Autoimmune Disease & the Gut Part #3:

autoimmune health, digestive health

The Microbiome-Autoimmune Connection, Part 3: Dr. Alessio Fasano’s work on Autoimmunity

This week we will review the groundbreaking work of Dr. Fasano and autoimmune disease. Autoimmunity is when the immune system becomes overactivated and attacks the body’s own tissue.

What causes this attack? Read on for more details.

These are three steps that can cause an autoimmune condition:

  • a genetic tendency
  • an environmental trigger
  • a leaky gut

To prevent and address an autoimmune condition, it is vital to work on improving your gut health. We can help you to do that.

Zonulin is a substance found in the gut that controls permeability or leakiness. There are tight junctions, which are like doors, on the gut lining. Zonulin opens these doors. Then food molecules, toxins and bacteria can get out of the gut tract and into circulation in the body. We call this condition, when the doors are open, leaky gut.

To Read About Blog Topic, Scroll Down

Want To Work With Our Clinic?

Do you have a chronic or mystery illness that no one has been able to help you with? Are you simply wanting to re-connect with a healthier version of yourself? It’s Time To Finally Feel Better!

We want to avoid leaky gut because these food molecules and other things that escape from the gut into the body through these doors, cause an immune system reaction and inflammation. Over time, this immune system reaction becomes an overreaction and can lead to autoimmunity.

One thing that causes zonulin to increase and to open these doors is dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is when there is an imbalance in gut bugs in the microbiome. This happens when you have more bad gut bacteria crowding out the good gut bacteria. Gluten (anything containing wheat, rye, or barley or anything made from these contains gluten) also raises zonulin and opens these doors. Gluten is the main trigger for celiac disease, which is an autoimmune condition.

It is possible to improve dysbiosis, by reducing the bad gut bacteria and increasing the good gut bacteria. We can help you to do this. Then zonulin will not increase and your gut won’t be leaky, which reduces the chances of getting an autoimmune condition.

In scientific research, solutions to autoimmunity are being studied. One of these is a pill that would block zonulin from increasing. This would prevent the development of a leaky gut, one of the steps leading to autoimmunity. In other research, it was found that a certain probiotic can prevent leaky gut.

Beyond Autoimmune Disease: A healthy gut is so important for good health overall.

You might be wondering how you can improve your gut health. Is it as simple as taking a probiotic? Or what about prebiotics? Or how about stool testing or parasite treatments? What about Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth? Or candida overgrowth?

In reality, any gut issues can cause leaky gut and contribute to autoimmunity. It is not as simple as taking a probiotic for most people. That is where functional medicine lab testing and targeted treatment for root causes of gut imbalance comes in. By following our functional medicine process, we have seen autoimmune markers in the blood like ANA (commonly positive with Lupus) become “negative” on multiple occasions after working for several months with people in our clinic. We have also seen dramatic reductions in thyroid antibodies (autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s and Graves) through our process at Medicine with Heart. If you would like to find out more about working with us (we work with people all over the world), please CLICK HERE to book a Free Discovery Call.

Please stay with us for next week’s article when we will look at some ways of predicting autoimmune disease. Call us to see how we can help you with an autoimmune condition and/ or to improve your gut health

Are You Suffering From A Chronic Illness?

Does your current health situation look like this…

  • Do you feel that you have tried many things and either nothing works, or the treatment does not hold?
  • Have you been told that there is nothing that can be done to reverse your illness and you just need to manage symptoms?
  • Does your illness impact your work, your family, your happiness and your social life?

We specialize in finding answers and solutions for complicated chronic illness when people feel like they have tried everything. If this sounds like you, book a free call with us to see if we are the right fit for your health goals. 

Dr. Miles has spoken for the following organizations:

Related Articles

Responses