Top 10 Myths About Autoimmune Disease

Contrary to popular belief, autoimmune diseases are not rare. In fact, 1 in 12 Americans lives with an autoimmune disease, and about 20 percent of the population currently has an auto-antibody, making these conditions quite common.

While some people fall into the trap of “it’s all random,” others fall into a trap of fatalism. Although genetic predisposition plays a role, there are four factors necessary for the onset of an autoimmune disease. First, you need a genetic predisposition. Second, there needs to be some sort of triggering event such as trauma, illness, etc. Third, you need to have a chronic infection of some kind. And finally, you need to have a leaky gut. All four have to happen in order to get an autoimmune disease. Your genes by themselves can increase your risk, but they do not determine whether or not you’ll get an autoimmune disease.

Someone can have a marker for lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, or Hashimotos, but not (yet) develop full symptoms. You may have some mild symptoms, but nothing severe enough to require pharmaceutical intervention. Again, you can have symptoms and positive antibodies, yet not meet the criteria for an autoimmune disease until you get to a late stage. That’s the typical path. By the time that happens, high-dose medications like biologics and steroids are needed.

We try to avoid this if at all possible, and often it is. This is in the sweet spot of functional medicine. We can help patients to reduce inflammation, improve gut health, and optimize vitamin D levels. We use interventions like low-dose Naltrexone peptides. We look for infections and actually start lowering the load that’s causing inflammation. There are many interventions that can help prevent full-blown autoimmune disease.

I mentioned this specifically because a third of all visits to gastroenterologists or GI doctors are for irritable bowel syndrome. Newer research and literature is showing that irritable bowel syndrome is actually an autoimmune spectrum disorder. It’s the thing that comes before the autoimmune disease. So your gas, bloating, constipation diarrhea, and general GI upset are actually markers for inflammation and immune dysregulation. Don’t wait for it to progress. Start changing your diet now, because, if you do, you can head it off. There is even advanced testing available now through Quest labs that can show that your irritable bowel syndrome is an autoimmune disease.

It’s true that, once you start taking an autoimmune medication, if you don’t make lifestyle changes, don’t change your nutrition, don’t change anything about your environment, then you won’t get off the medication. But if you do make these radical lifestyle changes, you CAN get off of them.

I routinely help people with inflammatory bowel disease. Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and others wean down and get off of their medications. However, first, we have to work on the lifestyle changes necessary to lower inflammation and antibody levels. We need to heal their gut, address their infections, and resolve whatever is triggering their disease. As we work together, I look for those four factors I mentioned above. For autoimmune disease to happen, a person has to have a genetic predisposition, chronic infection, leaky gut, and a triggering event. If we work to find these, we can actually slow the progression or even cause remission. This requires a lot of work on the part of the individual as well as their practitioner to get there.

Autoimmune diseases are systemic. Your diagnosis may only describe one part of your body – for example, the thyroid in Hashimoto’s, the joints with rheumatoid arthritis, the brain with multiple sclerosis, or the gut with inflammatory bowel disease. But these diseases cause inflammation in the whole body. For example, having rheumatoid arthritis increases your risk for heart disease just as much as having diabetes When someone has an autoimmune disease, the entire body is inflamed and you have to take a whole-body system approach.

Current literature shows that inflammation from one autoimmune disease can set you up for another. We see this often. Someone with Hashimoto’s or thyroid issues might have a positive rheumatoid antibody or a positive celiac antibody. Someone with rheumatoid might have positive celiac and lupus as well. The natural progression, if left to itself, is that the inflammation tends to get worse over time, and one autoimmune disease leads to another. This is the reason why we need to look at the cause, get to the root of it, and start addressing that so that you don’t develop more autoimmune issues.

This myth is dangerously misleading. Stress can significantly impact autoimmune diseases, acting as a trigger for flare-ups and worsening symptoms. Managing stress through techniques like meditation, therapy, and proper relaxation can play an integral role in controlling and potentially mitigating the progression of autoimmune diseases.

I’m sure you realize now, after reading 1-9, that this is just not the case. Dealing with autoimmune diseases is in the realm of functional medicine. This is where we shine. We look at the root causes, and we address them in order to improve people’s health. There’s hope. You just need to partner with a skilled practitioner, get educated, and implement what you know slowly. It can sometimes take years, but progress can be made. Hang in there.