the dirt, being dirty and being exposed to bugs and infections trains your immune system to recognize what is foreign and what is “you.”
In this country, autoimmune diseases are a huge health burden. They are the eighth leading cause of death among women, shortening the average patient’s lifespan by eight years. The annual health care cost for autoimmune diseases is $120 billion, representing nearly twice the economic health care burden of cancer (about $70 billion a year).1
Unfortunately, many of the conventional treatments available can make you feel worse. Anti-inflammatory drugs like Advil, steroids, immune suppressants like methotrexate, and the new TNF-alpha blockers like Enbrel or Remicade can lead to intestinal bleeding, kidney failure, depression, psychosis, osteoporosis, muscle loss, diabetes, infection and cancer.2
When used selectively these drugs can help people get their lives back. But they are not a long-term solution. They shouldn’t be the end of treatment, but a bridge to cool off inflammation while we treat the root cause of the disease.
If you have an autoimmune disease, here is what you need to think about and do.
Nine Steps to Treating Autoimmune Disease
1. Check for hidden infections — yeast, viruses, bacteria, Lyme, etc. — with the help of a doctor and treat them.
2. Check for hidden food allergens with IgG food testing or just try The UltraSimple Diet, which is designed to eliminate most food allergens.
3. Get tested for celiac disease with a blood test that any doctor can do.
4. Get checked for heavy metal toxicity. Mercury and other metals can cause autoimmunity.
5. Fix your gut.
6. Use nutrients such as fish oil, vitamin C, vitamin D and probiotics to help calm your immune response naturally.
7. Exercise regularly. It’s a natural anti-inflammatory.
8. Practice deep relaxation like yoga, deep breathing, biofeedback or massage, because stress worsens the immune response.
9. Tell your doctor about Functional medicine and encourage him or her to get trained. Go to http://www.functionalmedicine.org/ for more information and to get a copy of the “Textbook for Functional Medicine.”
Give these steps a try and see if you don’t start feeling less inflamed. The answers are right in front of you. Treat the underlying causes of your illness and you will begin to experience vibrant health once more.
For more information on how to optimize your health, see http://drhyman.com/.
Now I’d like to hear from you … Have you been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease? How is your doctor treating you? Have you been frustrated by the medical advice that you’ve been given? What steps have you taken to get to the root of the problem, and what have your results been? Please leave your thoughts by adding a comment below.
References
1. Nakazawa, D. (2008). The Autoimmune Epidemic. Simon & Schuster. New York.
2. Siegel, C.A., Marden, S.M., Persing, S.M., et al. (2009). Risk of lymphoma associated with combination anti-tumor necrosis factor and immunomodulator therapy for the treatment of Crohn’s disease: a meta-analysis. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. 7(8): 874-81.
Photo credit: Trace Meek
Read More By Guest Blogger on March 4, 2010
By Jessica Goldman
I have a mantra that I readily pass on to family and friends: when your life has changed, change your life. Considering how frequently I offer this advice, it would seem that I, myself, follow it loyally. But the truth is, it has taken me six years to actually put that advice into practice.
A few months ago, I left my full-time desk job—complete with mid-level management title, consistent paycheck, and fancy business cards—to confront the realities of my autoimmune disease and give myself a healthier, stress-free lifestyle. My new path as a freelance writer affords me the time and flexibility to see my doctors, pick up medication, and stay strong. Also, it will allow me to live a long and healthy life.
As necessary as the switch was, the idea of being self-employed and departing the more emblematic working world was frightening and made me feel like a failure. When I left my job, I left tangible indicators of success. I felt as though I was giving into my pain and fatigue, which (because they are so personal) are easy to second-guess and underestimate. I was totally lost; I felt like a wimp and a quitter. Ultimately, I worried that if I eased up even a little bit on my disease, I would no longer be strong enough to push past the daily challenges. But, now that I have made the shift and have found true peace with my decision, I can’t imagine living any differently.
