Leaky Gut, Gut Health & Autoimmune Conditions
This is the second article in the Autoimmune Series.
In the last article we covered what autoimmune conditions are and what they’re actually doing in the body. But in this article we’re going to cover how they come about.
What actually causes them.
And it starts in the gut, our first defense against illness.
What Are Autoimmune Conditions & How Do They Work
About 1 in 10 people in the US now suffer from some sort of autoimmune disease. And this level has been rising fast over the last couple of decades.
It’s rising fastest amongst adolescents, where the number has tripled in the last 3 decades.
In 1988-1991 an estimated 22 million people between 12 and 19 years old had an autoimmune disease, and in 2011-2012 it rose to 41 million.
But it affects adults as well, generally manifesting somewhere between the ages of 15-45. And about 75% of those affected are female.
These are conditions such as Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohn's disease, Fibromyalgia, Hashimoto’s, Ulcerative Colitis and a host of some 80 others.
And other conditions, such as Lyme disease, can trigger autoimmune conditions.
These can cause low thyroid, muscle pain or fatigue, stiff or painful joints, and exhaustion and lethargy. Or they can attack specific organs or nerve cells, and even the skin.
But what is an autoimmune disease? What's happening in the body when someone has one?
You Don't Need Protein — You Need Amino Acids
For the last few years a sort of battle has existed regarding protein.
Is meat or vegan protein better?
How much protein should I take? Is it too little or too much? Do people in general need more protein or less protein?
Beyond that, some say that meat proteins cause an inflammatory response in the body so we should get protein from plants.
Others say we need more animal protein, that it’s a superior protein source and provides key nutrients not available in plant proteins.
Some say too much protein is toxic and others say too little protein impacts our hormones, muscle, bones, mood, and immune system.
So how do we answer this?
Well, we don’t.
Because we’re asking the wrong questions.
And the reason we’re asking the wrong questions is because we’re starting from the wrong point of data.
Let's dive in.
How To Address Autoimmune Conditions
This is the third article in the Autoimmune series.
In the last two articles we covered what autoimmunity is and what causes it.
And in this article we’re going to talk about how to address it.
When we look at addressing some kind of physical condition, we can look at it from two different angles: addressing the symptoms and working to suppress those, or locating the root cause that is creating the condition, and keeping it created on a daily basis, and address that so that it is no longer being continually created.