Autoimmune disease

Immune systems develop from earliest infancy: as soon as we are born there are literally thousands of “immunological challenges” we face externally and even internally; we breathe, eat or come in contact with immunologically challenging substances in many ways through different organs or tissues. That is, from the point of birth we are under attack.

In the first weeks to months following birth, we are more or less protected through substances called antibodies passed onto us from our mother’s milk, which teach our developing immune system to distinguish self from non-self. These substances even allow certain microbes to live and thrive in certain organs because they are useful, but others are attacked and expelled from the body.

Throughout our lifetime we are exposed to the effects of industrialization. Environmental factors destructive to the human immune system include: a host of biologically active substances, fertilizers, pesticides and many chemicals foreign to the food we consume. Modern habits of eating foster impaired immunity: infant feeding with formula, as opposed to breast milk; poor nutrition, owing to plants grown on exhausted soil, and animals reared and fed in industrial-scale farming, and poor diet owing to too many refined carbohydrates and sugars.

The whole scale application of modern science and technology to human existence produces a combination of factors that predisposes us to disease. Processed foods full of synthetic coloring agents, preservatives, and many more chemicals associated with the production, preservation, marketing and appeal of foods; smoking; alcohol abuse and recreational drugs; root canals and mercury in dental fillings; unresolved viral, bacterial and parasitic infection; low-level chronic infection not detected by medical testing; unresolved medical issues stemming from infancy and childhood; modern hygiene; indiscriminate immunizations; and genetic predisposition to a disorder.

A sedentary life lived mainly indoors with low exposure to sunlight and preventable obstacles to well being promote today’s epidemic of ill health. Visit any public school to witness the growing number of special-education classrooms and multiple dysfunctions suffered by children eating processed foods and exposed to a polluted environment and EMF radiation owing to the growing use of wireless technology. The incidence of heart disease, cancer and autoimmune disease among the adult population testifies to the effect of the modern mode of eating and sedentary living and exposure to a polluted environment.