Category Archives: Autoimmune Disease

This Food Contains 100 TIMES More Probiotics than a Supplement

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By: Dr. Mercola
Source: Mercola.com

Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride is a formally trained Russian neurologist whose child developed autism.

As a result of her own research into autism, she ended up developing what might be one of the most profoundly important treatment strategies not just for autism, but for a wide range of neurological-, psychological-, and autoimmune disorders as well.

I believe her Gut and Psychology Syndrome, and Gut and Physiology Syndrome (GAPS) Nutritional program is vitally important for MOST people, as the majority of people have such poor gut health due to poor diet and toxic exposures. We’ve previously discussed how the GAPS program can help those with autism and other neurological- and psychiatric disorders, such as:

  • Dyslexia and dyspraxia
  • Depression
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Epilepsy

What is Gut and Physiology Syndrome?

In this interview, we discuss how your gut affects your immune system, as there’s profound dynamic interaction between them. Dr. McBride covers the problems related to Gut and Psychology Syndrome in her first book by the same name. Her next book will cover Gut and Physiology Syndrome, which relates to diseases that are not located in the nervous system but rather elsewhere in your body, such as:

  • Arthritis
  • Asthma and allergies
  • Skin problems
  • Kidney problems
  • Digestive issues, and
  • Autoimmune disorders

Abnormalities in your immune system are a common outcome of GAPS, and such immune abnormalities are at the root of virtually all degenerative diseases.

“Why is that? It’s because about 85 percent of our immune system is located in the gut wall,” she says.  “This fact has been established by basic physiology research in the 1930s and the 1940s. Your gut, your digestive wall, is the biggest and the most important immune organ in your body. There is a very tight conversation and a relationship going on between the gut flora that lives inside your digestive system, and your immune system…

Your gut flora—the state of the gut flora and the composition of microbes in your gut flora—has a profound effect on what forms of immune cells you will be producing on any given day, what they’re going to be doing, and how balanced your immune system is.”

How Your Gut Flora Directs Your Immune System

There are two primary “arms” in your immune system:

  1. Th1 immunity is responsible for normal reactions to anything in your environment, from pollen to animal dandruff, dust mites, chemicals, food and anything else you come into contact with. Th1 is kept robust and healthy by your gut flora. As long as your gut flora is normal, you will have no adverse symptoms when exposed to these types of environmental influences, but if your gut flora is abnormal, your Th1 become increasingly disabled
  2. Th2 immunity is designed to address immune functions inside your body, and is not equipped to handle environmental influences. However, it will try to compensate if your Th1 becomes disabled. Unfortunately, since it’s not properly equipped for this job, it ends up dealing with environmental influences like pollen and foods in an inappropriate way; the end result of which is allergies and intolerances.

It’s important to realize that food allergies and intolerances are a very different group of allergies from the more acute anaphylactic allergies. Food intolerances caused by disabled Th1 (due to abnormal gut flora) are not mediated by the same immunoglobulin as the true allergies are. Food intolerances can also manifest hours, days, or even weeks later, making identifying food allergies very difficult.

 “Different reactions can also overlap on top of each other. For example, on any given day you can be reacting to broccoli that you have just had for lunch, and to lamb that you’ve eaten yesterday, and to egg that you’ve eaten two days ago, and to a piece of bread that you’ve eaten 10 days ago. All of these reactions overlap on top of each other. On any given day, you have no idea what exactly you’re reacting to,” Dr. McBride explains.

Making matters even more difficult, these food allergies and intolerances can result in all sorts of reactions, from headache, to sneezing, to rashes, or abdominal pains or swollen joints. Or they may result in psoriasis, or cause eczema to flare up.

“Or, it can be an episode of depression, anxiety, or a panic attack. Any kind of symptom can be brought up by food allergies and intolerances,” Dr. McBride says.

At the same time, because your gut flora is abnormal, your gut lining begins to deteriorate, since it is actively maintained by our gut flora. (The beneficial bacteria in your gut make sure the cells that line your entire digestive tract are healthy, well-fed, and protected from chemical- or microbial attacks.) As your gut lining deteriorates, the junctions between the cells open up, causing your gut to become porous, or “leaky.”

“It becomes like a sieve, and foods don’t get the chance to be digested properly before they are absorbed,” Dr. McBride explains.

