Food for Thought and (Autoimmune) Healing

Today, about half of Americans are living with chronic diseases like autoimmune conditions and cardiovascular disease. The rate of these diseases has skyrocketed in recent decades and is projected to only get worse. The growing prevalence of these diseases despite alleged advances in research impel us to pause and sincerely assess the dominant medical approach.

Autoimmune conditions in particular are something of a black box for even the conventional medical community, as even they will tell you they don’t really know how and why they emerge in a person. These diseases are defined as a condition wherein the autoimmune system attacks the person’s body itself, targeting tissues like the person’s organs, muscles, among others. The standard treatment for everything from thyroid disease, to ulcerative colitis, to lupus is a mix of pharmaceutical drugs that inhibit your autoimmune system’s ability to function and produce wide-sweeping side-effects and leave a person vulnerable to infection.

Enter: Amy Myers. A functional medicine doctor who revolted against the medical approach she was being taught after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease herself. She asserts, contrary to conventional doctors, that autoimmune conditions are only 25% caused by genetics and 75% are caused by diet, toxins, infections, and stress. She also claims that the present treatment standard for autoimmune conditions only creates more health problems for people and does not address any of the root causes of these diseases.

She has outlined a guide to stopping and reversing autoimmune conditions in her protocol titled “the Myers Way.” Her book The Autoimmune Solution, explains in extensive detail how adjusting your diet to heal your leaky gut, eliminating toxins in your body and home, identifying and resolving underlying infections, and managing your stress load allow your body to naturally recover from an autoimmune condition.

In her book, she describes how our diet plays a critical role in our immune system’s functioning (80% of the body’s immune cells are located in the digestive tract). Most people with autoimmune conditions have what’s called a “leaky gut,” which is when the microvilli in the digestive tract have been damaged. When this happens, toxins, microbes, and antibodies escape the gut and enter a person’s bloodstream. This is a problem because your immune system is trained to attack these exact particles when it finds them in your body. When this continuously happens, an autoimmune condition emerges.

The foods that Myers stresses eliminating are those that contain gluten and dairy because the profit-motivated farming industry has increased the inflammatory nature of these foods.

Gluten is used in grains like wheat, rye, and barley, among others in order to create a fluffy texture. However, in recent decades, large multinational agricultural companies have created a type of wheat that is drought- and pest-resistant in order to secure higher and more consistent crop yields. At least five percent of proteins found in hybridized wheat are proteins that were not present in original wheat plants. Widespread research shows that for people who have a gluten intolerance (which Myers argues is much higher than just those with Celiac disease), ingesting gluten causes inflammation in the body. This is because gluten releases zonulin, a protein that breaks up the microvilli in the gut.  With this change, financial costs to companies were minimized while health costs to people have only multiplied.

In addition to gluten, Myers recommends eliminating dairy, gluten-free grains (such as quinoa and rice) and legumes. Each food group contains proteins that have similar molecular structures to gluten and also contribute to causing a leaky gut. She also recommends eliminating eggs and nightshades for their inflammatory effects.

This might all sound incredibly restrictive and impossible to do. But, according to the Myers Way, after 30 days of eliminating these foods, a person can slowly start to add some back in (excluding gluten and dairy) and monitor if they experience any health effects in response to the reintegrated food group.

Amy Myers has given so many people their lives back with her regimented and science-backed approach. However, as a society, we have to come together to critically examine, challenge, and transform the way our agricultural system operates. Only then can we hope to eliminate the entire existence of autoimmune conditions and suffering that goes along with them.