Autoimmunity: Can It Be Healed, and If So, How?

Is autoimmune disease an inevitable state of the human body, or is it a product of industrialization and the modern lifestyle?

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading about autoimmune disease lately because it’s suddenly become personal.

Soooo, big announcement: I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which means that my body has made antibodies that are attacking my thyroid. I tested positive for both types of thyroid antibodies, TPO and Thyroglobulin Antibodies:

Although my antibodies are somewhat low for Hashi’s (TPO can be in the thousands), my thyroid function is somehow horrifically low.

Thyroid stimulating hormone, abbreviated TSH on labs, is a signal coming from the brain that stimulates the thyroid to make thyroid hormone. A very high TSH means that the thyroid has low function and so needs a lot of stimulation to make the necessary amount of hormone. However, a low TSH means there’s a healthy thyroid that responds adequately when stimulated by a small bit of prompting from TSH.

In other words, a high TSH means low thyroid function, and a low TSH means high thyroid function.

A healthy TSH is around 0.45-2. The lab reference range technically says 0.45-4.5 but most functional physicians say that once you get above 2, there could possibly be a problem brewing.

That info sets the stage to show you the most horrifying TSH lab you may ever come across:

This is 10 times above the upper limit of the reference range for normal!

So then it comes as no surprise that all my thyroid hormones are way below the reference range. My T4 is 1/3 of what the lowest number should be, with many functional doctors saying T4 should be in the upper 3/4 of the reference range:

Here’s a real mystery: several people whom I’ve spoken with in person who have Hashi’s have all said that they were debilitated and unable to function, like in bed all day, before they started thyroid hormone supplementation. But their case was way less severe than mine is. So it’s a miracle that I’m functioning the way I am with pathological low thyroid hormones. 🤔

Autoimmune Deep Dive

This diagnosis caused me to dive deeper into autoimmune disease than I have before, and I want to share what I’ve been learning.

If this topic interests you, you may want to check out a video I did on autoimmunity, where I go into even more detail than what is covered in this post.

Here are the three most important questions when it comes to understanding autoimmune disease:

1. Is autoimmunity an inevitable result of living in a fallen world, or is it a product of industrialization? How do we know?

2. What are the major factors causing autoimmunity?

3. What are the different strategies available to reverse it?

1. Is autoimmunity a normal consequence of living in a fallen world, or is it a consequence of industrialization? How do we know?

Those of us who believe the Bible understand that the world is fallen, and sickness and death are a part of life this side of heaven. But how much sickness is an inevitable response to living in a fallen world, and how much is the direct result of industrialization?

This question is important to me because our current situation is one giant biological experiment.

Never before in the history of the world have people’s bodies been subjected to such a toxic concoction of pesticides, herbicides, chemicals in food and water, GMO foods, pharmaceuticals, endocrine dysrupting fragrances, vaccines with heavy metals and other adjuvants, Frankenfoods, ultra-processed GMO junk, preservatives, chemical flavor enhancers, rancid seed oils, hybrid fruits and vegetables, depleted soils, EMF radiation, blue light, fluorescent light, LED light, 5G, etc.

You and I are lab rats in an out-of-control experiment to see how much the human body can handle before it breaks.

—Yours Truly

Although rats will die when you overload them with a high dose of poison, if you give them small amounts of poison at a time, their bodies desperately attempt to find homeostasis despite the poison. They can adapt up to a point.

However, as various poisons build up, the rats develop odd behaviors. Some get anxiety, depression, and hyperactivity. Others develop allergies, their skin gets psoriasis, their fur begins to fall out, they wander around not sure what they’re supposed to be doing.

Weston Price tells a story in Nutrition and Physical Degeneration of mice that were fed a mineral-depleted diet. Although the control mice who received the proper nutrients were docile and you could easily handle them, the mineral-depleted mice were so violent, they tried to attack any people through the cage who came near.

Our bodies are under attack by modern life.

According to the Autoimmune Association, one in six Americans has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and there are over 100 different kinds of autoimmune diseases!

But is this normal throughout human history?

What if our bodies have been so harassed by modern life that we’ve completely forgotten what normal feels like?

What if the anxiety, depression, acne, achy joints, difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, ADHD, trouble waking up, frequent colds, flus, allergies, heartburn, and headaches are all relatively new phenomena?

I believe much of this is largely new, and here’s my evidence:

Exhibit A: Autoimmune disease is on a violent uptick. Consider this graph showing the rise of four common autoimmune disorders since 1950. This graph was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the world’s most prestigious medical peer-reviewed journals. This graph is frightening.

Study linked here

Exhibit B: Two researchers provide copious evidence that our current level of chronic disease is not the way the human body must function.

Weston Price, whose research I covered in this series of posts, traveled to five continents in the 1930s to visit 14 isolated people groups. While there, he meticulously documented their health, the food they ate, and later analyzed the foods to determine the exact amount of vitamins and minerals in their diet.

During his travels to the isolated tribes, he found no evidence of a single one of those 100+ autoimmune diseases plaguing industrialized societies. However, when he traveled to the cities and documented the health of those eating modern foods, including refined white flour and sweets, he recorded many autoimmune diseases and other health problems.

Thankfully, we have another researcher who is still carrying on similar work. Mary Ruddick currently travels to remote people groups where people are eating traditional diets and living non-modern lifestyles, and she tells about her travels in various interviews. One comment really stuck with me:

“These people experience a level of health that we can’t even imagine.”

-Mary Ruddick

This statement is not just referring to their complete lack of any autoimmune diseases, diabetes, cancer, digestive problems, colds and flus, no headaches, no heartburn, no period cramps, no endometriosis or PCOS, no high blood pressure or heart disease. She is also referring to a complete lack of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and OCD.

In one interview I heard with her recently, she said that if you tried to explain anxiety or stress to one of them, they wouldn’t even be able to understand what you meant.

For those interested in Mary’s work, here’s an introductory video:

(Similarly, a group of researchers from Vanderbilt University took diagnostic equipment to the Masai tribe living in Africa, and found no heart disease among 400 elderly men whom they scanned. Ironically, this particular tribe eats primarily red meat, milk, butter, and eggs. Do saturated fat and cholesterol really cause heart disease? But that’s another topic for another time.)

But the point is this: the normal state of the human body is not constant disease, illness, and pain. There is another way. Of course, we will all die one day. But that does not mean we have to spend the last 40 years of our lives with multiple chronic illnesses, in pain, with brain fog, and losing our mental sharpness.

Here’s the catch: we can’t all move to some remote location and inject ourselves into an isolated, traditional society. So is healing possible while staying right where we are?

I believe it is. And we know healing is possible because many people have done it. Stay tuned.

2. What Causes Autoimmunity?