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Reverse Autoimmune Diseases

Author: Jian Gao, PhD

Editor: Mr. Frederick Malphurs

July 4, 2023 

Autoimmunity – A Wild Fire Out of Control

According to the Autoimmune Association, there are now more than 100 autoimmune diseases, and over 50 million Americans suffer from them.1 A recent international study reveals the prevalence of autoimmune diseases worldwide jumps 12.5% every year.2 Granted, awareness and better diagnosis play role here. But, type 1 diabetes, an unmistakable autoimmune disease inflicting young children, also increased 30% from 2001 to 2009 based on a study published in JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association),3 and another 30% jump from 2017 to 2020 according to the latest CDC report.4

Furthermore, we are all told that almost all chronic disorders such as cardiovascular disease and obesity are caused by chronic subclinical or low-level inflammation. But what causes the chronic inflammation at the first place? And what is chronic inflammation anyway? When digging into it, you would realize the so-called chronic inflammation is in fact the immune system abnormally producing excessive molecules called proinflammatory cytokines. So, if chronic diseases are induced by chronic inflammation, then most if not all chronic diseases are autoimmune disorders – the immune system has gone mad.

In any event, chronic inflammation is not the root cause of chronic diseases such as autoimmune disorders, and anti-inflammatory drugs will not be effective. Figuring out what causes the immune system to go mad and produce these cytokines and antibodies is where medicine should go.    

Autoimmune Diseases – Unnecessary Suffering

We have been told autoimmune diseases have no cure and the only treatments are symptom management or immunosuppressants. For some conditions such as Sjogren’s and arthritis, managing symptoms may be okay. But for many other conditions such as MS (multiple sclerosis) and connective tissue disease, the dire consequences of long-term use of powerful drugs suppressing the immune system are obvious.

Are autoimmune diseases curable? The answer is a resounding yes. However, we should understand the difference between the disease itself and the damage caused by the disease – the diseases are curable but the damage inflicted by the diseases may not be reversable. A classic example is type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease where the immune system mistakenly produces antibodies targeting and killing the beta cells in the pancreas. The autoimmune disease can be reversed or cured (normalize the production of the antibodies), but the dead beta cells can’t be replaced because they only grow once in a lifetime. As a result, even if the autoimmune disease is resolved, type 1 diabetes remains a lifetime malady.

It should also be noted the word “cure” is highly controversial. In a sense, no disease, big or small, can be cured – a common cold or cancer can be cured but can also come back the next day. For autoimmune diseases, for example, Graves’ disease triggered by gluten sensitivity can be cured or healed after removing gluten from the diet, but the disorder will come back if you start to eat gluten again. Indeed, “cure” is subject to different interpretations. Here by cure, I mean the symptoms are gone, labs become normal, and no prescription drugs are needed anymore. You can say the disease is in remission, healed or reversed, which are all fine.

Among the autoimmune diseases, we all know what MS (multiple sclerosis) can do to a person. Dr. Terry Wahls, MD, assistant professor at the University of Iowa and chief of primary care at the VA hospital at the time, was diagnosed with MS in 2000. Despite three years of treatment by the world’s best doctors from the Cleveland Clinic with the strongest medicines such as steroids, mitoxantrone (a form of chemotherapy), Tysabri (a potent immune-suppressing drug), and CellCept (a drug for organ transplants), Dr. Wahls’ condition deteriorated rapidly and she was confined to a zero-gravity wheelchair. After realizing conventional medicine wasn’t going to halt the progress of her MS, she turned to nutrition, diet and lifestyle. In a year, she got out of her wheelchair and back on her bike. Now she is practicing Functional Medicine and treating and teaching patients from all over the world to reverse MS and other autoimmune diseases. Just visit her website to see for yourself.

Isabel, a 10-year-old girl suffered from one of the most severe autoimmune diseases, connective tissue disease, where her own immune system attacked her entire body including her muscles, skin, joints, blood cells, blood vessels, and liver. She couldn’t even squeeze her hands or make a fist, and the tips of her fingers and toes were perpetually cold. Out of desperation, her parents took her to Dr. Mark Hyman, founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, the Head of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine.

“Isabel was on elephantine doses of intravenous steroids every three weeks just to keep her alive, and she was taking prednisone, aspirin, acid blockers, and methotrexate, a chemotherapy drug used to shut down the immune system daily,” described Dr. Hyman. “Despite these mega-doses of medication, she still wasn’t getting any better, and her lab tests were still abnormal.”

