Monica

I was talking about the Special Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) with a client yesterday, and how there are similarities to the paleo diet in that the foods recommended are the ones that early man ate before agriculture began.
If we think what a positive impact agriculture has had, giving us a global food source which many cultures literally rely on, why is it that grains can have such a negative impact on some people?

According to Breakingtheviciouscycle.info, a SCD site which offers loads of information, testimonials and recipes, we evolved over millions of years, eating predominantly meat, fish, eggs, vegetables, nuts and fruits.

Starches, legumes (lentils, chickpeas, borlotti beans and so on), and grains (bread, pasta, crispbreads, biscuits, cakes…. I’m being very explicit here for anyone in denial ;),  are considered the new foods on the block.

The complex carbohydrates, the disaccharides and polysaccharides in these ‘new’ foods are simply harder to digest, especially for people whose digestions are more sensitive, reactive or inflammed due to a number of other possible underlying causes apart from diet.

Keeping it simple, getting back-to-basics (ie. early man diet!) seems to work wonders in people who have digestive problems – in particular those with IBD such as Crohn’s disease of Ulcerative colitis (UC).

This morning a fascinating blog from Timeforwellness popped into my inbox and, again, the topic of SCD came up.  This time discussion of a study looking into the benefits of SCD regarding infectious bowel diseases.

A small study of 12 patients set out to assess the impact of  SCD in paediatric patients with mild to moderate Crohn’s or Ulcerative Colitis.

The results were so heartening!

After 12 weeks on the diet, disease activity had decreased considerably for both diseases, and the C-reactive protein (CRP is one of a few inflammatory markers used in practice to measure ‘inflammation’ in the body) had normalized in most patients.  Even the stool analyses showed significant changes in microbial composition.
For 10 of the 12 patients, dietary therapy proved to be extremely effective.

Remission and normalization in patients with IBD is what anyone with these diseases would hope for.

As the SCD is quite limiting, it’s best to work with a health professional or nutritional therapist who will help put a diet plan together and also help you rule out other triggers or mediators in the disease process.

A new client who was seeing me for hormone support told me yesterday that she wished she’d come to my autoimmune workshop the previous week.  I asked her if she had a relative or friend suffering from an autoimmune disease.  ‘No, but I seem to get one cold after another.’   Then she saw the puzzled look on my face and added,  ‘What IS an auto immune disease exactly?’

At last week’s workshop I realized there’s quite a bit of confusion when it comes to the term Autoimmunity.
People hear ‘immune’ and think it’s to do with winter colds and coughs and being run down.

Another perplexing aspect may be that there are now so many diseases being considered autoimmune in their aetiology.   From psoriasis to ulcerative colitis, Crohns, Hashimotos and another 100 + diseases.  And this number is on the rise as research uncovers possible autoimmune components to some known and familiar conditions.
Add to this the fact that some doctors don’t actually tell their patients that their disease is autoimmune in nature.  From a conventional medical perspective their treatment is the same, however, from a functional medicine point of view it makes a big difference.

Here’s some information on different aspects of autoimmunity which I’ve based on my own clinic experience, and IFM (Institute of Functional Medicine) teachings, as well as CAM – now IHCAN – conferences, seminars by Lamberts and NutriLink and various webinars.  There’s a wealth of literature out there on autoimmunity, from a functional medicine perspective, just google Dr Ballantyne’s AI Paleo approach, or Dr Kharrazian’s and Tom O’Bryan’s books, to mention just a few.

For a start, a smidgeon of basic science  🙂 Normally the immune system attacks a foreign body, such as bacteria, parasites or a virus (called ‘pathogens’) which tends to give you symptoms, make you feel unwell to varying degrees.  This takes place thanks to our antibodies, a type of protein whose job it is to recognize patterns in other proteins, find the ones that are foreign, like the aforementioned bacteria, viruses, fungi, and then bind and ‘deactivate’ them.

By binding to these foreign proteins the antibody is signalling to the immune system, ‘this is an invader, come and get it.’
A truly brilliant internal army of antibodies, proteins, chemicals a.o., all working together to then eliminate anything that shouldn’t be in our system.

