We are 10 times more Bacteria than Human!
There are a 100 trillion bacterial cells in the human body, playing the lead role in driving our Immune system. And, 70% of it is located in our gut.
This article will discuss about factors that cause allergies and autoimmune disorders and their correlation to inflammation and our immune system. The immune system is something that comes across as a nebulous to most people; it is something we cannot see, it isn't a specific organ in our body, yet it is active and defending us 24/7 and keeping us alive. So let's look at how does it do that and how does it get messed up?
Lately we are seeing a kind of epidemic in #autoimmune disease and #allergies. Autoimmune diseases are a family of more than 80 chronic illness and some of them are life-threatening. The common ones are rheumatoid #arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Type I #diabetes, lupus, alopecia areata etc. and are caused by abnormally low activity or over activity of the #immune system.
There are some surprising factors that are affecting our immune system - you have to go beyond what is happening with you right now and look at your biography, your entire life story, starting from the way your were born!
Over 2,000 strain of bacteria live inside or on us. An important concept to understand is what is Outside of us and what is Inside of us. If you think of it, we have two interfaces with the outside world - one is our skin and the other is our digestive tract, which are our first line of defence. It is here that these bacteria meet the outside world that we take in our systems daily in the form of food, drinks and medications. Remember, 70% of our immune system resides in our gut and we are actually an eco-system inside our digestive tract.
Dysbiosis is the imbalance between the good and the bad bacteria. It is the good bacteria that create bio-active compounds which communicate with our immune system through the cells of our digestive tract. It can be healed with the right foods & herbs.
Now, not all of these bacteria are bad and not all are good. They co-exist in a healthy balance in our system which changes basis what we feed these colony of parasites that live in us. Feed them sugar and the sugar eating bacteria grow and multiply manifold, overpowering the good bacteria.
Over time, by eating the wrong foods, by taking medication, through stress and various factors they become incapacitated to do their job. That creates these shifts in our immune system which contribute to a leaky gut. Our gut lining is one cell layer thick - so there is one single cell layer between you and and the outside world that exists in your gut. Unfortunately, during dysbiosis, or when taking medicines, or consuming irritants such as alcohol, sugars, preservatives..this layer gets damaged, which leads to larger proteins like gluten to start passing onto the other side. Our immune system looks at it like a foreign compound, hence getting activated. Our body now starts to fight off these foods and proteins.
This is what the immune system is supposed to do actually. It is not your immune system which is messed up. With the leaky gut situation food compounds are passing into the system all the time and putting the immune system in an overdrive. So, it is this over-activation and chronic-activation of the immune system which is called #Inflammation
Inflammation - chronic activation of the immune system
So autoimmune diseases, or allergies, or inflammation, which is really all kind of the same thing, are all being regulated by the bacteria that lives in our digestive tracks. Thinking that asthma is only lung related, or a skin rash is just a dermatology issue, is wrong.
Your take-way from this should be that you don't have to live with allergies and autoimmune disorders all your life and take medication forever. You can heal yourself with food as your medicine by healing your Gut!
To heal your gut, reduce inflammation and learn more about the human microbiome, work with me in a 1:1 consultation. Here's the details of my Programs. Leave me a message.
Inspired by the words and works of Dr. Robin Berzin, MD