Christa 0:00
Welcome back to another episode here at the wild and wild collective today, Sheree and I are going to be talking about something that, unfortunately is pretty common for a lot of people, and that is autoimmune diseases. Most of us either suffer from it ourselves or know somebody who has some form of autoimmune disease. And it's pretty staggering when you look at the numbers of people in the US, particularly who have some form of autoimmune In fact, it's actually higher, if you compile that number, higher than people suffering with cancer, cardiovascular disease all put together. And I think it really falls under the radar, the vast number of it, because each kind of disease is packaged under a different specialty in western medicine. You know, we've got MS and lupus that tend to be under neurology, and then we've got gi specialists that celiac, ulcerative colitis. We have rheumatologists for rheumatoid arthritis, and then, you know, endocrinologists deal with graves or Hashimotos with a thyroid. So they're kind of tucked away into their own little specialties. But when you compile all of them together, there are millions of people who suffer with some form. Some forms can be more mild than others, but regardless of the extent of it, they're all driven by the same process, which is inflammation. And so we're going to kind of talk today about what tests you can do today to stay on top of it, because we want to catch things early, even if we don't have symptoms. So some blood work that you want to ask your practitioner to look at yearly whether or not you're having symptoms. We'll talk a little bit about supplements and interventions that you can do that way, and then also some of the drivers of this that you can really start to either reverse or decrease symptoms or fully eliminate and also to avoid even developing an autoimmune disease, and then we'll also talk more about how diet and our gut health ties all together. So I'm glad that you're here, and I hope that you enjoy this conversation. I wanted to first start out talking about some of the drivers, and I would say one of the main drivers would be leaky gut or increased gut permeability. And I know that Sheree, you do a lot of work with your clients with this. So share with us a little bit about where you you know, when you have a client, or you know a patient in my office with autoimmune I often go straight to gut health. So share kind of what you your thoughts on on that and what you know about that connection? Yeah,
Sheree 2:43
I think it's really important to understand, when it comes to autoimmunity, that there is that such a strong connection between gut health and stress. So for those of you who don't know like, I have an autoimmune condition, so I'm one of the millions that Christer is talking about. I am celiac, and I have been since I was 22 months old. And so one of the biggest things that I look at when a client comes to me with autoimmunity is, yes, gut health. But I also look at, okay, where did this potentially come from, and was there a primary trigger in their life that was causing a whole lot of stress at the time? You know, if you actually go back to when people were diagnosed, or what was going on in people's lives when they were diagnosed, it was typically caused, like, there was some sort of trauma, there was some sort of big stress. For me, when we looked back, we actually think it was a result, because obviously, quite often still breastfeeding and having little like, I'm not really introducing a huge amount of foods by the time I was 2022, months old, like the stress of the birth that I went through, so I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck three times. And so there's that. And I've had other clients come to me who have had really, really bad instances where, like, something massive has happened in their life. They've lost a parent, or they've gone through the stress of divorce or something, and it happens when they're in their teens. And so when we look at that, the impact that the stress has on our gut, and I creating that leaky gut picture that is all where it really starts to tie in and starts to boil down to so it's looking at both parts. And so when we think about leaky gut, for those of you who aren't too sure what I'm talking about, when I say that it's the loosening of the tight junctions in your gut wall. And when we do that, we allow not just food particles to float through and creating food intolerances, but we allow other pathogens, other viruses, things, to float into our bloodstream that then signal our immune system to be in a state of high inflammation, sending little red flags around the body, tagging these different proteins that are slipping through and causing our body to attack itself, and over time, this is essentially what causes that autoimmunity. And that can happen, not just if we're talking about celiac disease or ulcerative colitis, that we're talking about things happening, you know, in terms of. All the different ones that Chris was talking about, the Hashimotos, the graves, the lupus and everything. So when it comes to gut health, when it comes to managing your system, the first thing is really looking at what's stressing your gut to begin with. Is there a food that's inflammatory, or is it something mentally, emotionally or physically?