With an autoimmune disease, however, the body accidentally creates antibodies that target our bodies’ proteins, instead of the foreign invading pathogens’ proteins.  This happens because some of the amino acid (protein) sequences of a body organ or tissue can look very similar to the sequencing of that pathogen invader!
This mistaken identity is called molecular mimicry or cross reactivity.  Dr Sarah Ballantyne quite accurately calls it a “betrayal of our immune system”.  Instead of attacking foreign organisms, our immune system mistakenly attacks itself, hence the word ‘auto,’ which is Greek for ‘self.’

Diagnosing an autoimmune condition can be tricky.   Treatment may not be helping (because the root problem is still not addressed).  Symptoms may be vague or sporadic, ticking over for years and not doing anything dramatic, just making you feel very unwell at times, or all the time, with no clear ‘name’ of what the illness might be.  Very frustrating for you, the patient, as well as your doctor.

On top of that, there isn’t a specialist for autoimmune disease in general.   Conventional medical treatment is organ, or system, dependent.
Hence if you google ‘doctors for autoimmune conditions’ you’ll find a very long list, from nephrologist, a specialist treating kidney problems, hence also auto immune [AI] diseases affecting the kidney such as lupus; or a rheumatologist, for arthritis, but also AI rheumatic diseases, such as scleroderma; an endocrinologist, treating gland and/or hormone problems, hence also AI diseases like Hashimotos or Graves thyroid disease; a neurologist for nerve problems and hence also AI diseases such as multiple sclerosis; a gastroenterologist, for digestive system disorders, and thus also the AI disease Crohns or ulcerative colitis; a dermatologist for skin issues and also AI diseases such as urticaria and psoriasis.  And so it goes on.

Autoimmune diseases have a tendency to gather in numbers over time.  If you start off with one you may then acquire another and another, and end up having to juggle multiple specialist appointments and multiple medications… with multiple side effects.
Once diagnosed with an autoimmune disease you have it for life.  There’s no cure – yet. However management of symptoms can make it feel like you don’t have the disease, which is a real positive.

Typical medical treatments may include immunosuppressive medication or stronger drugs like anti rheumatics, plus pain medication.  These calm down the immune response, but won’t be solving the underlying problem (hence no cure. Yet).

Currently, a lot of research is being carried out regarding AI diseases as they are on the rise; worryingly so.  They are, in fact, the 3^rd leading cause of mortality in the industrialised world after cancer and heart disease.  Plus, as mentioned above, there are over 100 already confirmed AI diseases, with more being implicated in having their roots in autoimmunity (ie. more diseases where research is showing the body attacking ‘self’).

From a functional medicine point of view, what is understood through research and practice, is that a triad of factors is normally present in order to develop an auto immune disease.  Genetics.  Environmental triggers.  Diet/lifestyle.

Genes alone are not enough, so don’t panic if autoimmune conditions run in the family.  Having these genetic links will, however, make you more vulnerable to an AI condition than someone without this genetic component.

Environmental triggers, the second factor, cover such a vast potential range that I can only touch on them with a light stroke that doesn’t do justice to their impact.
Infections, past and present, such as viruses, bacterial overgrowths in the gut, infections in the lungs and sinuses to point out just a few.  Inhaled or ingested toxins (think of all the chemicals surrounding us, from cleaning products, cosmetics, pesticides, food additives, plastics…).  Hormones, where our chemical messengers trigger changes in the body.  Stress or trauma, grief, unhealthy relationships…and the list goes on.

Often there is more than one ‘trigger’ involved; a synergy of different factors coming together at a certain point in your life, rather than blame being laid on just one.
That being said, coeliac disease, a well-known autoimmune condition, has its roots in just one trigger/mediator, namely gluten.  This is a protein found in many grains.  This is the reason why grains and pseudo grains are considered by many practitioners in the functional medicine world to be triggers or mediators in ALL auto immune diseases (do read Tom O’Bryan’s books on gluten, or watch on Youtube).

Unlike genetics, you can take control to varying degrees, of the environmental triggers in your life.

Diet and lifestyle, the third factor in this triad, have such an impact on your health, on your immune system, that it can’t be emphasised enough.  It may may sound like a cliche that slides too easily off the tongue, but You Are indeed What You Eat.