“They’re absorbed in this maldigested or partially broken down form. When the immune system and the bloodstream finds them and looks at them, it doesn’t recognize them as food. It says, “You’re not food. I don’t recognize you,” and it reacts to them. It creates immune complexes, which attack these partially digested proteins. As a result, we’ll get all sorts of symptoms in your body.”

So what’s the answer?

The key to resolving your health issues is NOT to determine which foods you’re reacting to in order to avoid them. Rather you need to focus on healing your gut lining, because this is the most likely root of your problem. This will also be your most cost-effective strategy, as allergy testing can be quite expensive.

“There are many testing methods developed now for food allergies and intolerances,” Dr. McBride says. “… [But] if you had enough money to test twice a day for two weeks in a row, you would discover that you react to everything you eat… The majority of practitioners who are experienced in this area give up on testing… They recommend focusing on healing and sealing your gut lining instead. Then these food allergies and intolerances will disappear, and you will be able to eventually start eating foods that you could not tolerate before.”

GAPS and Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmune disorders are a very common side effect of GAPS. Conventional medicine has identified about 200 different autoimmune conditions so far, and the list is continually growing.

“The testing in autoimmunity is fairly expensive, so not many people get tested,” Dr. McBride says. “But the more we test, the more we realize that pretty much every degenerative condition has got an autoimmune component. Why is that? Because 85 percent of your immune system is located in your digestive wall, in your gut wall, and the state of your gut flora has a direct and very profound effect on the way your immune system functions.

… Your immune system is a very hungry organ. It needs to be continuously fed… People with abnormal gut flora – GAPS people – do not digest and absorb their food properly, so they develop multiple nutritional deficiencies; their immune system is starving… At the same time, a river of toxicity is flowing from the gut into the bloodstream of these people, because all those pathogenic microbes sitting in their gut flora are converting the food that comes along into hundreds and hundreds of very toxic substances.

The immune system gets quite a lot of this toxicity, so… we have a poor immune system—it is malnourished; it is intoxicated; it is unbalanced, and, at the same time, it is challenged with a huge amount of work to do. Of course, it cannot function properly. Of course, it cannot react appropriately to various things. Autoimmunity is the result of that.”

Abnormal flora in your digestive tract can easily lead to overgrowth of:

  • Pathogenic bacteria
  • Pathogenic viruses
  • Fungi
  • Worms
  • Protozoa

Once your gut lining begins to deteriorate, these disease-causing agents can be easily absorbed into your bloodstream and circulated throughout your body. Some of them have affinities for certain proteins, and will attach themselves to them. When that happens, it changes the three-dimensional shape of that protein molecule. When your immune system comes across this foreign-looking protein, it will attack it and begin producing antibodies against it.

“This mechanism is particularly at work in multiple sclerosis in patients. We have researched that quite a lot,”  Dr. McBride says.

“Mercury, lead, aluminum, other toxic metals and organic molecules that contain this toxic metal have a particular propensity for getting stored in high-fat tissues such as your brain and the rest of your nervous system, particularly the myelin sheath on your nerves… These toxic metals target your brain and your nerves. But when they get accumulated in those high-fat tissues, these toxins attach themselves to proteins in your myelin, in the white matter of your brain, and other parts of your nervous system. Once they’ve accumulated, once they’ve attached themselves to those proteins, they change their three-dimensional structure. Then the immune system develops an antibody against your protein and your myelin.

That is the number one antibody, which is at work in multiple sclerosis. It is called a myelin-specific protein antibody. It’s an antibody which attacks proteins in your myelin… What the immune system is trying to do is it’s trying to clear out mercury, lead, and other toxic metals out of the nervous system, which got stored in there. Where do they come from? 99.9 percent of anything toxic in your body comes out in the digestive system.”

GAPS and Multiple Sclerosis

Interestingly, when your body is unable to clear a particular toxin on its own, it will invite and employ microbes from the environment to help clear these toxins.

“The microbes in the environment are not our enemies at all. They’re actually our allies. They’re our helpers. Your body employs them when it needs them,”  Dr. McBride explains.

