From a Western Medical perspective, an autoimmune disease is a condition in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the body’s own cells, tissues and organs. Instead of focusing on harmful substances such as bacteria and viruses, it appears to get confused between healthy cells and harmful invaders, leading it to attack normal cells. Treatment involves suppressing this crazy, aberrant immune system, in order to control the behavior that appears to be defiant.
But what if this is a misconception? Our body is intelligent. When we injure ourselves, we don’t have to direct the body in how to heal it. It just does it without guidance from us. Inflammation, although uncomfortable and which can get out of control, is fundamentally a good thing. It is part of the healing process. A fever, although also uncomfortable, is a good thing as the body is attempting to battle an infection. Fortunately, we have ways to support the body if the infection or damage is getting to a dangerous level. But support is the key – not beating it into submission.
Mark Anderson, a respected researcher and teacher says “It’s not that there are so many auto-immune diseases – it’s that so many diseases reach the auto-immune phase”. Herein lies the heart of auto-immunity. When the immune system has become exhausted to the point of not being able to control the barrage of insults to it, continually over time, it has to drive itself into an emergency mode. We call it an auto-immune disease.
Immunity is not only influenced by our environment and nutrition, but also by our hormones, infections, stress, chemicals and the health of our microbiome (the balance of the good bacteria, yeasts and other microbes in our gut and other tissues). We actually have more control over our immunity, than originally assumed. By changing our lifestyle, environment and especially our nutrition, we can change how our immune system expresses itself.
How can you support your immune system? Dig deep and find out what your body is trying to tell you. The body will tell us in more than one way what’s going amiss. Looking at the body as a whole, and not as just isolated systems such as the digestive system, endocrine system, nervous system, etc., but how each system interacts with the other is needed to get to the root of it. Likely, if you have an auto-immune disease, there are more challenges to your systems than just one thing. Multiple health issues, multiple sources of inflammation, multiple environmental or nutritional insults combining together are likely the “straw that broke the camel’s back”, resulting in an auto-immune disease.
Remember, by design, your immune system is intelligent. By using available resources to dig deeper into finding the root cause, you can do something pro-active to change this state.
Want to hear more from Dr. Carling? Check out our podcast. Search for VitalHealth4You on your favorite podcast listening app or go to vitalhealthcda.com/podcasts/
©2024 Holly A. Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac., Ph.D.
