8 minute read
The Tie That Binds All Autoimmune Diseases Together
By Koby Taylor, PharmD
As a pharmacist, I don’t have many patients who aren’t suffering from some form of an autoimmune disease. Statistically, autoimmune diseases are on the rise in the United States, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of recent years hasn’t increased this statistic. By definition, autoimmune means the body’s immune system attacks its own healthy cells, resulting in an autoimmune disease. Some commonly known autoimmune diseases are rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, celiac disease, Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and inflammatory bowel disease.
While every autoimmune disease is different by name, autoimmune diseases affect every system of the body: circulatory, digestive, endocrine, integumentary (hair, skin and nails), immune, muscular, nervous, renal, reproductive, respiratory, and skeletal. Symptoms of autoimmune disease can vary widely, but they do have many similarities, and one common similarity is inflammation. Figuring Out the Why and How
It’s no secret among the medical community and autoimmune patients that autoimmune disease is a mysterious and mischievous house guest. If you fall down and the result is a broken arm, you know exactly how and why the event happened. You would also race to get your arm treated. Autoimmune disease is not so simple. It’s slow moving, slow to show symptoms, and in most cases, it’s rarely known exactly why your autoimmune disease presented itself. Could a diagnosis also be pointed to an underlying trauma? Sure. Family genetics? Yes. Environmental toxin exposure? Again, yes. Stress? Absolutely. But autoimmune disease can also appear out of nowhere, leaving you bewildered as to how or why it’s happening.
What is more, having a predisposition to autoimmune disease could be caused by your age, gender, and ethnicity. For example, Graves’ disease is more common among women than men. However, AfricanAmerican and Asian/Pacific Islander women are at higher risk for multiple sclerosis. While it can appear at any age, it is far more likely to strike adults between twenty and forty years of age and is more common in women than men.
With so many anomalies, figuring out the why and how are almost impossible. If you are someone who is dealing with an autoimmune disease, chances are that by the time you figure out your illness, you’ve left the how and why behind and are running toward “What do I do now?”
Treating One Common Symptom May Help Treat Them All
To describe symptoms for each and every autoimmune disease would require volumes of medical notes and research. But there is one symptom that stands out above them all—one symptom that is the common thread tying all autoimmune diseases together—
and that is inflammation. For those of you who aren’t suffering from autoimmune disease, inflammation might mean something different to you. The common headache is an inflammation symptom, easily treated. Whereas, for those of you who have autoimmune disease, that headache might be chronic, may turn into a migraine, and may even then turn into a full body pain attack complete with nausea and light and sound sensitivity. For autoimmune patients, inflammation begets further inflammation.
Where Whole Health Starts: In the Gut
As I have been working closely with patients with many autoimmune diseases, the first thing we always tackle is the gut. Autoimmune disease affects the gut and its normal function. If you’re on medication for your illness, the best path to keeping symptoms of inflammation at bay is through your gut. We first start with some housekeeping of the diet. By including more fiber, more greens and vegetables, and more water, your gut will have the right cleaners to naturally sweep itself of toxins and food waste. By eliminating carbohydrates, gluten, sugar, and processed foods, we take away the very things that collect in the gut and cause inflammation.
Adding digestive enzymes assists the body in processing food and allowing it to absorb vital nutrients. I also like to recommend apple cider vinegar to promote healthy stomach acid. Many autoimmune patients experience frequent heartburn and indigestion, and while it may seem counterintuitive, more often than not, heartburn is a result of not enough stomach acid instead of too much acid.
Antioxidants to the Rescue
Antioxidants are your tireless weapons against inflammation. Taking a daily protocol of antioxidants not only aids in decreasing inflammation (because they help to eliminate free radicals) but also aids in increasing circulation throughout the whole body. Better blood flow means more oxygen saturation to your cells, which helps fight inflammation.
Here are a few examples of my favorite antioxidant powerhouses: glutathione (made from amino acids glycine, cysteine, and glutamate), vitamins A, C, D, and E, fish oil and/or Omega 3 fatty acids (also found in plant sources), and tumeric. CBD, while technically classified as anti-inflammatory, does have tremendous antioxidant properties and is as potent as vitamins C and E.
Look to food sources rich in antioxidants. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, prunes, artichokes, and walnuts are just a few on the list of good sources. These also illustrate that consuming whole food is not only easy but is also delicious.
