Each food and any chemicals that you may ingest circulate through your body and signal your cells in specific ways. These signals trigger the activation of individual genes in your cells. Therefore, modifying these foods or chemical signals will refine your body chemistry by changing which genes get turned on or off. This can potentially halt or even improve the course or severity of your disease.
Whether the risk for the disease stems from inherited genes or not, you have the possibility to change your own genes' expression. I can help you alter your body chemistry, so your genes will not play a role in systemic inflammation and possible autoimmune disease.
Diet and Nutrition Can Lower Inflammation
It is a known fact that majority of diseases are made worse by inflammation. Your cells can be stimulated to produce inflammatory chemicals when exposed to viruses, free radicals and oxidative stress, or by the presence of other inflammatory chemicals. When cells receive these signals, a chemical inside the cell called NF-κB (Nuclear Factor kappa-B) causes your genes to turn on and make more inflammatory chemicals. Two of these inflammatory chemicals (IL-1beta and TNF-alpha) actually cause NF-kB to keep stimulating your genes to make even more inflammatory chemicals. This creates a pro-inflammatory loop that can be very destructive to your tissues.
However, you can make lifestyle changes, modify your diet and nutrition, which can dampen the inflammatory processes and inhibit the destruction of your tissues. Research has shown that curcumin, a spice used in Indian cooking, is a powerful NF-kB inhibitor. Curcumin is the basis of a tea that is part of the traditional diet on the Japanese island of Okinawa, one of the so-called “blue zones” in which live four times more 100-year-old people than in any other population.
Nutritional Modulation in Autoimmune Disease
In autoimmune disease, the immune system malfunctions and attacks the body’s own tissue, as it were a virus or a bacterium. Each autoimmune disease attacks different tissues. At this time, we have distinguished over 80 different autoimmune diseases. A common treatment for these diseases is the need to encourage "immune tolerance", toward self-tissue. Immune tolerance is provided by cells called “T regulatory cells” that inhibit the rest of the immune system from launching an autoimmune attack.
There is abundant research in the medical literature showing that specific diet and nutritional strategies promote an increase in the number of immune T regulatory cells, that dampen the autoimmune process. I have seen many patients experience significant improvements in their autoimmune diseases when they change their diet, their nutritional protocol, and other lifestyle factors. These changes modulate gene expression, ultimately dampening their autoimmune process. Each patient’s physiological responses are unique, so I always assess individual patient needs and develop a plan to address each factor that drives the individual’s dysfunction.
Additional Benefits to This Treatment Approach
Chronic inflammation and autoimmune attacks alter gene expression in a way that upsets the body’s ability to make energy at the cellular level. For this reason, patients with autoimmune disease often complain of significant fatigue. Addressing this problem by changing your body chemistry often yields significant improvement in energy level. Restoring your cells’ ability to generate energy, lowering inflammation and suppressing the autoimmune process, can clear the brain fog and significantly improve your cognitive function.
Therefore, if you are suffering from any of the 80 known autoimmune diseases, your key focus should be on dampening the autoimmune process, promoting immune tolerance, identifying and eliminating triggers that drive flare-ups of autoimmune response, and reducing inflammation and tissue destruction. This approach will dampen the autoimmune process enough that the frequency, duration, and intensity of your flare-ups is substantially reduced. This can greatly improve your quality of life and restore your higher level of function.