“If you have accumulated certain amount of mercury in your brain and in your nerves… your body might employ a virus… If you got a cold, that virus (many viruses target your nervous system) will go directly to those toxic patches in your brain and your nervous system and attack them. It will start gobbling it up… Of course, your immune system then joins in, trying to attack the virus. It joins in with inflammation, and you [begin to experience] symptoms of multiple sclerosis. You will get tingling. You will get numbness in your face or in your extremities. You might start wetting your bed, or you might get peripheral loss of vision for a while… That’s one of the first symptoms in multiple sclerosis.

in this situation, if you would just feed your immune system properly and leave the work for the immune system to complete, then these symptoms would last for a month or two, and then they would disappear, because… the virus will gobble up the [toxins] and your immune system will clear out the virus. Your nerves will recover naturally.”

Unfortunately, this is not what happens nowadays. Typically, as soon as people get tingling, numbness, and other symptoms, they rush to the doctor, who will immediately put them on some form of medication, which will typically have a dampening effect on the immune system. As a result, the viruses spread and become even more established, and the disease becomes chronic and permanent.

You have Natural Antibodies Against Virtually All Autoimmune Diseases…

“What people have to understand is that we all – 100 percent of humans – have in our bodies antibodies to deal with multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, or any other autoimmune condition,”  Dr. McBride says.

It all begins in utero.  As soon as the baby’s thymus develops, the proteins floating about in the bloodstream, which is shared between the mother and the baby, begin to educate the baby’s immune system, and allocate a particular responder cell to every protein encountered. Autoimmune conditions develop when your immune system attacks particular tissues or proteins in your body because they’ve been contaminated by toxins or some other environmental influence. And remember, this imbalance, this toxic influence, originates from your digestive system or gut wall.

“Autoimmunity is born in the gut. That’s where it comes from – your gut wall,”  Dr. McBride says. “That happens because your gut flora is abnormal. In order to heal any autoimmune condition – whether it’s multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, lupus, alopecia, psoriasis, or anything else that has got an autoimmune component – you have to focus on healing and sealing your gut lining with the GAPS Nutritional Protocol. And you have to focus on… normalizing your gut flora. You have to drive out the pathogens from the gut flora and replace them with the beneficial flora. Then a lot of healing will happen…’

Unfortunately, conventional medicine is largely ignorant about this research, and does not view autoimmune disorders as digestive disorders, which Dr. McBride is convinced is the case.

The Importance of Fermented Foods

Did you know the number of bacteria in your body outnumber your cells by about 10 to 1? These bacteria in turn are comprised of both beneficial ones and harmful ones. The ideal balance is about 85 percent good bacteria and 15 percent bad. Maintaining this ideal ratio is what it’s all about when we’re talking about the importance of probiotics. It’s important to understand though that probiotics are not a new concept. The only thing that’s new is that you can take them in pill form. But historically, mankind has consumed large amounts of probiotics in the form of fermented and cultured foods, which were invented long before the advent of refrigeration and other forms of food preservation.

“Every traditional culture, when you look at their traditional diet, they ferment their foods. They fermented everything. You can ferment dairy, grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, meats, and fish. Everything can be fermented, and there were fermented beverages in every culture. When the cabbages were ripe in September, you made it a fermented cabbage. Perhaps for a month or two, you were eating fresh cabbage, but then for the rest of the year, 10 months of the year, you ate your cabbage in a fermented form. Quite a large percent of all the foods that people consume on a daily basis were fermented. And with every mouthful of these fermented foods you consume trillions of beneficial bacteria…”

Fermented foods not only give you a wider variety of beneficial bacteria, they also give you far more of them, so it’s a much more cost effective alternative. Here’s a case in point: It’s unusual to find a probiotic supplement containing more than 10 billion colony-forming units. But when my team actually tested fermented vegetables produced by probiotic starter cultures, they had 10 trillion colony-forming units of bacteria. Literally, one serving of vegetables was equal to an entire bottle of a high potency probiotic! So clearly, you’re far better off using fermented foods.

How the Fermentation Process Works

“Mother Nature is extremely wise and extremely kind. It populated all organic fruit and vegetables, the dust on our soils, and all plant matter with Lactobacilli. The fresh cabbage leaves, if it’s organically grown (not the one from chemical farming), will be covered in Lactobacilli—lacto-fermenting bacteria. You don’t need to add anything. You just chop it up. Add some salt in the initial stages. (The salt is added in the initial stage in order to stop putrefactive bacteria from multiplying.) Then as the Lactobacillus stop working and start multiplying, they produce lactic acid. That’s why they’re called Lactobacillus. That’s just lactic acid.

