Tag: health

Sugar and autoimmune

There is more and more evidence to avoid sugar if you have an autoimmune condition.

Sarah Wilson writes that …

“Quitting sugar has had the biggest impact on my AI, more so than my medication or any other medical fix (and, trust me, I’ve tried everything).”

This is because excessive sugar unbalance gut flora.

Dr. Datis Kharrazian’s Autoimmune Gut Repair Diet excludes sugars including high-glycemic fruits.   This is with the aim of keeping blood sugar stable.  You can hear Dr. Kharrazian being interviewed on the Phoenix Helix podcast.

Be Careful of Chelation and mercury amalgam removal

In the Phoenix Helix podcast, Dr. Datis Kharrazian mentioned that you have to be careful with chelation especially if you have autoimmunity or chemical sensitivity.  This is because if you have lost chemical tolerance or have leaky gut and/or blood brain barrier, the cheation process can pull out the toxins and heavy metals and re-distribute it in other parts of the body (including the brain) and possibly making your autoimmune condition much worst.

Dr. Kharrazian writes more about this in depth on his site which states …

“Chelation can be dangerous when you have autoimmunity. I have seen chelation therapy destroy people’s health.”

and it mentions the various pre-requistie conditions that should be met in order to make chelation safe.

The same goes for mercury dental amalgam removal.  Host of the podcast, Eileen said mentions of someone who developed an autoimmune after having her mercury dental amalgam removed even though she did her due diligence to go to a biological dentist.  And Dr. Kharrazian says that happens all the time.  Of course, he didn’t mean literally “all the time”, but you know.   Of course, there are people or cases where dental amalgam removal and chelation does help.

The book “It’s All In Your Head: The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness”   shows the case how mercury in the body can cause illness.

Whether to do chelation and amalgam removal is an very individual decision.  No one can tell you whether it is right or wrong.  Because what is right for one person may not be right for another.   The point is that we have to not take the decision lightly and have to do full research on it first.

One person who did a lot of research before undergoing amalgam removal round one and round two and chelation writes of her experience in the links mentions.  A must-read for anyone considering.

How GAPS diet can help with Autoimmunity

Blog Talk Radio has an episode where Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride was interviewed.  She developed the GAPS diet and wrote Gut and Psychology Syndrome. This diets helps to correct the gut flora.  Since people with autoimmunity has compromised gut flora, this diet may help.

You can get an overview of the GAPS diet from the article by NourishedKitchen.  The article also mentions …

“People suffering from food intolerances and sensitivities have seen recovery.”

And we know that most people with autoimmunity has some food sensitivity.

The GAPS diet consists of an introduction phase and an full GAPS diet — these are links from Gapsdiet.com which writes …

“majority of the patient’s diet should consist of fresh meats (hormone-free/grass fed if possible), animal fats, fish, shellfish, organic farm-fresh eggs (if well tolerated), fermented foods, and vegetables”

and

“85% of everything your patient eats daily should be made out of meats, fish, eggs, fermented dairy and vegetables (some well-cooked, some fermented and some raw).  …  Homemade meat stock, soups, stews and natural fats are not optional – they should be your patient’s staples.”

Recommended to combine vegetables with meats.   Vegetables can be in combination of raw, cooked, and fermented.  Bone broth or meat stock are highly recommended

Avoid process foods, grains, and sugar.

Terry Wahls TED Talk on Autoimmune

While there is no cure, Dr. Terry Wahls reversed her autoimmune multiple sclerosis — going from wheelchair to biking.  How did she do it?  The answer may surprise you.  A big part of what she does is via food.   She tells her story and the food prescription in her TED Talk…

This food plan is what we all can strive for whether we have autoimmune or not.  She also does clinicial trials on her methodology on second degree progression MS patients.

If you want to learn more about her protocol, you can read her book “The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles” – at the time of this writing it is Amazon’s #1 seller in the category of “Multiple Sclerosis”.

The title of her TED Talk is “Minding Your Mitochrondria”.  Those who are familiar with longevity research will know that one aspects of living long and healthy is to keep your mitochrondria healthy.   And many diseaeses involve sick mitochrondria.

The sub-title of her book mentions Paleo Principles.  Many other people have found relief in following a Paleo diet, which excludes grain, dairy, and leguemes.   This automatically excludes gluten.   I believe that anyone with an autoimmune condition should avoid gluten.  Many should avoid dairy as well.

The food prescribed in her TED Talk consists of eating 9 cups of vegetables a day — the more variety the better.  Have a lot of color (fruits and berries) for antioxidant.  Eat sulfur rich vegetables.  Eat clean organic free-range grass-fed meats and organ meats if possible.  Seafood and seaweed.

Why sulfur-rich vegetables (such as onions, aspargus, garlic, brocolic, eggs, etc) is because the sulfur atom is needed for the body to make the gluthatione molecule which is the master anti-oxidant and detoxification molecule in our body.

Plants are green because they contain chlorophyll.  Right in the center of the chlorophyll molecule is the magnesium atom, which the body can harvest and absorb.  It can not make magnesium atoms on its own.  But it needs magnesium for over 300 biochemical processes in the body.

EMF and autoimmune

Jack Kruse believes that EMF causes leaky gut and that EMF is the source of autoimmunity.  While the Paleo community believes that autoimmunity is caused by the food we eat.   Both may have good points.  A leaky gut is a pre-requiste for having autoimmune conditions.   When a there is a leaky gut, certain foods we eat can trigger an autoimmune response.  A person with no leaky gut (in other words a perfectly healthy gut) — good luck finding such a person in this world in this day and age — can eat all foods and not have any autoimmune triggers.