After having “stopped eating gluten, dairy, and sugar and took some supplements,” in less than a year, Isabel became completely healthy, her blood tests were all normal, and she was off all her medications. A ten-year-old girl doesn’t lie, just check out the video. 

Dr. Brooke Goldner, MD, was diagnosed with lupus at age 16 resulting in stage IV kidney failure. Her doctors told her she could only live for six months without chemotherapy. “I will never forget the vision of her [grandmother] on her knees on my kitchen floor begging God to take her and spare my life,” Dr. Goldner recalled. Yet, she graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and then went to medical school. After 12 years, at age 28, she completely recovered from her lupus by having changed her diet and nutrition. It has been 16 years since her labs turned normal, and she has no trace or sign of the disease (all labs are still normal) and she has two healthy boys. Now she is treating patients all over the world. Just google her name, you will see many video testimonies from patients who have recovered from debilitating ‘incurable’ autoimmune and other chronic diseases.

Countless doctors like Terry Wahls and Brooke Goldner who are hard-earned MDs have left the practice they were trained for and started to practice Functional Medicine after they cured their ‘incurable’ diseases by addressing the root causes.  

Curing autoimmune diseases isn’t a rare event or miracle. Decades ago, Dr. Christopher Reading, practicing in Dee Why, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, eliminated all signs and symptoms of over 500 patients diagnosed with lupus as well as all the drugs used to treat it, just by removing gluten and dairy from their diet and adding supplements.5 Yet, to date, unfortunately the medical establishment still adamantly maintains all autoimmune diseases including lupus are incurable. And they have their theory – the immune system has memory – once it starts attacking, it can never stop.

The immune system indeed has memory, but it remembers the triggers or offenders, not the incessant production of antibodies attacking the organs and tissues. When the triggers are removed, the immune system will calm down and stop producing excessive antibodies attacking the body. But we also need to understand when the triggers are reintroduced, the immune system will most likely turn on and attack again – a result of memory.

All in all, curing or reversing autoimmune diseases relies on identifying and addressing the root causes or triggers such as stress,6-10 hidden infections (e.g., mold, viruses, and bacteria),11-15 food sensitivity,16-18 dysbiosis,19-26 leaky gut,27-33 environmental toxins,34-48 and malnutrition (mainly micronutrition such as vitamin D).49-56

Despite mounting clinical and research evidence demonstrating autoimmune diseases can be cured or healed, the medical establishment still steadfastly insists there is no cure. What matters is not the choice of words — cure, heal, reverse, or in remission; rather, it is the action that makes the difference – prescribing immune suppressing drugs or making the effort to identify and address the root causes. Granted, in the short run, immunosuppressants can save lives. But the consequence of long-term use of immunosuppressants is grave.

Even in the short run, a fire extinguisher does not always work when fuel keeps pouring into the fire. A few years ago, I watched an online video in which Cristina, a beautiful 20-year-old intelligent-looking girl, was explaining her condition and calling on people with the same disorder not to give up. She was diagnosed with lupus at age 16 in high school; despite all the immunosuppressants, she suffered strokes twice and had to relearn how to speak and walk. In the video, she presented a very brave face, but I could see the sheer fear and helpless in her eyes. As a father, my heart was and is still beyond broken – she was so beautiful, she was so innocent, she was so undeserving of any illness, and she had a full bright life ahead of her. Yet, her life hung by a thread for a condition that can be healed. When I tried to reach out to her or her parents via the video to tell them her condition can be reversed by addressing the root causes, the video disappeared and I have feared the worst…  

It is the refusal to look into the root causes and the indoctrination of no cure by the medical establishment that results in the unnecessary suffering of patients and loved ones. 

Why Do Most Still Believe 'No Cure'?

Isabel’s parents are true heroes who saved their daughter’s life and saved others’ by sharing the video online for others to see. Drs Wahls and Goldners as well as many others are pioneers in telling the world that the Earth orbits the Sun, not the other way around. Yet, despite the mounting indisputable clinical and research evidence, the medical establishment continues to insist autoimmune diseases have no cure, ‘alternative’ treatments (addressing the root causes) are quackery, and the only effective treatments are immunosuppressants.

These assertions made by the medical establishment are cloaked in ‘evidence-based medicine’ – the establishment avers no treatments are effective unless proven by evidence generated from randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the gold standard – all other evidence is deemed anecdotal. It is true there are no meaningful RCTs demonstrating treatments of autoimmune diseases by addressing the root causes are effective. But we need to understand why – there are reasons for that.