If you look at the research in lactic acid, it is one of the most powerful antiseptics. It kills off lots and lots of bacteria…. So as the lactic acid starts producing, it will kill off all those putrefactive and pathogenic microbes and preserve the food. It’s a great preservative… A good batch of sauerkraut can keep for five to six years without spoiling or rotting, as long as it is covered by its own juice.”

For instructions on how to ferment your own vegetables, which is easier than you might think to do at home, please listen to my previous interview with Caroline Barringer:

This anaerobic process (fermentation) does more than just preserve the food, however. It also makes the nutrients inside the food more bioavailable. For example, according to Dr. McBride, the amount of bioavailable vitamin C in sauerkraut is 20 times higher than in the same helping of fresh cabbage!

“This is because in the fresh cabbage, vitamin C is bound in the cellulose structure and various other molecules, and our digestive system is just not able to cleave it off and absorb it. Lots of it goes undigested and come out right out of you. So despite the fact that cabbage may be very rich in vitamin C, a lot of it you will not be able to absorb. But if you fermented that cabbage and made sauerkraut, all the vitamin C becomes bioavailable,” she explains.

How to Reduce Chances of “Healing Crisis”

There is one precaution that needs to be discussed here, and that is the potential for a so-called healing crisis, or what Dr. McBride refers to as a die-off reaction, provoked by the massive die-off of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other harmful pathogens by the reintroduction of massive quantities of probiotics. It can significantly worsen whatever health problem you’re experiencing, before you get better.

The reason for this is because when the probiotics kill off the pathogens, those pathogenic microbes release toxins. These toxins are what’s causing your problem to begin with; be it depression, panic attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or any other symptom. When a large amount of toxin is suddenly released, your symptoms will also suddenly increase.

“If you’ve never had fermented foods in your life, you need to start very carefully and very gradually,”  Dr. McBride warns.

She recommends starting off with just ONE TEASPOON of fermented vegetable, such as sauerkraut, with ONE of your meals, and then wait for a couple of days to see how you react. If it’s manageable, you can have another helping, and gradually increase your portion.

“But if the die off is too much, then you need to stop. Let the die off subside, and then have a tiny amount of sauerkraut, or even just a teaspoon of juice from it first; not the cabbage itself. Then two teaspoons per day and so on, until enough die off happens in your body, and your gut flora has changed enough for you to be ready for having the cabbage itself.”

It’s important to realize that besides containing massive amounts of beneficial bacteria, fermented foods also contain many active enzymes, which act as extremely potent detoxifiers.

“Healing goes through two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, and one step back,” Dr. McBride says. “But you will find that the next layer is smaller. The die off and the detox will not last as long as the previous one… We live in a toxic world, and many of us have accumulated layers and layers of toxicity in our bodies. The body will clean them out, but you will find that each layer will last shorter and not be as severe… Eventually, you will come to complete, radiant health. You will feel 100 percent healthy, no matter how ill you were before.”

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Autoimmune Disease Myths Unraveled – PART 2

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By Andreas Moritz 

Autoimmune Disease Myths Unraveled – PART 2

Dear Friends,

In case you’ve missed part 1, you may read it here

Of course, adding the mercury-containing preservative Thimerosal to vaccines and other medical drugs only further sensitizes the immune system. Thimerosal is now the fifth most common allergen, according to the North American Contact Dermatitis Group (NACDG).[1] Most of the flu vaccines given to millions of children and adults each year contain this neurotoxin and are much responsible for the massive allergy epidemics afflicting the immunized population.

Flu vaccines can do more than just cause autoimmune diseases. The flu vaccine may even pose an immediate risk to your cardiovascular system. One 2007 study published in the Annals of Medicine, concluded that:“Abnormalities in arterial function and LDL oxidation may persist for at least two weeks after a slight inflammatory reaction induced by influenza vaccination. These could explain in part the earlier reported increase in cardiovascular risk during the first weeks after an acute inflammatory disorder.”