It all started in January of 2004: my life officially changed when I was diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic disease that on my best days leaves me fatigued and with joint pain and on my worst days demands a full schedule of doctor’s appointments and bed rest. During its onset, Lupus attacked my kidneys and brain. Within the first few days, I endured several grand mal seizures, my bone marrow stopped working, my kidneys failed, and I began emergency dialysis and chemotherapy. Through great medicine, wonderful family and friends, and an enormous amount of support, I became stronger and healthier and miraculously, my kidneys partially regenerated. I had been given a gift—a chance to leave the hospital and reenter the world once again. But it was in this moment, when I started to recover, that the true uphill challenge began.
Looking back, I now know that my toughest battle was not the one for my life, but to reclaim my life as normal. When in survivor mode, the goal is clear: live. Nothing else matters, and the simple act of sitting up in the morning, eating breakfast, and breathing are accomplishments. But once you’ve survived, and you begin to regain the strength and color that makes you like those around you, the goals of “real life” seep back in and become complicated by the things you think you should do and be: graduate from college, hold a full-time job, save the world (and not just yourself). It turns out that when your life has actually changed, the last thing you want to do is to diverge any further from your concept of normalcy. You’d like to get back to it as soon as possible.
I spent the first five years after college clinging to the expected course and began work as a full-time grant writer. I had no intention of slowing down or giving myself a moment of well-deserved rest. In reality, I had every intention of speeding up. I wanted to be a director of development by the time I was thirty, just a few years away. I wanted to increase the gold stars on my resume, add a few more numbers to my salary, and rewrite the title on my business card at least two more times. These were my goals and I was determined to achieve them. But they were unrealistic.
While I thought I had been maintaining a delicate balance of career, social life, and chronic illness, the reality was that the scales were greatly tipped and my health had become my last priority. Not only was there no time for doctors’ appointments, the mere act of scheduling them was overwhelming. I put off picking up medications so long that sometimes my prescriptions would get canceled. My hair began falling out, my blood pressure rose to dangerous levels, and I was thoroughly weak and worn. I had taken the gift of recovery and run myself right back into the ground. Everything—from my schedule to the fact that I sat in a chair for ten hours a day—was counter to what my body needed. If I wanted to live a long and healthy life, I needed to make a drastic change…so I did.
Today, I follow those words that I have passed on to so many others. Since my life is now about my health, my health became the muse of my career. I began to write a blog about the adventures of living on a no-sodium diet, documenting the tasks and cooking experiments that take up much of my time. The blog grew into more articles about wellness, and I quickly realized that the daily health chores that once seemed roadblocks to success had become my greatest assets. Myriad appointments and long stays in waiting rooms were no longer in the way of my work, but instead fueled my creativity and my writing. I had a defined niche, endless amounts of material, and—most importantly—I was doing something that would not only benefit me, but also others on a similar journey.
I thought that by listening to the needs of my body, my achievements would be stunted. But the results have been quite the opposite. I am now the best version of myself, with the energy and mental capacity to accomplish more than I ever could before. Once I stopped trying to be ordinary, I could begin to approach my illness, my career, and, ultimately, my life by seeking the extraordinary.
Jessica Goldman lives in San Francisco and splits her time equally between her two loves: cooking and writing. She hosts a daily blog, www.sodiumgirl.com, regularly writes for the Center for Urban Education on Sustainable Agriculture, and is often found trolling local markets for kitchen inspiration.
Read More By Guest Blogger on December 18, 2009
Michelle Sorensen & Family
I am a vegan mom to two daughters (aged 1 and 3). In addition I am self-employed as a therapist. I have another identity that is invisible to many people: I am a Type 1 diabetic with a couple of other autoimmune problems thrown into the mix. In the 11 years I have been diabetic, I have learned not to fight this disease but to live more peacefully with it.
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which your body turns against itself and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells on your pancreas. It is often confused with the more common Type 2 diabetes, which can be managed with diet, exercise, or oral medications. Type 1 (previously known as juvenile diabetes) usually strikes children or young adults who seem otherwise healthy. Without synthetic insulin injected into the body, Type 1 diabetes would be a terminal disease.
