In my last post, I talked about what autoimmunity is. As a recap, autoimmunity occurs when your body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks your own tissues. Many common skin conditions involve autoimmunity, including psoriasis, vitiligo, and alopecia areata (the condition that I have).
In this post, I’ll talk more about autoimmunity. I’d like to focus particularly on the gut microbiome and the impact that it has on the function of the immune system. This is part of why I focus so much on gut health in Mind Gut Skin Academy – it can have a much bigger impact than many people realize.
Why does autoimmunity happen?
Although autoimmune conditions are relatively common, researchers still aren’t certain why some people develop them while others don’t. A few factors appear to play a role in determining a person’s level of risk for autoimmune conditions.
Genetics
People who have multiple relatives with autoimmune conditions are more likely to develop similar conditions themselves.
Environment During Childhood
During childhood, the immune system is undergoing most of its development. Things that occur during this time can influence the function of your immune cells for the rest of your life. Researchers are still working to determine which specific factors in the environment are important.
Hormones
Women are more likely to develop autoimmune conditions than men are, indicating that hormones likely play a role.
Body Weight
Obesity is known to increase the risk of autoimmune conditions. This is believed to be because fat tissue produces certain hormones, which in turn impact the function of the immune system.
Toxin Exposure
Exposure to certain toxins also increases the risk. For example, several chemicals found in cigarette smoke significantly increase the risk of autoimmunity.
Unknown Factors
We do know that these risk factors make it more likely that you’ll develop an autoimmune condition at some point in your life. Ultimately, however, it’s not really clear why some people develop autoimmunity while others don’t. At this point, it appears to be somewhat random. Anyone can potentially develop an autoimmune condition at any point in their lives, and it’s not always obvious why this has occurred.
What all of this means is that if you have an autoimmune skin condition, it’s not your fault, and you didn’t do anything to deserve this. At the same time, there are things that you can do to reduce your risk. If you already have an autoimmune skin condition, there are also steps that you can take to help calm down the inflammation and support your skin health.
The Connection Between the Gut Microbiome and Autoimmunity
So what can you do to help support the healthy function of your immune system and reduce your risk of autoimmunity?
One thing you can do is to pay attention to the factors listed above that increase the risk. While some of them can’t be changed (like genetics and your childhood environment), others can. If you’re overweight, putting effort into achieving a healthier body weight can make a huge difference. Quitting smoking is also great for many different aspects of your health, including reducing your autoimmune disease risk.
Another thing you can do is to work on balancing your gut microbiome.
We have quite a bit of evidence that the balance of bacteria in your gut plays a role in modulating your immune system. Researchers have found a few different ways that this can occur:
The gut bacteria produce a variety of substances, many of which are absorbed from the gut into the bloodstream. Some of these substances modulate the activity of the immune system. When the gut bacteria produce higher levels of certain substances, this can cause the immune system to become overly active, which may cause it to start attacking your own tissues.
There are many cells of the immune system located in the gut lining. They’re there to sense any potential invaders that have come in with your food, so they can get rid of those quickly. Changes in the balance of gut bacteria can influence the activity of these cells, which influences the chances that they’ll develop abnormal activity that leads to autoimmunity.
Certain species of bacteria help to maintain the barrier function of your gut lining. This is important for keeping proteins and even bacteria from leaking through your gut lining into your bloodstream. If this type of leakage occurs, it can trigger immune cells to become sensitized to food proteins or to gut bacteria. In some cases, these proteins are similar enough to your own proteins to cause those immune cells to attack your own cells as well.
We’re likely to find more ways that the gut microbiome is linked to the risk of autoimmune diseases.
The Connection Between Diet and the Gut Microbiome
Autoimmune conditions are becoming increasingly common around the world. Although there are likely many reasons why this is happening, it’s believed that changes in diet are having an impact.
The “standard American diet,” which is high in processed foods, saturated fat, sugar, and salt, is being increasingly adopted in various cultures around the world. People are eating fewer whole fruits and vegetables than they used to.
These changes in diet cause alterations in the gut microbiome. This can happen relatively quickly – in fact, your microbiome can change in just a few hours, in response to things that you’ve eaten. In turn, the changes in the microbiome influence the immune system, which can potentially lead to autoimmunity.
This means that you have the power to influence your gut microbiome simply by choosing your foods wisely.
Optimizing Your Diet to Help Keep Your Gut Microbiome Healthy
I have a ton to say about how to keep your gut microbiome healthy! In fact, this is a major focus of Mind Gut Skin (MGS) Academy. I’ve found that balancing your gut microbiome is one of those factors that mainstream medicine has a tendency to overlook, even though we have a ton of research showing how powerful it is.
There’s no way that I could pack all of my advice about supporting a healthy gut microbiome into a single blog post. But I do want to give you a few simple action items that can help you to work towards a more balanced microbiome. Here are three things to eat for a healthy gut microbiome:
Fiber. Fiber is a type of carbohydrate that your own body can’t digest – but your gut bacteria can. Basically, when you eat fiber, you’re feeding your beneficial gut bacteria. High-fiber foods include fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Polyphenols. These are a type of antioxidant that also act as food for certain beneficial species of bacteria. Good sources include dark chocolate, coffee, tea, berries, almonds, and broccoli. Many of these foods are delicious, so this is a great chance to indulge yourself while also feeding your healthy gut bacteria.
Fermented foods. These are foods that have undergone an aging process, using live bacteria. These foods can be a rich source of beneficial bacteria for your gut. Some examples of fermented foods include sauerkraut, kimchi, yogurt, kombucha, and kefir. Just make sure the product you choose is not pasteurized, because this process kills off the beneficial bacteria.
Focusing on eating a bit more of each of these types of foods will help to keep your gut bacteria healthy and balanced, which in turn helps to support a healthy immune system that’s less likely to attack your own tissues.
This is absolutely not an exhaustive list! There are many more ways to help keep your microbiome healthy. A complete list would basically be a book chapter, so I just started with these three.
If you’d like more support on this, there are a few ways I can help. I offer a lot more information about this inside MGS Academy. In fact, I made the program a membership instead of simply a single course, so that I can constantly update it and add content to provide the most value possible. This also gives you a chance to go through the content at your own pace, and to focus on the areas you feel would be most beneficial for you.
If you’d like one-on-one support and personalized advice, health coaching might be a good fit. Please do keep in mind that health coaching is not the same as a medical appointment, and I can’t offer medical advice on specific conditions or prescribe medications during a coaching session. However, I can offer help with optimizing your lifestyle to support your gut health as well as many other aspects of your overall wellness. Contact my team (using the form at the bottom of each page) for details!
Comments