Autoimmune disease is a term you may have heard but may not understand. However, every day it becomes more and more relevant to our health. Fifty million Americans have one or more autoimmune diseases, and that number is rising.
An autoimmune disease occurs when the body mistakenly attacks its own tissues, and this can lead to a wide range of symptoms throughout the body. There are many different autoimmune diseases, including autoimmune thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and lupus. The rise in autoimmune disease parallels an increase in allergies and cancer and a decrease in infectious diseases.
In conventional medicine, the most important step in the medical workup of the patient is the diagnosis. When the disease is named, we come up with a therapy (often medication) to suppress the disease.
Functional medicine thinks about this process differently. Ten people with autoimmune thyroiditis may have ten different reasons that it occurred. Functional medicine doctors focus on recognizing the underlying cause for a condition and work on remedying it. Often, this is much more effective than a quick medicinal fix for the symptoms of a problem.
Focusing on why someone has an autoimmune disease is very important. If I can identify a person’s imbalances or risks for autoimmunity, I can better help his or her body regain balance and heal. Most health care experts agree on the fact that a person often has multiple factors coming together to cause autoimmunity. This could be genetic predisposition, changes in gut permeability, or environmental triggers such as a poor diet, changes in the microbiota in the body, antibiotics, illness or infection, or toxins.