How many people die from a heart attack after receiving a flu shot? I don’t think we’ll ever find out. However, we now know for certain that the true risks of vaccination have been deliberately kept from us by those agencies that are responsible for public health.

 CDC Caught Deliberately Falsifying Vaccine Research

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have for many years denied a possible link between mercury in vaccines and autism. However, in October 2011, the CDC has been caught deliberately fudging data to try to cover up evidence linking mercury in vaccines with autism.[2]

To conceal any incriminating vaccine data the CDC had handed its massive database of vaccine records over to a private company, effectively pronouncing it off-limits to researchers and preventing dissemination of the data through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

However, this didn’t stop the Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs (CoMeD).  During an enquiry through FOIA it was discovered, as suspected, that the same original Danish study which the CDC referred to as ‘definitive evidence’ that Thimerosal does not increase a child’s chances of developing autism, actually revealed the exact opposite to be true. The Danish research is irrefutably clear about the findings: Thimerosal in vaccines increases a person’s chances of developing autism and other neurological diseases.

In the United States, at least one in every 100 vaccinated children is afflicted with autism, while only 1 in every 2,000 non-vaccinated children has the disease. In European countries like Iceland, where children receive just one third the number of vaccines shots, only 1 in 30,000 children have autism. One doesn’t need to be a scientist to make sense of this man-made tragedy.

The cover-up by the CDC has let those responsible for the huge autism epidemic, which began ever since mercury and adjuvants were first added to vaccines, off the hook. Without this elaborate conspiracy against the people, libel lawsuits resulting from permanent vaccine injuries in children would have bankrupted numerous governments, including the United States and Great Britain, and almost the entire pharmaceutical industry.

All vaccines significantly alter the immune system and, therefore, play a major role in triggering autoimmune diseases and numerous other health conditions. In a 2005 epidemiological study covering over 151 previously conducted studies, researchers from the Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, University of British Columbia found an inverse association between acute infections and cancer development.[3] The study found that suppressing childhood infections with vaccines significantly increases one’s risk of developing cancer later in life.

Chronic diseases were extremely rare over 100 years ago when few vaccines were given to the population.  The more vaccines are administered, the more compromised the immune system becomes.[4] Most diseases back then used to be acute infections resulting from poor hygiene and nutrition, contaminated drinking water and overcrowded cities. Even the CDC admits on their web site that clean water is more effective in preventing infectious diseases than vaccines. The only problem with using clean water as the preferred medicine is that, unlike with mass vaccination, one cannot make the same billions of dollars of profit year after year by installing some simple water purification devices in affected communities, or by educating the people that drinking clean non-fluoridated water is what keeps the body healthy and the immune system strong.

Science is beginning to recognize that damaging the intestinal lining through harsh, erosive chemicals, dehydration and poor nutrition is causing for more diseases than previously thought.  Recently, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, discovered that that a once mysterious cell population which lurks in the intestinal lining is essential for preventing normally beneficial  bacteria from invading into deeper tissue where they can cause debilitating conditions like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).[5]

According to the research findings, people suffering from the disease frequently have more bacteria that adhere to, or invade, their gut lining. When their immune system mounts an attack on these microbial invaders, they can develop painful ulcers and bloody diarrhea.

The researchers also found that a specialized T cell normally present on body surfaces such as the skin and the gastrointestinal tract patrols intestinal borders, sensing when microorganisms have invaded the epithelial cells lining the intestine. “When this happens, these T cells swing into action, making antibiotic proteins that kill the rogue bacteria and prevent their entry into deeper tissue.” said Dr. Hooper, who is also an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at UT Southwestern. This action lasts for several hours until other immune cells can be recruited as backup. However, there are consequences when the intestinal tract becomes a constant battleground.

A battleground is recognized by its devastated environment. Overexposure to toxins, food additives, trans fatty acids (as found in fast foods, such as hamburgers and French fries), medical drugs, alcohol, undigested putrefied foods, denatured proteins, and more, can easily cause what is known as “leaky gut”, a condition where bacteria and toxins enter the intestinal tissues, blood and lymph. An initially limited and localized immune reaction may then escalate and spread to other areas in the body. T cells are only supposed to deal with foreign invaders, but they will need to be activated against the body’s own tissues when toxins (antigens) begin to accumulate there.