RCTs – A Square Peg in A Round Hole

For starters, RCTs are standard analytical tools to test if a drug or a treatment is effective and safe for FDA approval. In a nutshell, to test the efficacy of a drug or treatment, researchers randomly divide the study participants into two groups (say, 1,000 in each group) – one is called the treatment group, and the other is called the control group. The participants in the treatment group take the drug or receive the treatment, and those in the control group take a placebo (fake pills with no active ingredients). The study would close after a certain period (typically, months or years), and statisticians then compare the health outcome (say, cure or improvement of rheumatoid arthritis) between the two groups. And ideally, the participants and the researchers assessing the outcome are blinded – without knowing who takes the real drug and who takes the placebo; otherwise, human bias can affect the results.

When it comes to testing the effectiveness of a drug or any treatment that can be packed into a pill, RCTs are indeed the gold standard, where typically one drug is tested on one disease and the drug should work for everybody because it is designed to block, suppress, or alter the physiological processes or pathways in the human body.

On the other hand, RCTs are an ill-fitted tool to gauge the efficacy of alternative medicine addressing the root causes. Take for example, despite the fact many have their health problems such as autoimmune diseases and mental disorders resolved after implementing gluten/dairy free diet, RCTs will most likely find the gluten/dairy free diet ineffective.

Why?  Most chronic diseases are a result of multiple risk factors working together. For the randomly selected study participants, most likely gluten and dairy are not the only culprits causing their health problems. The condition could be a result of sensitivity to other foods (e.g., nuts and shellfish), stress, intestinal permeability, dysbiosis, and thousands of manmade chemicals accumulated in the body. When the participants are treated with gluten/dairy free diet, only a small portion of the study participants whose condition is principally driven by gluten/dairy will experience positive results. Consequentially, the RCT will likely find the gluten/dairy free diet ineffective because the positive effect in some patients is likely to be averaged out by the null effect of other participants.

Let alone the fact that different patients may have different triggers for the same disorder, even if gluten were the sole culprit, RCTs could still produce null findings due to food cross-contamination and/or noncompliance. According to an FDA report,57 some individuals’ immune systems adversely react to an intake of 0.4 milligrams of gluten per day (about 0.008% of a teaspoon). And some may cheat – a slice of pizza is too attractive.

Even if the intervention in a RCT is to target all the possible risk factors, noncompliance is a formidable foe.  In addition to the challenges of food sensitivities, reducing stress and avoiding environmental toxins are easier said than done. It’s hard for someone who is working on three jobs and can’t make ends meet to reduce stress, let alone meet all the other challenges in life. We all understand pesticides are detrimental to our health but not everybody can afford organic food. We know carpet and padding emit chemicals called endocrine disruptors, but many can’t afford hardwood flooring. We understand old and damp houses often have mold overgrowth causing health problems, but not many have the luxury to move to a new and dry home.

When it comes to assessing the efficacy of treating chronic diseases by targeting the root causes, the RCT method is just a square peg in a round hole.

Money Talks

Another reason is money – addressing root causes cannot be patented and nobody can make big money – big pharma for sure has no interest in spending money to study whether or not addressing root causes is effective (RCTs are very expensive to conduct) and running commercials to inform the public of the real causes of the soaring autoimmune diseases would hurt their bottom line and possibly even bankrupt them.

Granted, America runs on capitalism and “drug companies – like other investor-owned businesses – are charged with increasing the value of their shareholders’ stock. That is their fiduciary responsibility, and they would be remiss if they didn’t uphold it. All their other activities are means to that end,” as capsulized by Marcia Angell, MD, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. But our political leaders and those medical/academic experts “who write textbooks and medical-journal papers, issue practice guidelines (treatment recommendations), sit on FDA and other governmental advisory panels, head professional societies” should know better. 

Unfortunately, money corrupts – to see this deep-rooted problem resulting in immeasurable, indescribable, but unnecessary sufferings of the young and old, read the book The Truth About the Drug Companies by Dr. Marcia Angell.

Alternative Medicine, the Solution for Chronic Diseases, Needs to Do Better

With a few exceptions, most patients who have their autoimmune disorders healed are done so under the guidance of alternative medicine practitioners. What exactly is alternative medicine, you might ask? It is not easy to describe. An article published in the Journal of New England Medicine defined alternative medicine as “medical interventions not taught widely at U.S. medical schools or generally available at U.S. hospitals.”58 By definition, anything (e.g., music therapy and Yoga) intended to improve health but not taught in mainstream medical schools is a member of the club.

