Your Immune System: To protect or destroy?
Autoimmune Disorders:
You probably know several people that have been diagnosed with an “auto-immune” disease. I have a close relative with Rheumatoid Arthritis, and a good friend with Lupus. Did you ever hear of these disorders growing up?? There are more than 80 different types of autoimmune disorders. Examples include: Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and Pernicious Anemia among many others.
Normally, our immune system’s white bloods cells help protect our bodies from antigens (i.e., bacteria, viruses, toxins, cancer cells). Our immune system releases antibodies that destroy these harmful substances.
According to the US Library of Medicine, an Auto-immune Disorder is defined as: when the immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue. The immune system can’t tell the difference between antigens and healthy tissue. This kind of hypersensitive response is similar to what happens with allergies.
The Inflammation Response:
Response to Injury or Irritation: This response is also referred to as an “inflammation response”. The Inflammation response is the body's complex response to injury or irritation. If for example, you accidentally cut yourself while cutting up veggies in the kitchen, what happens is, Compounds (called eicosanoids) that instruct other cells how to behave send signals that bring more blood cells to the hurt area and help it heal. The increased blood cells and fluid make the tissue become red, warm, swollen and painful—what we normally think of as inflamed.
Chronic Inflammation: But experts are now concentrating on another type of inflammation that is within cells. It’s generated in the most primitive part of the immune system, called the innate (or nonspecific) immune system, which provides generalized defenses against intruders (as compared with, say, antibodies that are adapted to specific bacteria). Once this inflammation response is activated, a wide number of inflammatory proteins are produced in the cell. These proteins and other inflammatory mediators can create a disruption in hormonal signaling, which causes the pro-inflammatory eicosanoids to continue at a low level. The result: chronic inflammation.
“The process that normally heals the body can become the driving force behind chronic disease.”, Dr. Weil.
Where? An autoimmune disorder can affect different tissues and organs such as blood vessels, connective tissue, endocrine glands, skin, joints, muscles, and red blood cells.
Symptoms? Symptoms of an autoimmune disease vary based on the disease and location of the abnormal immune response. For many, this chronic inflammation produces aches, pains, fatigue and malaise. And if the inflammation continues for too long, it can have more devastating consequences. It can lead to autoimmune disorders. Now, Inflammation is being blamed for cancer, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, heart attack and low-level depression, as well as everyday muscle aches and joint pain.
How are autoimmune disorders diagnosed? Tests that may be done to diagnose an autoimmune disorder may include: Antinuclear antibody tests, Autoantibody tests, CBC, C-Reactive Protein, and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate.
The goals of Treatment: Reduce symptoms, Control the autoimmune process, Maintain the body's ability to fight disease.
Treatments: Which treatments are used depends on the specific disease and your symptoms.
1. Hormone or Vitamin replacement: Some patients may need supplements to replace a hormone or vitamin that the body is lacking. Examples include thyroid supplements, vitamins such as B12, or insulin injections.
2. Blood Transfusions (If the autoimmune disorder affects the blood).
3. Immunosuppressive medicines are often prescribed to control or reduce the immune system's response. Such medicines may include corticosteroids (such as prednisone) and nonsteroid drugs such as azathioprine, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate, sirolimus, or tacrolimus.
Why? The medical community states that the exact cause of why the immune system “no longer becomes able to tell the difference between healthy body tissues and antigens” is unknown.”(according to the US Library of Medicine).
However, there have been several studies to suggest that some people may have genes that make them more susceptible to getting an autoimmune disorder. In addition to having some genetic susceptibility, there has been much research on this subject, and many interesting findings
This is interesting to me, because still our Dr.’s are trained to stomp out symptoms, and not to question, “Why? They will prescribe these immunosuppressive medicines, some with difficult side effects, but not look for what was causing the disorder.
According to Dr. Mark Hyman ( http://drhyman.com/how-to-stop-attacking-yourself-9-steps-to-heal-autoimmune-disease-1778/): “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…..Luckily, Functional medicine, the emerging 21st paradigm of systems medicine teaches us to treat the cause, not only the symptoms, to ask the question WHY are you sick, not only WHAT disease do you have”.
My Story: I found this approach used by doctors and nurses with regard to my past heart disease (mentioned in previous blog posts). I didn’t have traditional risk factors: I was not a smoker, I did not have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and I was not overweight. I did have a genetic predisposition, but the medical community was not interested in looking at the reasons, “Why?”
I had to puzzle out the origin of my own heart condition. There was no one willing to assist with working to put together the puzzle for me, and ask the question, “Why?”. This was left for me to uncover and it took awhile to put all of the pieces together, (mind, body, and spirit), and find a healing plan that worked for me. In other words, I had to go to work looking for imbalances, toxins, within my body, my environment, my relationships,… my whole life. It wasn’t just one thing. You can’t do “one size fits all” medicine with everyone.
While the genetic predisposition was one causal factor, Inflammation was one of the main physical causes.
Next week: part 2 (The role of nutrition in healing from chronic inflammation in the body)
Nakazawa, D. (2008). The Autoimmune Epidemic. Simon & Schuster. New York.