The gut wall, your digestive lining, is a vital barrier between your inside and outside world.
You ingest food via your mouth, and it remains enclosed within the tube of your digestive tract – which is still ‘outside’ the bloodstream and the rest of your body – until it is absorbed through the gut wall. There it enters your ‘inside’ world.  Nutrients are then transported all over your body, carried in your blood to the rest of your organs and body tissue.

This gut wall has to be selectively permeable in order to allow nutrients in, but at the same time keep out toxins, those pathogens mentioned above.

Little wonder about 80% of the immune system is here, in these tissues of the gut.  An army of antibodies, proteins and chemicals a.o. are all on guard to ensure that whatever passes through that gut wall ‘barrier’ isn’t foreign and make you ill.

Loss of this protection seems to be a critical factor in autoimmune disease.  Either the cells in the gut wall can become damaged, or the junctions between these cells can lose their closely formed tight integrity, thus allowing some contents of the gut to ‘leak’ into the bloodstream or lymphatic system – hence the term ‘leaky gut’.  This may then result in the whole immune system going into overdrive if you consider that undigested food, with unrecognisable sequencing, is entering the body when it shouldn’t and is being mistaken for pathogens. (This is a very brief and simple mini tour of what can go wrong!)

Currently it’s thought that leaky gut or intestinal permeability is implicated in most auto immune disease  Saying that, I have seen AI clients whose lab tests showed no intestinal permeability.  Interestingly, however, they had sinus and lung issues.  There is research looking at how the epithelial linings/barriers of other hollow spaces, such as lungs, sinuses, urinary tract, may be the compromised barriers in the body which are setting up this autoimmune landscape.

How to improve intestinal permeability?  The good news is that the gut wall cells turn over and heal very quickly, but infections and a potentially imbalanced microbiome should be investigated.  At the same time, dietary changes need to be made according to the individual.  There are certain foods that are never going to be great.  Processed and pre-packaged meals or high sugar/low nutrient diets.  Alcohol and coffee can be problematic for many.  Gluten and possibly other grains. Dairy.  Some people struggle with digesting certain proteins – meat or pulses.  And of course, there may be foods, some even so-called healthy foods, to which you have an allergy or intolerance.  Often people will only have to stay off ‘their’ problem foods for a relatively short time, some months.  However, others feel so much better when they exclude certain foods they keep off them.  It’s very individual, which is why it helps to work with someone, a qualified nutritionist or functional medicine practitioner.

As for lifestyle, the benefit of regular and manageable exercise is now so well understood regarding all disease, I won’t harp on it.
Stress, as always, plays a key role.  It can be both a trigger as well as an insidious mediator, propelling your auto immune disease ever forward.  We all have stress in our lives; we all have to ensure we can tone it down and find the ‘off; switch.
Sleep is vital.  If you’re not getting good sleep this will scupper your immune health.  There are so many ways to improve sleep, and tests to investigate why your sleep is disturbed so do contact me if you want to discuss this.

Mindfulness, supportive relationships at home or in the community and having purpose in life.   All of these are significant lifestyle factors.  Consider each one with care – mindfully.  This will be key in helping you manage your autoimmune disease and improve symptoms.

And if all the above is too much to get your head around, find someone to work with, a functional therapist or nutritionist who can help you organise lab tests and discuss diet and look at the different layers to your health.

Making a start with Intention is a great first step.  Keeping a food diary to see if you can tease out patterns to your symptoms.  Gradually increasing a manageable amount of daily exercise.  Taking a close look at the stress in your life, at the love in your life.  Surrounding yourself with angels who are supportive.

There’s a lot you can do and think about right now!

The medical world is still playing catch-up when it comes to intestinal permeability – more commonly known as leaky gut syndrome.  It may sound like something you’d call on a plumber to fix!  Then again ‘friendly’ bacteria didn’t sound very medical either when it first arrived on the health scene, but look at it now.  Recognised by most as an essential part of your healthy gut population.

Speakers at January’s “Heal your Gut Summit” discussed leaky gut at length, explaining that people experiencing allergies, especially multiple sensitivites, or eczema, asthma, or psoriasis, unresolvable digestive problems, or suffering an IBD or an auto immune condition, should consider leaky gut as being part of the root cause of their symptoms.
Please note that I write this row of ‘or’ intentionally since you may only have one, or a couple, of the above-mentioned symptoms/conditions.  You don’t need the lot to have intestinal permeability.  And it’s not something to be scared of – just aware of, so that you can start an action plan either on your own or with the support of a therapist.