The encounter with the antigens raises the level of antigen/antibody complexes in the blood and upsets the fine balance that exists between the immune reaction and its suppression. Autoimmune diseases, which indicate an extremely high level of toxicity in the body, directly result from a disturbance of this balance. If antibody production is continually high in synovial joints, inflammation becomes chronic, leading to gradually increasing deformity, pain, and loss of function.

The overuse of the immune system leads to self-destruction in the body. If this form of self-destruction occurs, for example, in the fatty myelin sheath of nerve tissue, it is called Multiple Sclerosis. However, we know that fat tissue is capable of absorbing a large amount of toxins and harmful heavy metals, thereby keeping them from doing direct harm.

Naturally, toxins migrate toward fatty tissue. A fatty liver is a merely a survival attempt by the body to deal with the load of toxins the liver can longer break down and remove because of chronic congestion of its bile ducts. Yet, seen from a deeper perspective, what appears to be the body’s act of self-destruction is but a final attempt at self-preservation. The body only “attacks” itself if the toxicity has increased to such a degree that it could cause more damage than an autoimmune response would.

The body certainly has no intention of committing suicide, although the term “autoimmune disease” implies just that. When the body’s cell membranes are clogged with foreign, harmful chemicals, foreign protein fragments and toxic particles like trans fatty acids, it is an absolutely normal response by the immune system to attack these contaminants. The resulting inflammation provides it with the opportunity to ‘wash out’ and remove at least some of the toxins. To call this survival response a disease makes no sense, is unscientific and reflects a lack of knowledge of the true nature of the body.

Gallstones inhibit the body’s ability to keep itself nourished and clean, which makes them a leading cause of toxicity. They prevent the liver from adequately taking noxious substances out of the bloodstream. If the liver cannot filter out toxins from the blood, they end up being dumped into the extracellular fluid. The more toxins accumulate in the extracellular fluid, the more severely that cell membranes become clogged with injurious materials. An autoimmune response may be necessary to destroy the most contaminated cells and thereby save the rest of the body, at least for a while. When all gallstones are removed from the liver and gallbladder, the immune system does not have to take recourse to such extreme measures of defending the body on the cellular level.

A healthy, balanced diet can, of course, greatly support the body in maintaining a balanced immune system. For example, research conducted at the University of Cambridge and published in the journal Cell in October 2011 revealed that compounds found in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, kale, bok choy, and many varieties of leafy greens act as chemical signals necessary for a fully functioning immune system.[6]

With my best wishes,

Andreas

[1] Marks JG, Belsito DV, DeLeo VA, et al. North American Contact Dermatitis Group Patch-Test Results, 1998-2000. Am J Contact Dermat 2003;14:59-62.

[3] [Cancer Detect Prev 2006;30(1):83-93. Epub 2006 Feb 21.]

[4] For details see Vaccine-nation: Poisoning the Population ,One Shot at a Time (www.ener-chi.com).

[5] UT Southwestern scientists unmask mysterious cells as key ‘border patrol agents’ in the intestine

Published: Monday, May 9, 2011 – 14:33 in Health & Medicine

[6] Ying Li, Silvia Innocentin, David R. Withers, Natalie A. Roberts, Alec R. Gallagher, Elena F. Grigorieva, Christoph Wilhelm, Marc Veldhoen. Exogenous Stimuli Maintain Intraepithelial Lymphocytes via Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Activation. Cell, 13 October 2011 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.09.025

For dietary recommendations, see Timeless Secrets of Health and Rejuvenation (ener-chi.com)

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Autoimmune Disease Myths Unraveled – PART 1

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By Andreas Moritz 

Autoimmune Disease Myths Unraveled – PART 1

Our intestinal tract is constantly exposed to a large number of viruses, bacteria, and parasites. In addition to these and many other natural antigens (foreign materials) contained in plant and flesh foods, the digestive system may also have to deal with chemical insecticides, pesticides, hormones, antibiotic residues, preservatives, and colorings contained in so many processed foodstuffs today. In addition, there is the organic plastic compound bisphenol A (BPA) – an antioxidant in plastic bottles and food packaging, leaching BPA into our food and beverages. This harmful ingredient is also found in the liners of metal food and beverage cans.