Before 1970s, any form of non-mainstream medicine was referred to “irregular practitioners” and successfully marginalized by the medical establishment as quackery and fraud. In the 1970s, the “irregular practitioners” joined forces with more traditional medical practices such as acupuncture and Ayurveda to form a coalition under the banner of “alternative medicine.” Now, it’s called complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).

No matter how or why the name was changed, the assaults on alternative medicine have not stopped. In a 2022 post entitled Be Wary of “Alternative,” “Complementary,” and “Integrative” Health Methods at Quackwatch.org, Stephen Barrett, MD, wrote, “The ‘alternative movement’ is part of a general societal trend toward rejection of science as a method of determining truths. This movement embraces the postmodernist doctrine that science is not necessarily more valid than pseudoscience.”59 Dr. Stephen Barrett is no average blogger – he is a graduate of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, recipient of FDA Commissioner’s Special Citation Award for Public Service in fighting nutrition quackery, and Distinguished Service to Health Education Award from the American Association for Health Education.

The medical establishment is not totally wrong. Of the many forms of alternative medicine, some of them which are well established and well known (for more details, read Chapter 14, Road to Health) are largely built on anecdotes and pseudoscience. However, the total rejection of all forms of alternative medicine by the medical establishment is a tragedy of epic proportions given all the suffering inflicted by chronic diseases.

When it comes to alternative medicine, we need to understand it is in the deep sand down in deep rugged valleys where the gold nuggets hide. For those suffering from autoimmune diseases and facing the prospect of taking immunosuppressants for the remainder of their life, it is life-changing to find one of these gold nuggets – Functional Medicine (FM) is one of them. 

FM was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Bland, PhD, a biochemist. In 1991, he and his wife Susan Bland established the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) to educate clinicians about FM. In 2009, IFM (Institute for Functional Medicine) formally started a Certification Program. In 2020 and 2021, IFM had more than 18,000 registrations for training programs. Over 1,800 practitioners have been certified to practice FM across the country. And many of them are MDs like Brooke Goldner in Southern California, Terry Wahls in Iowa, Susan Blume in New York City, and Amy Myers in Austin TX, who had practiced mainstream medicine before embracing FM to fix their own autoimmune diseases.

However, although FM is a valuable gold nugget, it is just not pure gold yet. It has the right founding principles – leveraging the latest research findings and lab techniques to identify root causes and address them naturally. There is no doubt FM practitioners have healed many patients suffering from debilitating and even life-threatening chronic diseases. And FM leaders believe FM can revolutionize medicine. Yes, FM does have the potential to revolutionize medicine in treating chronic disease. But no alternative medicine, including FM, can revolutionize medicine in a black box.

Most if not all alternative medicine practitioners (AMPs) are operating in a grey or black box – nobody knows what percentage of the patients treated by AMPs have healed or recovered – almost all AMPs share stories about patients who have been healed or recovered (some are patient testimonies in videos – no doubt about the authenticity), however, never disclose how many patients they treated but were not healed.

RCTs are not the right analytical tool to assess the efficacy of alternative medicine addressing the root causes, but that does not mean alternative medicine practitioners (AMPs) should have a free pass on scientific evidence.

Alternative medicine, especially FM, needs to do better. To revolutionize medicine for the greater good (too many people are suffering too much from chronic diseases), FM needs to make fundamental changes in three areas. I’m picking on FM not because it is bad but because it is good (I personally believe it is the best) in treating chronic diseases, especially autoimmune disorders.

Transparency 

FM and other forms alternative medicine need to establish its own centralized database, as all hospitals do, where all its practitioners are mandated to submit all their patients’ data including diagnoses, treatments, outcomes, and other relevant information such as demographics. An auditing policy should also be established to ensure data integrity. Such databases can be used to identify more effective treatments and avoid ineffective ones. Key summary statistics at the provider level from these databases should be made publicly available so that patients can make an informed decision when choosing doctors.

Pseudoscience 

Comparing all forms of alternative medicine, especially the textbooks used in their schools, it is fair to say FM is one of the if not the most science-based form of medicine – its treatment philosophy is centered on identifying and addressing the root causes, it emphasizes personalized medicine, it fully utilizes lab test results based on the latest technology, and it incorporates the latest research findings into treatment plans. However, at the practitioner level, the science of treatments often breaks down. For instance, for the same disorder, one practitioner allows no animal products (e.g., meat and dairy) in patients’ diet, while another practitioner asks patients to eat more animal protein and fat. Both claim their protocols are science-based and no recovery should be expected unless strictly following their protocol. Obviously, the two protocols cannot both be scientific. FM as an organization needs to do a better job to minimize pseudoscience.

