Wellbeing
There is an Autoimmune Epidemic. You’ve heard the rumblings. Diseases like diabetes type 1, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and fibromyalgia are on the rise at an alarming rate.
As defined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an autoimmune disease is the body’s immune system going awry. Normally the immune system’s army of white blood cells helps protect the body from harmful substances called antigens. Examples of antigens include bacteria, viruses and toxins. But in patients with an autoimmune disorder, the immune system can’t tell the difference between healthy body tissue and antigens. The result is an immune response that destroys normal body tissues.
One is 12 Americans suffer from an autoimmune disease (one in nine women). Environmental factors are attributed to tripling disease rates in the past 30 years. There is almost universal agreement among scientists and physicians that the environmental toxins and chemicals to which we are increasingly exposed are interfering with the immune system’s ability to distinguish between itself and non-self.
“It takes the human body thousands of years to adapt to new environmental stresses – yet in a hundred years we’ve dumped so many toxic substances into our environment that our immune system is being asked to differentiate between our own body and unrecognizable invaders nonstop. Which makes our body much more likely to make a mistake than it was, say, a century ago. There are so many more opportunities to make a mistake,” Ahmet Hoke, MD, PhD, Director, Neuromuscular Division, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
The book, The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a must read for anyone facing the chronic debilitation of an autoimmune disease. It’s a great primer identifying our exposure to everyday toxins, toxins not prevalent or in existence before World War II. It is not a coincidence that the President’s Cancer Panel Report 2008-2009 draws a similar conclusion about the affect of toxins and the increased rate of cancer. The panel advised President Obama "to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation's productivity, and devastate American lives."
There is an Autoimmune Diet plan slowly emerging as more and more studies are published on how specific foods and supplements affect the autoimmune response. Studies suggest that a whole-food, plant based diet are at the cornerstone. It’s no surprise that the foods to avoid include refined carbohydrates like potato chips, donuts, pastries, commercial cereals, white bread, fast food, hydrogenated oils, instant foods, microwaved food, canned fruit, lunch meat with nitrates, commercial salad dressings, artificial flavors, colorings, MSG, aspartame, sucralose, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified grains and commercially fried foods. That pretty much sums up the SAD, Standard American Diet.
Everyday decisions - like what to eat, using a cell-phone, how to store food, clean house, gas up the car, pour something down the drain, use a plastic food container, microwave food, use a Teflon pan, get clothes dry-cleaned - are having a profound affect on our collective health. Any one action by itself might not have the same affect. It’s the combined affect of the growing number of chemicals in our food, air, water and consumer products.
As defined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an autoimmune disease is the body’s immune system going awry. Normally the immune system’s army of white blood cells helps protect the body from harmful substances called antigens. Examples of antigens include bacteria, viruses and toxins. But in patients with an autoimmune disorder, the immune system can’t tell the difference between healthy body tissue and antigens. The result is an immune response that destroys normal body tissues.
One is 12 Americans suffer from an autoimmune disease (one in nine women). Environmental factors are attributed to tripling disease rates in the past 30 years. There is almost universal agreement among scientists and physicians that the environmental toxins and chemicals to which we are increasingly exposed are interfering with the immune system’s ability to distinguish between itself and non-self.
“It takes the human body thousands of years to adapt to new environmental stresses – yet in a hundred years we’ve dumped so many toxic substances into our environment that our immune system is being asked to differentiate between our own body and unrecognizable invaders nonstop. Which makes our body much more likely to make a mistake than it was, say, a century ago. There are so many more opportunities to make a mistake,” Ahmet Hoke, MD, PhD, Director, Neuromuscular Division, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
The book, The Autoimmune Epidemic by Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a must read for anyone facing the chronic debilitation of an autoimmune disease. It’s a great primer identifying our exposure to everyday toxins, toxins not prevalent or in existence before World War II. It is not a coincidence that the President’s Cancer Panel Report 2008-2009 draws a similar conclusion about the affect of toxins and the increased rate of cancer. The panel advised President Obama "to use the power of your office to remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our nation's productivity, and devastate American lives."
There is an Autoimmune Diet plan slowly emerging as more and more studies are published on how specific foods and supplements affect the autoimmune response. Studies suggest that a whole-food, plant based diet are at the cornerstone. It’s no surprise that the foods to avoid include refined carbohydrates like potato chips, donuts, pastries, commercial cereals, white bread, fast food, hydrogenated oils, instant foods, microwaved food, canned fruit, lunch meat with nitrates, commercial salad dressings, artificial flavors, colorings, MSG, aspartame, sucralose, high fructose corn syrup, genetically modified grains and commercially fried foods. That pretty much sums up the SAD, Standard American Diet.
Everyday decisions - like what to eat, using a cell-phone, how to store food, clean house, gas up the car, pour something down the drain, use a plastic food container, microwave food, use a Teflon pan, get clothes dry-cleaned - are having a profound affect on our collective health. Any one action by itself might not have the same affect. It’s the combined affect of the growing number of chemicals in our food, air, water and consumer products.