Root Causes of Autoimmune Illness - Part 2

Causes of Antigen-Antibody Complex Formation and Ensuing Inflammation   - Part 2 of 2

By Dr. Ben Kim

• Natural Health Solution

Perhaps the most common cause of excessive formation of antigen-antibody complexes is having an unhealthy digestive tract.
From your mouth to your anus, your digestive tract is one long tube that is meant to extract nutrients out of your food and allow these nutrients to slip through into your bloodstream so that they can nourish your cells. While your digestive tract is designed for proper digestion and assimilation of nutrients, it is also designed to protect your blood and inner cells against undesirable substances that can become antigens that lead to antigen-antibody complex formation in your blood.
If you abuse your digestive tract long enough with poor dietary and lifestyle choices, it can begin to lose its ability to prevent harmful substances from entering your blood. The lining of your digestive tract can begin to break down, and the population of microorganisms that line your digestive tract can shift from being predominately health-promoting and protective bacteria to largely microorganisms that can break down your digestive tract lining, such as yeast, bad bacteria, and even parasites.
This state – where your digestive tract lining loses its ability to keep harmful substances out of your blood – is often called "leaky gut syndrome."
Leaky gut syndrome can cause incompletely digested food to enter your bloodstream. And the most problematic incompletely digested food group in autoimmune illness is protein.
Your body expects to receive amino acids – the smaller constituents of protein – into its blood supply, not bigger molecules of protein (several amino acids linked to one another). So when incompletely digested protein enters your blood supply through an unhealthy digestive tract lining, your immune system identifies these molecules as being foreign and potentially harmful. Your immune system will quickly move to create antibodies that can attach onto chains of incompletely digested protein, forming antigen-antibody complexes. And you know what happens next. While your immune system will do its best to eliminate these complexes from your body, if enough of them form because you continue to have a dysfunctional digestive tract and you continue to eat large amounts of protein, some of these complexes will get caught up in various tissues in your body, leading to inflammation and pain.
Incompletely digested protein is not the sole group of substances that can contribute to autoimmune illness in this fashion. Any substances that your body cannot use for nourishment can potentially trigger the production of antigen-antibody complexes and ensuing inflammation. This is why it is important to be aware of common household and environmental toxins, and to do your best to decrease your exposure to them.
For example, great care should be taken to avoid unnecessary exposure to conventional cosmetic products. Lipstick, lip balm, and other products that are typically used around large pores have a relatively easy pathway to your blood supply. It is a well established fact that women suffer from autoimmune illness at a significantly higher rate than men; I have come to believe that this is, in part, due to the widespread use of cosmetics among women – this is a connection that has not been established in the medical literature, it is a personal hypothesis based on my own clinical experiences.
At this point, I hope that it is clear that autoimmune illness, no matter which specific one you are concerned about, is not a local problem in your body; it is a systemic problem that has multiple causes and should be addressed as such.
Put another way, if you want to maximize your chances of experiencing a full recovery and being free of autoimmune illness for the long-term, you must take care of every aspect of your health on a daily basis.