Christa 5:19
Yeah, I think it's really important to recognize that what you know, the stress that you mentioned, that can be psychological stress, which we're all pretty aware of. That stress can be good or bad stress, but just being busy can be good things sometimes, but it still can cause kind of us to be in that fight or flight which impacts our body and our ability to digest. Other things that can really lead to that leaky gut, though, are things like toxins, and some things are going to be more pronounced, like mercury, or, you know, exposure to molds, or, you know, particularly going back to Mercury, prior to, I believe, 1999 there was a higher amount of mercury allowed in vaccinations. So when we're looking at people now middle age, most of their pediatric vaccinations contain a higher amount of mercury. And really, depending upon how well you you're genetically able to detoxify, or what other things you've been, you know, exposed to during your lifetime, that level of mercury may or may not be affecting you and creating a physiological stress in your body. So that's something to think about. The other aspect that we often don't think about is glyphosate. So you know, on our fruits, our vegetables, yes, those are great to have in our diet, but choosing organic every time that we can is important, because those glyphosates do add a stress. The insecticides do create a problem for our gut lining. So that's something also to be aware of. And then, you know, going back to food sensitivity, so gluten, dairy, those things often can lead to breakdown of our gut lining. So all of that boils down to inflammation in the body. And so if you've been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, the first thing is to recognize that, okay, Western medication can be really helpful to help suppress the immune response, that overreaction of your immune system that's now attacking healthy cells. Oftentimes, we do need some jump start of medication, but it's often like, you know, taking pain pills for a broken bone, but not repairing the broken bone. I mean, you may not have as many symptoms, but you're not really solving the actual problem. And so it's important to recognize it's kind of a both and situation. Sometimes, you know, the goal, I would say, is to simmer the fire down to, if you need medications to, let's say, you know, get your gut celiac you know, you've got to get that under control, or rheumatoid arthritis, MS, those kinds of things, oftentimes, to get it under control. But at the same time, you want to be recognizing that there's a driving factor there, and so working with your provider and saying, Hey, I really I want to know what's actually driving my body to do this in the first place, so that ideally, you don't have to stay on medications long, or you can at least decrease the amount that you're regularly taking. Going back to gut health, though, what you know, I want to talk about supplements and those kinds of things. But let's start with dietary guidance. What would you suggest for anybody suffering from any type of autoimmune disease to start with? So
Sheree 8:30
I think it's really important to understand that there are some foods that are super inflammatory for things like Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, gluten. I mean, celiac, obviously, that's things like gluten far more than others, and so quite often it can be overwhelming. When you get diagnosed, it's already a stress. I mean, for me, I didn't have to think about it because I was too little. But for my parents, especially my mom, she didn't know what on earth this was, how to deal with it, what's going on? And I always say to people, I'm I feel very fortunate that I have celiac disease versus another autoimmune condition, because as long as I take gluten out, I'm fine. My body doesn't respond negatively in any other way, which makes it a very easy autoimmune disease to manage. You look at something like Crohn's ulcerative colitis. You take that a step further, they typically are dairy and gluten and then something like Hashimotos, the gluten actually mimics the binding part on the thyroid. You can probably explain this better than I do, but that then competes, so you actually have to, you have to keep gluten out if you're a Hashimotos patient. And so gluten has to be probably the number one thing if you have an autoimmune condition that we take out from a dietary perspective, it affects everybody, and in terms of inflammation, and even more so, people with autoimmune conditions. And then you can start again, because, like I said, it's quite often overwhelming. I would typically start with things like taking out gluten, taking out dairy, then when the patient or the client is ready and they're. Open to it, and they've started to wrap their head around the fact that they do have this diagnosis. We can look at doing something called AIP, which is an autoimmune paleo protocol. And that is where not just doing paleo intervention, which typically helps most people heal their gut, reset everything, but it's the autoimmune version of it, because and I went through this about five or six years ago, when my body started to react to a whole group of other foods because I developed leaky gut with the amount of stress that I was under. So I was no longer just having an allergic reaction, an actual, true allergic reaction. I'm not talking about food intolerances, an allergic reaction to eggs, to dairy to rice to gluten, and there was one other sesame that was so my body was literally so inflamed every time I ate these foods. And you're thinking to yourself, well, you know, I'm only eating brown rice, like that was super healthy. I'm having eggs. What's wrong with me? Like, why is my body responding like this? And that's because, with you've got an autoimmune condition, your body is so much more hypersensitive to developing these allergic reactions, because if you've and studies show if you've developed one autoimmune condition, chances of you developing a second one within a two year period just skyrocket. So you've actually really when you first get your diagnosis, have to take extra, extra strong care of yourself, so you don't get led to developing that second one as well. So there's the autoimmune paleo that's taking out the gluten, and then it's looking at, okay, how does my body respond? You might start to reintroduce foods and be like, great. I can actually do okay on things like nightshades or some nuts and seeds. But these, these are the big players in the game. And actually, I don't. My body does not agree with in my case, and I've healed it, but it was sesame So,
