Given the current lifestyle pattern, autoimmune diseases have become common with more than 23 million Americans being impacted by several autoimmune conditions. When your auto immune system turns against & attacks your body, it leads to autoimmune diseases & poses a lot of health problems.
Lets dig more deep into this!
Your immune system helps you protect from harmful invaders such as harmful bacteria, fungi, toxins, viruses. When you attract autoimmune diseases your body is not able to differentiate between own cells & harmful/foreign cells & releases antibodies to attack your own cells
What are these autoimmune diseases?
There are hundreds of autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes that impact one organ or part of your body while other conditions affect a larger part or your whole body. Some of the most common autoimmune disease include:
- Celiac Disease: This is closely linked to gluten consumption. If people suffering from Celiac consumes anything that contains gluten, it leads to inflammatory reaction in their gastrointestinal tract & a number of symptoms such as digestive issues, fatigues & skin reactions
- Inflammatory Bowel Disease: IBD, including ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, affect your gastrointestinal tract. Ulcerative colitis affects your large intestine and rectum, while Crohn’s disease may affect the entire GI tract.
- Lupus: Lupus impacts multiple organs of your body including skins, join, brain, heart & Kidneys. It is characterised by pain, fatigue & rashes
- Autoimmune thyroid conditions: It can impact both ways- slow & fast thyroid hormone production. Slow thyroid production leads to weight gain, fatigue, cold & weight loss while fast thyroid hormone production leads to weight loss, anxiety & fast heart beats
- Multiple Sclerosis: MS causes damage to the protective coating around your nerve cells, called myelin sheet . Its symptoms include weakness, numbness, balance problems, and mobility issues.
- Type 1 diabetes: This impacts your pancreas, destroying insulin producing cells interfering with blood sugar regulation. Symptoms include thirst, frequent urination, fatigue & hunger.
How do autoimmune diseases develop?
So what are the factors that aid in development of autoimmune diseases? The following paragraphs explain certain major factors that calibrate symptoms or worsen autoimmune conditions:
- Gut Health: Our gut houses 80% of the immune system. Gut health determines body’s healthy quotient. Consuming inflammatory diets low in nutrients, fibre , high toxic food items & stress can negatively impact our gut balance. Gut imbalance can lead to faulty immune system, inflammation & leaky gut syndrome. Leaky gut syndrome is the main culprit to cause autoimmune diseases & loosen your gut lining. This enables toxic substances, virus, fungi, harmful bacteria & undigested large food particles enter your bloodstream. Your body may recognize these harmful particles & may trigger an inflammatory response. Besides, infection also triggers autoimmune diseases. To learn more about leaky gut, please read our blog.
- Food sensitivities: Food sensitivities does not lead to immediate reaction in your body. If you regularly consume food you are to, it leads to inflammation, leaky gut & digestion problems, headache & fatigue. Food sensitivities may also trigger an autoimmune response. Some common foods that may calibrate autoimmune symptoms include, dairy, eggs, gluten foods, sugar, legumes, nuts & seeds
- Toxin Exposure: Toxins are found everywhere right from air you breathe, outside foods you consume, conventional body care products, municipal water, plastics, smoke & so on. Too much toxin exposure can lead to a toxin burden in your body, leading to autoimmune response.
- Chronic stress: Chronic stress can lead to physical, biological, emotional or spiritual tension that elevates cortisol hormone & adrenaline levels. This increases your food cravings & hunger & leads to inflammation in the body( since your cravings for junk & sugary stuff increases) resulting in gut imbalance & triggering autoimmune responses.
- Nutrient deficiencies: Eating an inflammatory diet low in nutrients dense foods such as greens, vegetables, fruits, healthy fats, and clean protein can result in nutrient deficiencies & can increase your risk of inflammation and autoimmune disease. The following nutrients are necessary to overcome this inflammatory response: magnesium, vitamin D, zinc, omega 3 fatty acids, B vitamins and selenium.
So what is the solution? Fasting! Let us find out more
Fasting is the practice of abstaining from food & consuming only water for a particular period. This has numerous health benefits & has a powerful & positive impact on our immune system.
Fasting & Autophagy is a process that allows your body to break down old, damaged, and weakened cells and cell components, and recycle them for energy. This creates opportunities for the production of new, healthy, and more efficient cells. It assists your immune system to control viral and intracellular parasite replication and lower inflammation as a result.
Fasting helps in growth of beneficial microbacteria. Intermittent fasting can enhance gut microbiome biodiversity & strengthens immune system. For more details about growth of beneficial bacteria, please check out our blog.
Fasting may also help to activate immune cell regeneration allowing the body to recycle old and damaged immune cells and generate healthy blood.
