Functional Medicine

Functional Medicine and Autoimmune Disease

Functional medicine looks more deeply than conventional medicine at the reasons why the body has lost its tolerance to its own proteins in the first place. We know that if proteins change their shape and no longer fit into the recognition receptors, the body may not recognize them and they’ll look threatening and ominous. They will more likely look like “not self and dangerous.” Functional medicine seeks to know why and how this happens. What biochemical reactions have gone wrong that led to the development of these misshapen proteins? What is the exact nature of the broken chemistry, and what are the environmental factors that triggered or worsened the condition?

There are theories about why autoimmune disease happens. One theory is that the proteins that the body no longer recognizes actually change because of oxidation when a sugar molecule, a heavy metal ion (like from lead or mercury), or even a virus or bacteria particle gets attached to the protein. The most common oxidizer is glucose (eating a diet high in sugar and carbohydrates can increase the frequency of this). When the protein is oxidized, it changes its shape, and in genetically susceptible individuals the protein now looks like a dangerous foreign invader. The immune cells attack.

Immune system hyperreactivity is another issue of interest in a functional medicine approach. A cell need only change a small amount for a highly reactive immune cell to get suspicious. We know that there are many factors that increase the reactivity of immune cells. These include the amount and proportion of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and antioxidants in the diet, carbohydrate content of the diet, food intolerances, toxic load in the body, hormone levels, and the presence of chronic infections. All these things can make the immune cells hyperreactive. Therefore, we want them less irritated so they are less likely to go berserk and begin attacking oxidized proteins in the body. A nearly infinite number of possible injuries (from toxins, hormones, and infections) to the proteins in our blood and our cells can occur—but our immune cells have only a limited number of responses they can make to this damage.

Another way the immune cells can get activated to attack the self is through molecular mimicry. That is when viruses and bacteria have evolved to share some of the same amino acid sequences that are in our cellular proteins in order to hide from our immune cells. They mimic our definition of “self” to hide from our immune cells so as to set up a chronic low-grade infection. When our immune cells finally recognize that an infection is happening and the immune system begins to attack those infections, however, it also begins to attack “self.” This is one mechanism by which chronic infections may lead to an autoimmune disease in the genetically susceptible person.