Christa 11:46
yeah, it is really interesting. As you heal leaky gut completely, you aren't as sensitive to foods. And so I think that's good news for people, because I know, you know, I'll have patients that say, Oh, I was totally fine, and now all of a sudden, I'm I can't tolerate eggs, or I can't tolerate something that really bums them out. And it is true, that's a sign that you've got some leaky gut. You've got, you know, particles Bacteria entering the bloodstream, and it's creating more of a sensitivity to that. And so I want to go from here talking about foods to what kind of supplements we can also add, because, you know, there's, there's quite a bit that we can do to simmer down inflammation in the body, and I would say boiling it down to the ones that I love. And you can certainly share what you recommend as well. But typically, high dose of curcumin can be a great one to decrease inflammation. I also love fish oil. Most of us are not getting enough of the anti inflammatory omega threes. So you can get those from food, flax seed, chia seeds, salmon, yeah, there's some, there's some great food sources, but we're still oftentimes not getting enough of that omega three, the DHEA and the EHA. So I do recommend a fish oil, high dose fish oil, for those that are suffering with any kind of inflammation in your body, vitamin B, A, B complex can do so much. And I say B complex because I have patients all the time. Say, Oh, I take an extra B 12, you know. But honestly, vitamin B, these work together. And so, you know, if you're suffering with, let's say, low like heartburn regularly, and so now you're on something for heartburn that actually suppresses the absorption of B 12. The birth control pill can really deplete us of b6 and all these, these vitamins are really important for us to detoxify and to be able to manage the things that we are exposed to. And so we need a good amount of absorption and intake of B vitamins. So oftentimes we aren't taking enough. And so I do always recommend a B complex early in the day, because it can keep you awake, so don't take it too early in the daytime. Magnesium and vitamin D, those are also both. We really want to supplement those regimen at the same time, because they can deplete one another. But vitamin D and magnesium are another those are, you know, both the vitamin and mineral that I find depleted in a lot of people and that can contribute to revved up immune system. It can So, you know, optimizing those can also keep the immune system in check. One last thing I wanted to share was low dose Naltrexone. So that's a prescription, but now trek zone and it's higher concentration is used in alcohol dependency and things like that. But interestingly, when we microdose it, when you have a low dose, like a 10th of the dose or less, actually, you it actually helps to quell that overactive immune system. So I've put many patients with rheumatoid with chagrins, Hashimotos on a low, very low dose of. A low dose nitrexone LDN, and that can really help you to be able to either decrease your current medication regimen or completely get off of immunosuppressants. That's just another, another little pointer I wanted to make there. But in terms of inflammation and gut health, what do you typically use sharing with your clients, or what do you what would you recommend?
Sheree 15:23
I love that you bought up, like the curcumin and the fish oils like those are definitely my go to like you've said at the beginning, when we look at what really is the driving force behind all of these autoimmune conditions, it's inflammation, and so we have to do everything we can to bring that inflammation down, and we do not eat a diet rich in anti inflammatory foods. And like you said, we're not, even if you're eating like wild caught salmon a couple of times a week, you're still not going to be like studies are showing now, you still not going to be hitting your Omega three intake, especially with the amount of omega sixes that are loaded, like in terms of the trans fats and the vegetable oils and things into our diets on a daily basis. So you nailed it on the you hit the nail on the head with the Omega threes, like adding in, I'm always a big fan of magnesium, vitamin D and everything like that. I think the only thing I would add to what you've said would be, there's a lot of research around, because we've talked about it as well, is the gut health side of things. And so a really high quality spore based probiotic. There's even some out there. And we actually had Karan on quite a few episodes back now, but his company, microbiome labs, have done a lot of research in this place and bought out a lot of spore based probiotics, which have been shown to not only, you know, we think of probiotic, we go, oh, cool, I'm putting good bacteria into my body, but we know now it's actually about rewiring your microbiome. And so when I think about how I healed from having those food allergies, or my body actually having that inflammatory allergic response, it was through taking those gut specific supplements, where they rewire the microbes in your gut to help your body not only fight the inflammation, but actually settle down some of the autoimmunity itself. And so that's normally the only other thing I add in, if I've got an autoimmune patient in front of me or autoimmune client in front of me, it's very much dietary heavy in terms of the AIP, or even just starting with paleo. And then I'll add in making sure there's a really, really supportive two or three layer probiotic approach to make sure that their their gut is actually not only not leaky, but supporting them and healing. Mm, hmm,