Compounded Medications
All autoimmune patients suffer varying degrees of brain fog. A recent case I’ve been working on is with an elderly gentleman with multiple sclerosis. Many of the things I described above are part of his daily protocol, and he is able to more easily manage his condition. He is careful of his diet and has felt the amazing effects of his antioxidant intake. To help him combat his pain and essentially reboot the pain receptors in his body, he is on a prescription of low-dose naltrexone (LDN). Studies surrounding LDN are finding breakthroughs for patients with autoimmune diseases.
Synapsin nasal spray (ginsenoside and nicotinamide) is another compounded medication that not only has been shown to help brain fog but may also help with mental acuity and memory functions.
For more information on gut health,
LDN, or Synapsin, visit my website at www.FusionSpecialtyPharmacy.com.
About the Author
Koby Taylor, PharmD, is the owner and pharmacist of Fusion Pharmacy. Working as a retail pharmacist early in his career, Koby began to see that pharmacy patients needed to have access to available alternative medications. He realized that pharmacy in its truest form is compounding, and he wanted to be able to provide patients with customized medications. He also desired more personalized interactions with patients in order to truly help their health and wellbeing. To fulfill his passion for improving the health of patients and educating them about compounding, Koby opened the doors of Fusion Pharmacy in 2013. Today, Fusion is nationally accredited with PCAB and NABP. It is licensed in and ships to 27 states. Fusion is proud to have two locations to better serve the southern Utah community. Koby graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in molecular biology in 1995 and from the University of Utah with his Doctorate of Pharmacy in 2000.
Hiking is more about the journey than the destination, and now that the weather is cooling off, there are many journeys to be taken on the hiking trails of Utah. However, before you meet your friends at the trailhead, you’ll want to be physically prepared to fully enjoy your adventures this fall.
While hiking is a workout in and of itself, there are a few gym-based exercises that you can do between hikes that will make your outings more enjoyable and less strenuous. 1. Use different types of leg-based cardio to get your heart, lungs, and legs ready for the journey ahead of you. Walking, jogging, running, stair climbing, and cycling are the easiest to rotate through to prevent boredom and overtraining in one area. The more variety you include in your weekly cardio workouts, the better you’ll be able to handle the ever-changing terrain on a trail.
Start with ten to twenty minutes at a time, and once you’re able to knock out thirty consecutive minutes of cardio exercise, increase the intensity. This can be done by increasing the speed or incline on the treadmill, the resistance or RPM on the bike and elliptical, or the step speed on the stair climber. 2. Train up your backside. From the upper back to the glutes, these big muscle groups will help you stay upright and keep your pack (back or fanny) from irritating your low back and hips. Known as the posterior chain, the upper back, lats, glutes, and hamstrings also help with overall posture.
With better posture comes better breathing, which is especially important at higher altitudes and during more strenuous activities.
A few good exercises to include in your strength workout each week are seated rows, glute bridges, RDLs (Romanian
Deadlifts), lat pulldowns, and face pulls. Squats and lunges are also great to include since they utilize all the muscles of the lower body. 3. The warm-up is the most crucial piece of the entire puzzle when it comes to doing what you enjoy most. For both hiking and gym workouts, preparing the body to do work is one of the best ways, if not the best way, to avoid injury.
A good warm-up should take ten minutes or less and move the body through ranges of motion that will be encountered in the workout. Foam rolling is a great way to get the body to relax before stretching; rolling the body over the roller and hanging out on any tender spots helps the muscles relax.
Stretching and finding the deepest position with good posture will help improve range of motion during strength work. It will also create efficient movement during cardio. Once you’ve stretched one to two muscle groups, practicing the big movements you have in your strength work—without any weight—is crucial. The goal is to find the deepest range of motion you have available for that movement.
The last step of the warm-up is to get explosive! Jumping rope or medicine ball tosses are awesome ways to get the body working as a unit and ready for your workout.
These tips should help you stay safe, get strong, and help you enjoy those scenic hikes this fall.
Tips for Enjoying Fall Hikes to the Fullest
By Gini Grimsley
About the Author
Gini Grimsley is the Director of Fitness Product for VASA Fitness where she is known for creating cutting-edge fitness programming for VASA’s clubs across six states.
