Autoimmune Disease

An autoimmune disorder is a condition that occurs when the body's immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys healthy body tissue, which can lead to more than 80 types of autoimmune disorders such as:

Often there is no cure for autoimmune disorders, however, nutritional therapy may help reduce the frequency and/or severity of autoimmune-related attacks on bodily tissue and help improve symptoms.

The best approach for autoimmune disorders is to establish the underlying causes in each individual, whether it is biochemical, physiological and/or environmental. This is best done through a consultation process. Once individual root causes have been identified a personalised plan of diet and lifestyle choices and food supplements is created with the aim to reduce the effect of these causes.

Often one of the first considerations is to support and rebalance the immune system to reduce the body from attacking 'itself' and to calm inflammation to preserve health and improve symptoms.

There is no single protocol to cover every autoimmune disease. However, there are some general features that are present in many autoimmune conditions to consider, such as:

• Imbalanced immune system (Th1:Th2)
• Inflammation
• Nutrient deficiencies
• Food allergies & intolerances
• Gut permeability
• Hormone imbalances, especially in women

Many of these autoimmune complications are treated using immunosuppressive medications which can put the body at greater risk of harmful infections.

Evidence shows that dietary lifestyle changes can decrease the severity of these symptoms, halt the progression of disease and possibly prevent the problem from occurring from the start.

If you have been on the Autoimmune Protocol for a few months with no improvement, it may be appropriate to meet with a professional nutritional therapist to help with further testing.