A healthy gastro-intestinal tract is like a tightly woven mesh of tissue, working as a barrier and keeping undigested food particules, or bacteria, from entering into your bloodstream.

When you experience chronic inflammation in the gut, brought on by a bacterial imbalance (not enough of the above-mentioned ‘friendlies’ or a hidden infection a.o.) or a poor diet, or toxic overload (environmental toxins a.o.), or chronic stress, this mesh loosens.  The junctures in the gut wall let undigested food and harmful substances ‘leak’ into the bloodstream, causing an immune reaction.

This, in turn, leads to inflammation throughout your system, and can lead to symptoms such as bloating, food sensitivities or fatigue or joint pain, headaches or skin problems and more.
And It also means you won’t be absorbing all the important minerals and vitamins from your food – or from the supplements you’re buying.

The interesting point to keep in mind is that leaky gut does not necessarily mean you will have obvious digestive or gut problems (and I speak from my own experience here).

Your leaky gut may be linked to your skin or bronchial reactions to something like dustmite or pollens.  Or it may be linked to joint pain or brain fog or to low immune health (because you’re not absorbing enough nutrients from your food, due to leaky gut).  Also, you may have no digestive symptoms because you intuitively – or through long-forgotten experiences – avoid foods which ‘don’t agree with you’, thus escaping any regular digestive challenge, and keeping your gut in a fairly stable state.  And if you do have an occasional glitsch, you might be putting it down to eating too much, or a very ‘heavy’ protein meal or a stressful day – all of which would certainly be implicated.  The presence of multiple sensitivities is a good benchmark for leaky gut – and of course any of the above-mentioned symptoms, or conditions.

There are numerous studies which have been done on intestinal permeability, and many link it to the onset of all disease – which aligns with the father of modern medicine, Hippocrates, who said, ‘All disease begins in the Gut’.

Considering that about 70% of your immune system is in your gut, it makes a lot of sense to begin your body’s overall healing process by starting with your digestion.

And the best place to start is by REMOVING foods which are irritating or damaging your gut.  This is probably the hardest first step for anyone.  Often they are the very foods to which you are addicted, or ones which form part of your daily routine.  And routines are comforting.  They often define who you are, hence changing them may feel very difficult, or make you feel out of your comfort zone or just ‘not you’.

“I know bread makes me bloated but..”,  or, “I love cheese but it doesn’t agree with me”, are common statements I hear in clinic but there’s just so much abuse a digestive system can take.  In the end, it’s little wonder you feel unwell, or get some inexplicable symptoms – joint aches and pains, headaches, rashes, chest congestion, repeated infectioins –  after years, or decades, of eating that same ‘ole something which ‘doesn’t agree with you.’

If you keep in sight the reason you’re removing these foods  – to feel better and happier if your symptoms are making you miserable.  Or to stop current health ‘niggles’  from progressing to something more difficult to support, such as an auto immune condition, then the dietary changes will be easier to make.
And sometimes the removal of your culprit foods will be short-term (all depends on your health status.  Your own individual symptoms).  Over time, once gut health has improved, you may find you can eat small quantities with no adverse reactions at all.  Or you may just decide you’re better off without these troubling foods.
Having family support is wonderful but not essential.  In the end it’s your choice, your body and your health.

Alongside removing culprit foods, you should be REPLACING them with healthier options – supporting GI tract health with collagen and glutamine foods (think chicken soup or the currently trendy bone broth), fermented vegetables or coconut products such as coconut kefir or yoghurt (to replace dairy).
Then the focus is on REPAIRING and REINOCULATING your gut with specific supplements whilst REBALANCING with a few different probiotics.   This is bascially the same 5R approach which I’ve talked about in an earlier post.  A logical peeling back of the layers before repairing and replenishing.  Lots of ‘Rs’!

If you think any of the above is singing out to you – but you want more specific, individual advice do contact me.  And if you really want that written proof to help you make the necessary dietary changes, there are laboratory tests for intestinal permeability as well as tests to measure your nutrient levels  Email or call me for details.