Christa 17:33
yeah. I agree. Oftentimes working with a practitioner to go through that healing protocol, which oftentimes involves multiple levels of different supplements over a period of time to really help support the immunity in the gut and then replenish the bacteria, like you're talking about an probiotic, and then also things like zinc, carnosine, etc, to help kind of heal that gut lining. But I love what you said about, you know, the increasing bacteria, good bacteria primarily through diet. I mean, vegetables, fiber can really feed the gut microbiome, and some of those bacteria actually produce more of that mucus lining so it heals. The bacteria themselves heal our gut lining, which is so incredible that we can do a lot of this through diet. Wrapping this up, though, I wanted to talk a little bit about what kind of labs to request. Because whether or not you have symptoms, it's a great idea to have yearly labs drawn, just to keep your body you know, in like, see what's kind of going on before you have symptoms. So looking at inflammatory markers, like C reactive protein, that's one that will be elevated, I like to see that below one for sure. So anything greater than one, I would say, you know, there's something inflammatory going on in your body, vitamin D levels. You know, we mentioned taking vitamin D, but it's important to check those levels. And optimal levels are really between 60 and 80 on your labs, and that is a higher number than most practitioners will hold you accountable to, but that's ultimately where you're going to get the best regulation of the immune system, gut health, hormone balancing, etc, having a gluten test if you suspect this, I would definitely have a, you know, either eliminate it completely, but if you're really curious about it, if food sensitivity test regarding gluten could be really beneficial. And then another one called a n a that is a blood test that you can get, and it's very non descript, but a n a will tell you if it's elevated, it will tell you that there's something revving up the immune system. So again, it's not going to be specific as to what, but checking in a na every year can help you stay on top of something before you even have symptoms. Obviously, that's on top of regular, you know, CBC, a complete blood count, those can also be helpful. But adding things like the CRP, vitamin D levels in an ANA every year can keep you kind of in the know, to make sure that you haven't you're not revving up the immune system unknowingly. Yeah,
Sheree 20:00
I love and it's hard often to get doctors to do this, especially, and I'm speaking from experience in New Zealand. But I also love testing the thyroid antibodies at least once a year, because, I mean, we are so deficient in our soils and two of the key nutrients that drive our thyroid function, so selenium and iodine, and the prevalence of Hashimotos in particular is continually on the rise. And I always think like, hey, we all we do is test the TSH, and some doctors will test the t3 and t4 if you really push for it. And their clients or patients showing up and they're struggling to lose weight no matter what they do, their hormones are completely out of whack. Their energy is ridiculously low. All of this is all going on, and it's like, Oh, your TSH is fine. And so if you're experiencing those symptoms, sometimes, testing your TPO and your TPA thyroid antibodies can be a real game changer, because they can come back through the roof and be an indicator that, hey, you actually might be dealing with Hashimotos. Or let's catch this before the Hashimotos or the graves really kicks in? Yeah,
Christa 21:02
no, I agree. And I think it's, it's really great to know that early on, because if they don't test that and your TSH, let's say, is high, and they put you on a thyroid medication, they're unknowingly, you know, you're still not treating the underlying cause there. And so I think it is really important to understand what's driving your thyroid to be dysfunctional. Also, it's important to recognize that if you have one autoimmune disease, let's say Hashimotos, you're more prone to have others because the body, you know, the immune system, is revved up. And oftentimes people will have more than one autoimmune disease process going on at the same time, so understanding and kind of checking all of those via labs prior to having symptoms is your best bet when it comes to really getting ahead of the game and hanging on to your overall health. I hope you guys have found this helpful. I think it's it's really pivotal in my practice for people to feel empowered in their health and and this is one way. So I hope that this conversation has been eye opening. It's been hopeful if you or somebody you love does have auto immune disease, that it's not a you know sentence that can't improve, if not be completely suppressed, right? And a lot of it does require you just to stand up for yourself when it comes to lab work, when it comes to how you're going to eat, how you're going to support yourself with supplements and overall lifestyle. So, yeah, anything else you want to add tree?
Sheree 22:26
No, I think you did it beautifully. It's it is just being informed, and if you do have one, knowing that there's options other than medication, and there's a like, there are some really easy ways to manage it. I think the final note I'll say is just also be very mindful of your stress, and know that there is typically a big trigger or a big trauma that can happen. If that can, that can be the tipping point to actually developing auto immunity as well. So we've talked about this till we're blue in the face a number a number of podcasts, but managing a stress levels are so, so important, and the toll that takes on your body,
Christa 22:56
Yeah, amazing. Thanks for being here, guys, until next time.
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