But what causes an leaky gut in the first place.  While some say gluten does by triggering zonulin which makes gut more leaky, and another possible cause is hidden bacterial infections. [reference]

Dr. Jack Kruse seem to believe that EMF radiation is the primary cause of autoimmune conditions/diseases.   From his blog, “Sun and Earth’s magnetic field controls all calcium and magnesium homeostasis” and an altered field from EMFs affects “Calcium concentration in lymphocytes, especially thymus cells (T cells)”.  And he writes, “Autoimmunity is directly tied to an alteration of the electromagnetic field that our cells live in.”

He does concede that “Foods exacerbate the condition but they do not cause it.”

He also because EMF dehydrates at the cellular level.  You can hear him explain these in this podcast.

In another post, he writes…

“Calcium efflux causes cellular signaling to break down.  For example, loss of calcium in the pineal gland causes circadian cycle disruption.  Environmental fluoride exposure and exposure to artificial light also causes this phenomena. “

Gluten Damages the Gut, Bone Broth Heals the Gut

I’m not saying that gluten is the only thing that damages the gut.  Nor that bone broth is the only thing that heals the gut.  But they are just one of the many things.

Most (if not nearly all) people with autoimmune diseases have a “leaky gut” and food sensitivity.  Some say that this increased intestinal permeability (which is a sub-optimal condition) is a pre-requiste for developing autoimmune.  Having food sensitivity is an indication that one has leaky gut.[reference]  This is because undigested food products was able to leak from gut to blood stream (where it is not supposed to be), triggering the immune system to attack it.  Unfortunately for those with autoimmune, when the immune system attacks the unwanted food particles, it makes collateral damage (through molecular mimicry) to healthy tissues.  Which healthy tissue happens to be attacked determines which autoimmune disease one gets.

What causes a leaky gut?

There are a multitude of causes that people will cite, ranging from gluten, hidden infections, toxins, EMF, pesticides, antibiotics, stress (including excessive strenuous exercise), etc.  But here we will focus on gluten.

Many people with autoimmune and food sensitivity have already been told by their health care professional to avoid gluten and here is why.

Dr. Vikki Petersen writes that Zonulin increases intestinal permeability and the two things that trigger zonulin is gluten and infections.

As far as I’m concerned, anyone with leaky gut, digestive issues, food sensitivity, or autoimmune conditions, should avoid gluten and conventional dairy.  They among corn and soy are the most difficult to digest food substances.

What Heals a Leaky Gut?

If you read the blogosphere of the Paleo or Autoimmune crowd, you will find that most of them advocate the benefits of bone broth.  Keep in mind this is not the can broth you find in your supermarket.  These are therapeutic bone broth which takes about 18 hours of simmering of raw (preferably organic) bones of beef and/or chicken.   Make sure there is no meat on the bones (meat proteins should not be boiled for more than 2 hours).  Personally, I tend avoid pork products because of increase risk of parasite transmission from pork to humans [reference]. Although when you boil bones for 18 hours, that risk is nearly nill.

One of the therapeutic key ingredient in bone broth is the amino acid glutamine, which the lining of the gut needs to have to rebuild.

Other ways to heal leaky gut are as follows.

Dr. Axes lists some ways to heal leaky gut.  One food product he mentions is “bone broth”.  One supplement that he mentions is “L-Glutamine”.  While he does also mentions “raw cultured dairy”; this is different from the conventional dairy found in most supermarkets (which you should avoid).

He also wrote on GreenMedInfo that gluten, conventional cow milk, and sugar damages intestinal wall linings.

Dr. Tom Obrien says probiotics, vitamin D, glutamine, omega 3, curcumin, and colostrum helps heals the gut.

Where to Get Bone Broth

Web search your metropolitan area.  More and more places are popping up.

Digestive Enzymes to Help Protect Against Gluten

Many people with autoimmune are sensitive to gluten and casein.  While we try to avoid gluten and casein whenever possible, we often end up getting trace amounts when eating out.  To help protect against this, there are digestive enzymes that one can take just before a meal that might contain gluten.  While these enzymes are not an excuse to consume gluten, they may help break down gluten better so that you don’t as big of a gluten hit without them.

They are very safe because they are essentially a combination of protease, amylase, and lipase which your pancreas makes for breaking down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.  But as we age where are pancreas is not producing optimal enzymes, or have food sensitivities, we need extra help with digestive enzymes.

The most important ingredient to look for in these enzymes is the protease strength as measured in HUT (the higher the number, the more protein it can break down within a given amount of time.   Because it is the gluten protein and the casein protein that is what people are sensitive to, it is the protease strength that would be most helpful.

Some enzymes may or may not contain lipase, but is good to have is you need extra help with fat digestion.

It’s also important that the capsule do not contain filler contain gluten or dairy.

Some products to consider are …

Enzymedica GlutenEase, which contains DDP IV (dipeptidyl peptidase IV).

Glutenza, which contains probiotics and prebiotics for gut health as well.

E3 Advanced Plus deals with eight major allergens (wheat, dairy, soy, egg, nuts, fish, hemp, pea) within 90 minutes.  It is the same formula as GI Shield as recommended by Dr. Dr. Tom O’Bryan.

Cooked apples with cinnamon

Dr. Michael Ash writes article explaining in scientific terms the benefits of cooked apples with cinnamon on the gastrointestinal mucosal lining.   Healing the gut is one of the important steps for healing autoimmune conditions.

Ideally, organic apples should be used.  Basically, skin is peeled, apples are chopped, and heated with cinnamon.   For those sensitive to apples, pears can be used instead.

Anti-Parasite Kit

Parasites can be one of the triggers of autoimmunity.  Ann Louise Gittleman recommends this colon cleanse kit by Unikey.  If you look at the ingredients of this supplement, they are natural ingredients and herbs.

You can watch on YouTube her talk about parasites and the health problems they can create…