Many people are still exposed to the highly toxic chemical fluoride added to municipal water in the United States and other countries. 

Some large-molecule medical drugs such as penicillin also act as toxins.

Possible naturally occurring antigens include pollen from flowers, plants, plant antibodies and enzyme inhibitors, fungi, mold, and the like.

It is the task of the immune system – most of it is located in the intestinal lining – to protect us against all these potentially harmful invaders and substances. To be able to accomplish this task every day, both the digestive and lymphatic systems must remain unobstructed and efficient. Gallstones in the liver seriously disrupt the digestive process, which leads to an overload of toxic substances in the gut, blood and lymph.

Most doctors consider arthritis an autoimmune disease affecting the synovial membrane. Autoimmunity is thought to be a condition in which the immune system develops immunity to its own cells. It results when antigen/antibody complexes (rheumatoid factors) are formed in the blood.

Naturally, the B-lymphocytes (immune cells) in the intestinal wall become stimulated and produce antibodies (immunoglobulins) when coming into contact with these antigens. However, a normal immune system requires the activation of these B-cells by T-cells (special lymphocytes that play a central role in cell-mediated immunity) before the former can produce antibodies in large quantities.

It is important to know that T-cells must be triggered first before the immune system can mount an inflammatory response in   the intestines or elsewhere in the body. In spite of this well-established medical fact, modern medicine still hypothesizes that this kind of inflammatory response means the body is mistakenly attacking its own cells. However, there are major flaws in this theory, which proposes the body is capable of making grievous mistakes. However, we cannot draw the conclusion that the body is erroneous in its activities just because we don’t know why the body behaves in this way. Our lack of insight and understanding of the true mechanisms of disease and healing should not be misconstrued as incompetency on behalf of the body.

 

Taking Lessons from the Body

The actions the body takes during an autoimmune response are far from being miscalculated, accidental occurrences; in fact, they are based on the body’s innate wisdom, and they are intentional.  

The T-cell activated immune cells circulate in the blood, and some settle in the lymph nodes, spleen, mucus membranes of the salivary glands, lymphatic system of the bronchial tubes, vagina or uterus, milk-producing mammary glands of the breasts, and capsular tissues of the joints.

 If there is repeated exposure to the same types of toxic antigens in the gut lining, antibody production will increase dramatically, particularly in areas of the body where immune cells have settled because of a previous encounter with foreign, potentially harmful, invaders. Accordingly, the body goes into its inflammatory mode.

There are now 101 different diseases considered autoimmune diseases, including Autistic disorder,  Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple sclerosis, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s disease, Lupus, Encephalomyelitis, Alopecia, Type 1 Diabetes, Epilepsy, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Graves’ disease, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Parkinson’s disease, Psoriasis, Thyroiditis, Myocarditis, and Arthritis, a general term for more than 100 different diseases that affect the joints.

Since all these autoimmune diseases exhibit the same fundamental mechanism, allopathic medicine treats them basically in the same way, using IVIG, steroids, plasmapheresis or other cytotoxic and immunosuppressive treatments. These treatments often result in severe side effects that include kidney failure, fluid retention, liver tumors, heart attack, stroke, and death.

The standard medical approaches ignore the fact that autoimmune diseases are actually triggered by a protein on the surface of a virus, bacteria, food or other substance. T-cells only activate B-cells into action after an infection has occurred or they made contact with harmful chemicals or proteins in your food. By avoiding the antibody/antigen complex-provoking food or substance, the autoimmune response abates. The trick is finding out which proteins could serve as a trigger for an autoimmune response.

 Eating cooked meat creates excess uric acid and ammonia in the body, both of which are toxic to the system. As a result of the applied heat, this protein food becomes coagulated (hardened) and denatured. Another example is the boiling of an egg; the heat causes its liquids to become hard. As a result, the polypeptide bonds cannot be broken down into amino acids. The immune system treats these damaged polypeptides as harmful invaders, and reacts by first engaging its T-cells, and then producing antibody complexes leading to inflammation. 

Pasteurization of dairy products, such as milk, cheese and yoghurt also causes damage to the food’s polypeptides, and therefore may lead to autoimmune responses in the body. I have repeatedly witnessed a spontaneous recovery from the debilitating and often deadly autoimmune Crohn’s disease in patients after I recommended that they stop eating dairy products (or peanuts – a legume responsible for millions of serious allergic reactions each year). No other treatment was necessary.

