3 Must Have Causes of Autoimmunity

If you are reading this, you or someone you know is likely dealing with autoimmunity. Autoimmunity can be a bit confusing. After all your immune system is attacking you. Ideally it should limit attacks to foreign substances or organisms such as bacteria and viruses. When an autoimmune condition is present, have you ever thought to ask yourself, what caused my immune system to turn on me? What changed that caused the immune system to suddenly flip. And I do mean suddenly.

Many often ask me, why am I having problems now when I have never had them before. You have probably asked yourself the same question related to autoimmunity. You may be shocked to know that the answer is not that difficult when you consider the cause, or better stated causes of autoimmunity. Something that I need you to understand before I continue on is that there is not a single cause for autoimmunity. There are causes. In fact, autoimmunity is like the perfect storm. You have to have several events that come together just right to great a catastrophic event. That my friend is autoimmunity.

I hear you. “Give me the causes.” I will, but hold on for a second. I have not given you the big picture. In addition to these large causes of autoimmunity, there are other considerations that sometimes get blamed as the cause of autoimmunity, but more specifically only amplify the effect. To prevent the confusion, I am going to share those with you as well.

3 Must Have Causes of Autoimmunity

Ok, thank you for your patience and allowing me to give the big picture of causes vs. things that make autoimmunity worse. So as promised, here are the 3 causes of autoimmunity. And let me reinforce my previous statement that these all have to be present for autoimmunity to take place. Have you been told that you have an autoimmune condition? What did they call it?

Hashimoto’s Disease, Celiac Disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis, or was it something different. Regardless of what label you were given, if you have autoimmunity, you have all three of the following.

Genetic Predisposition – Specific gene profiles increase the likelihood of developing autoimmunity, but they are not by themselves the cause of disease. Your genes don’t cause disease. Therefore, don’t become fixated on the gene itself, but rather the environmental factors that could activate the gene.
Environmental Factors – Food, hormones, chemical toxicants, heavy metals, viruses, bacteria, emotional stress, and drugs are all external factors that can contribute to the development of autoimmunity. I should probably add some clarity to these terms and say refined foods, chemicals that mimic the hormone estrogen and which are called xeno-estrogens, toxins in your food and water, harmful viruses and bacteria.
Imbalance of Gut Bacteria – Those probiotics that everyone likes to promote are not simply in your gut to take up space. Rather, they should be working for you. Among the things that they do are produce nutrients, keep harmful organisms from overgrowing and interact directly with the immune system. If the balances shift in a direction where the probiotics don’t have the advantage, we call that an imbalance. This opens the door for autoimmunity and what is often called “leaky gut” syndrome.

How to Make Autoimmunity 50x Worse

Admittedly I don’t know that autoimmunity actually becomes 50x worse with what I am getting ready to share for you. It is actually difficult to give an exact number of how much worse things are related to these contributors. Yet, what I can without question tell you is that each one of the following make autoimmunity worse. So if you want to hurt more, deal with more fatigue, have your hair fall out, just increase your exposure to each one of these. Otherwise, make every effort to control them.

Food – Food can be both a cause, and a contributor. Gluten for example would be a food that causes autoimmunity. However, food can also contribute to a worsening of autoimmunity by being inflammatory and lacking nutrients needed to help regulate and the immune system and repair tissues that are damaged as a result of the inflammation. Food is a deal maker or deal breaker. Eat the colorful and nutrient rich food and you will thrive. Eat refined, lifeless food and your will fail to thrive.
Nutrients – The small, yet critical nutrients that are required by your immune system are among the most influential factors in creating a balanced immune system. When nutrient deficiencies are present, your immune system if more reactive and tend to react to more trigger items that you would have have otherwise. What may seem ironic to you about this is that many people suffering from an imbalanced and over-reactive immune system tend to become sick with the common cold less often.
Hormones – Women are 4 times more likely to develop an autoimmune condition than a male. Doesn’t take much investigative work to figure out that the main difference there is estrogen. The more estrogen activity there is in the body, the greater the likelihood and worsening of autoimmunity. This can come from the outside environment in the form of chemicals and plastics mimicking estrogen or an outright imbalance of estrogen and progesterone within the body.

What is your cause of autoimmunity? After reading this you can see that there is not a cause for your autoimmunity, but rather causes of your autoimmunity, each of which deserve equal attention.

Not sure how to start addressing your autoimmunity. Let me help by sharing with you where some of the most likely triggers are hidden in your food.