In reality, both practitioners have some patients healed or recovered. But which protocol is more effective (higher percentage of patients recovered), and effective for whom? Nobody knows – no data are available for comparative analyses.

Affordability and Pricing

No matter how effective FM is, it cannot revolutionize medicine if most people can’t afford it. Most FM practitioners skip health insurance companies all together and require patients to pay up front. A single visit to a FM doctor can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars out of  pocket. Although the price of a visit or consultation is up front, in absence of transparency on the effectiveness rate (the chance of recovery), it is not much better than a black box. I paid over $6,000 on my first visit to a FM doctor ($2,050 for a 90-minute consultation, over $4,000 for lab tests). I had pretty good health insurance but got nothing covered – it was all out of my pocket.

To revolutionize medicine and for the sake of so many people suffering, FM leaders ought to work with health insurance companies – demonstrate how much money health plans can save by covering FM treatments at acceptable rates by both sides. I have literally saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for my health insurance company by seeking treatments from alternative medicine, but nobody ever called me or sent me an email thanking me – they do not know. FM leaders need to engage health insurance companies to demonstrate its value or cost effectiveness. 

Take Care of Yourself and Loved Ones

How wonderful it would be if our conventional medicine could heal these so-called chronic or incurable diseases such as autoimmune and mental disorders – we love to work with our doctors who are dedicated to help us and have most expense be covered by health insurance.

Our conventional medicine is indeed marvelous in treating traumas and acute conditions. However, when it comes to chronic diseases, conventional medicine is on the wrong path, but we should not blame our doctors for this tragic situation. Most of them chose medicine as their career to help people not to become rich. They too have become the victims of the money-hungry medical establishment that has hijacked the life-saving medical achievements like antibiotics, vaccines, and surgeries to shove patented, expensive, and forever-needed drugs down our throats.

Given our medical system is set to maximize revenue or profits, revolutionizing medicine to treat root causes rather than palliate symptoms is no easy task. It is hard to see when we will be out of this giant money machine – it won’t be anytime soon. Meanwhile, we need to take care of ourselves. Those suffering from autoimmune disorders and their loved ones need to know three things: (1) short-term use of immunosuppressants can be a life saver but the consequence of long-term use is dire, (2) do not blame the genes – they are victims too, and (3) autoimmune diseases can be healed so long as the root causes are addressed.

Reversing autoimmune disorders can be straightforward but can also be challenging too – it is not always easy to identify and manage all the triggers. Regardless, you can do it if you put your mind to it –most if not all autoimmune disorders are induced by one or a combination of these root problems: stress,6-10 hidden infections (e.g., mold, viruses, and bacteria),11-15 food sensitivity (e.g., gluten sensitivity),16-18 dysbiosis (overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria in the gut),19-26 leaky gut,27-33 environment toxins,34-48 and malnutrition (mainly micronutrition such as vitamin D).49-56 And bear in mind, you have to manage all the potential triggers at the same time; otherwise, the symptoms will linger (the book Road to Health provides perspectives and strategies in identifying and managing root causes).

Taken all together, autoimmune disorders, no matter how severe they are, can be reversed so long as you have the root causes addressed – autoimmune diseases are not a perpetual motion machine pumping up antibodies – they are active because there are active triggers driving them.

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About the Author and Editor: Jian Gao, PhD, is a healthcare analyst/researcher for the last 25 years who devoted his analytical skills to understanding health sciences and clinical evidence. Mr. Frederick Malphurs is a retired senior healthcare executive in charge of multiple hospitals for decades who dedicated his entire 37 years’ career to improving patient care. Neither of us takes pleasure in criticizing any individuals, groups, or organizations for the failed state of healthcare, but we share a common passion — to reduce unnecessary sufferings inflicted by the so-called chronic or incurable diseases on patients and their loved ones by analyzing and sharing information on root causes, effective treatments, and prevention.

Disclaimer: This article and any contents on this website are informational or educational only and should by no means be considered as a substitute for the advice of a qualified medical professional. It is the patients and caregivers’ solemn responsibility to work with qualified professionals to develop the best treatment plan. The author and editor assume no liability of any outcomes from any treatments or interventions.

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