I was diagnosed when I was about to turn 25. I was in the middle of graduate school and when I look back, I had been running on adrenaline for some time. The previous year I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune problem with the thyroid gland. It never occurred to me that my body was warning me to slow down. I continued to take care of others and to juggle school, work and social commitments. I felt tired all the time, and sometimes would get weak and shaky. I was hungry and thirsty, no matter how much I ate or drank. And still I pushed myself to accomplish more. When I felt exhausted I thought I was being lazy. Finally, I ended up at the emergency room. My sugar was too high to register a reading on a glucometer. I was told they had never seen a sugar so high outside of someone in a coma and I was put on an insulin drip right away. I remember asking a resident the question that I had been pushing out of my mind for months: Am I a diabetic? Of course, the answer was obvious, but for a few weeks I honestly believed it would all turn out to be a mistake.
It surprised me what a juggling act diabetes management was. I spent my first year trying to be the perfect diabetic and I struggled with feelings of guilt and shame. I was convinced that somehow this was my fault and now I could never fix it. My days were filled with insulin injections and sugar checks… suffering from blood sugar lows that left me guzzling juice, shaking, sweating and confused or highs that made me dehydrated and fuzzy-headed. I could never take a day off from diabetes without substantial risk to my safety and well-being.
It became difficult to maintain the people-pleasing life I had lived for so long. I started to realize this was a problem at the first anniversary of my diagnosis, but it took me much longer to actually change my behavior. So my body kept saying NO. No, I will not let you destroy me. No, you deserve better than this. Since the first few diagnoses didn’t slow me down, my body sent out more signals. My digestive system began to crumble. The specialists stuck tubes down my throat and scanned me but had no answers. So I gave up on them and it took me another four years of feeling sick and fatigued before I discovered my path to health.
To heal I had to take responsibility for the fact that my health problems were my responsibility. I had to face up to the fears I buried deep down that something I did caused me, in the prime of my life, to develop all this disease. When I fell in love with my husband (6 years ago) he was able to help me see how little I nurtured myself. He made me feel happy and helped me to slow down. My body recognized its window of opportunity and increased my digestive distress, finally sending me to a naturopath. I discovered the food allergies related to my leaky gut (destroyed by stress and lack of nutrition) and quickly devoted myself to adopting an allergen free diet. During my twenties I did not take time to prepare the vegetables and fruit I had always eaten growing up. I consumed way more wheat and dairy than I had in my parents’ home. Now, with my body failing, I needed to spend more time on me.
When I discovered a wonderful raw food restaurant during my first pregnancy four years ago, I began to realize the importance of adding in even more plant-based foods (versus just cutting out the food I couldn’t tolerate), and had an ah-ha moment: food itself is truly medicine! Two years ago my husband and I started making green smoothies every morning and then craved plant-based foods all day. Last spring, I decided I did not enjoy meat anymore, and thought I may as well cut it out altogether for a trial period. The ACT cleanse was starting here on CSL and I decided to follow along. Everyone’s tips and ideas were so helpful. I started using the juicer that had been sitting in my cupboard, did a little dry brushing, got back to hot yoga, and shook the last few gastrointestinal symptoms I had! I completed my transition to veganism.
There is nothing more empowering than taking control of your health. I may still need my insulin pump and thyroid medication but I believe I have halted the autoimmune cyclone hitting my body and I will continue to eat a plant-based, vegan and gluten-free diet for the rest of my life! I know these changes could help many people… in fact, my husband’s asthma of 25 years vastly improved from eating a less rigid version of my diet at home. I hope someone reading this is helped a little on their own path to good health.
Michelle Sorensen is a clinical psychological associate in Ottawa, Ontario. She practices cognitive behavioral therapy, teaching her patients to change the way they feel physically and emotionally by changing the way they think.
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