The person who is most likely to develop an autoimmune disease tends to have low vitamin-D levels due to insufficient, regular sun exposure or use of sunscreens. Another reason is high toxicity evoking a bacterial, viral or fungal infection that causes the immune system to overreact to environmental toxins or foods. A third reason is significant immune deficiency. Immune deficiency is not an exclusive condition found only among older people, but it is becoming increasingly common among young adults and now even children.

 

The Vaccination Dilemma

Besides low levels of vitamin D, the commonest cause of immune deficiency and immune-suppression is vaccination. Vaccines are filled with dozens of carcinogenic chemicals, toxic metals, and protein fragments from animal parts, foreign DNA, formaldehyde, antibiotics like Neomycin and streptomycin, and adjuvants known to cause an abnormal hyper-activation of the immune system. Hyper-activation of the immune system always leads to weakening and suppression of natural immunity in the body.

The most commonly given adjuvants contain aluminum salt (aluminum phosphate), which is well-known for being a powerful neurotoxin, linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.[1]

The body is designed to create natural immunity by using a different system from the one activated when a vaccine is injected into the body. This primary immune system, also known as IgA immune system, is strategically located in the body’s mucous membranes where pathogens and antigens normally make contact with the body.

The mucus membranes constitute the body’s first line of defense. It’s here that invading organisms (pathogens) and toxins are analyzed and dealt with in the most appropriate ways, usually without requiring an activation of the immune system. In other words, with relatively few exceptions like a few immunity-boosting infections (auto-immunization) during childhood, you would not even notice when your body encounters pathogens.

The situation, however, is very different when a virus is injected into your body in a vaccine, especially when combined with an adjuvant like aluminum phosphate or squalene.  Your IgA immune system is not only bypassed but actually becomes suppressed, and your body’s immune system is forced into high gear in response to the vaccine components. When injected, the body considers adjuvants to be foreign bodies and, thus, it quickly elicits an intense, abnormal and long-lasting immune response.

Adjuvants help vaccine-manufacturers to drastically cut production costs. They allow them to produce more of the multiple-dose vials versus single-dose vials and to facilitate shipping large amounts of vaccine to doctor’s offices and clinics. Adjuvants in vaccine also reduce the amount of vaccine serum needed to evoke the same response. However, adjuvants in vaccine carry serious health risks, including autoimmune diseases, coma and death.

Adjuvants are so dangerous that it may just take one vaccine shot to permanently damage the immune system. According to a 2000 study published in the American Journal of Pathology, a single injection of the adjuvant squalene into rats triggered “chronic, immune-mediated joint-specific inflammation”, also known as rheumatoid arthritis.

It has been known since the 1930s that adjuvants can cause autoimmune disease. If scientists want to induce an autoimmune disease in a lab animal, they simple inject it with the adjuvant Freund’s Complete Adjuvant. If injected into humans via a vaccine, an adjuvant can trigger such a strong overreaction of the immune system that it loses its ability to distinguish what is foreign from what is ‘self’. This is the breaking point of ‘tolerance’ where the overwhelmed immune system, begins its indiscriminate assault on friend and foe alike – friend being the body’s own cells.[2] It is like a bull that is being speared by a Spanish bull fighter. In its utter state of desperation, the bull will attack anything that moves. 

Even foreign, harmless substances which the immune would not normally react against are now being attacked, too. That is why allergies are so much higher among vaccinated than non-vaccinated individuals. In 1992, a study by the New Zealand Immunization Awareness Society (IAS) found that vaccinated versus unvaccinated children suffered five times more asthma and nearly three times more allergies.

An allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system which causes the body to react to normally harmless substances in the environment. Adjuvants in vaccines are among the main culprits behind a hyperactive and overly sensitive immune system.

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[1] Aprile, M.A. and Wardlaw, A.C., 1966. Aluminium compounds as adjuvants for vaccines and toxoids in man: A review Can. J. Public Health 57:343.

[2]ADVERSE EFFECTS OF ADJUVANTS IN VACCINES by Viera Scheibner, Ph.D. 2000 http://www.whale.to/vaccine/adjuvants.html

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