Podcast episode in which Dr. Aaron Hartman explains why "mystery illnesses"—especially autoimmune diseases—are increasingly recognized, argues that autoimmune diseases are systemic inflammatory conditions that can mimic many other disorders, and outlines four prerequisites for developing autoimmunity (genetic predisposition, chronic infection, leaky gut, and a triggering event). He notes there are over 120 identified autoimmune diseases and mentions that up to about 20% of people over 50 may have autoantibodies; he recommends broad testing (autoimmune panels, infection and mold screening) and treating gut health and underlying triggers. The episode also promotes his book Uncurable and previews future episodes on dysautonomia and mast cell activation syndrome.
Chapters
Right now there's over 120 different autoimmune diseases identified in our body. And actually the first severe autoimmune disease in the literature, I remember learning about medical school was autoimmune horrificus, which was a strange name to call something, but basically they, in 1800s, early 1900s, saw people getting these really weird inflammatory conditions where the body just ate itself up. Mystery illnesses are on the rise. We're seeing more of these. Why? What are they? Let's talk about that today. We've already talked about the first mystery illness, chronic alarm or post Lyme. The second one, chronic inflammatory response syndrome. The next one is in a category called autoimmune diseases. Now, the idea of mystery illnesses is not a new topic. You know, in antiquity we knew about syphilis, latent syphilis, tertiary syphilis, something you could have for years and years and pop up in, actually give you neurosyphilis or make you insane. We've known about tuberculosis being a mystery illness. Both of these were at one point in time called the great imitators because they could look like almost any disease under the earth. Today's world, we're seeing more of these other things. And today we're going to talk about autoimmune diseases. Now, autoimmune diseases, every year there's another one or two that's been, that's identified as of the time of me doing this. Right now, there's over 120 different autoimmune diseases identified in our body. And actually the very first severe autoimmune disease in the literature I remember learning about medical school was autoimmune horrificus, which was a strange name to call something, but basically they, in 1800s, early 1900s, saw people getting these really weird inflammatory conditions where the body just ate itself up. And that's what happens with the autoimmune issue. Your body attacks certain tissues. Thyroid for Hashimoto's, joints for rheumatoid. If you get inflammatory bowel disease, it affects your gut. But the reality is all autoimmune diseases are systemic and inflammatory. So people with rheumatoid arthritis also have an increased risk for heart disease. People with lupus not only can have an increased risk for strokes, but also miscarriages and kidney problems. And so autoimmune diseases, they have the primary target organ, thyroid, brain, for multiple sclerosis, mixed connective tissue disease, you know, dermatomyositis polymylogiatica, a whole host of these illnesses. But ultimately, because they are inflammatory, they are Systemic and what we're seeing now with supposedly up to maybe 20% of the population over 50 having autoantibodies, you'll see people with positive autoantibodies. And this is being called predictive autoimmunity where you can do labs, see they're positive and predict someone's risk for developing autoimmune disease. We're seeing lots of individual visuals with just the multi system, multisymptom picture before they develop an autoimmune disease that can look like someone having positive thyroid antibodies and they have aches and pains, gut issues, headaches, brain fog, all their lab testing is normal. The thyroid testing is normal because it takes eight to 10 years for the thyroid to stop working. And when eventually the thyroid is discovered to be low functioning, the thyroid hormone is addressed. But the autoimmune process is not. Gut issues with I see many patients who have joint aches and pains, brain fog, arthritis type of stuff. And they have a positive ana. They don't have lupus, but they do have this pre autoimmune inflammatory state.
Have you ever lost trust in your own body or in the doctors who were supposed to help you heal? It happens to millions of people who are stuck in the cycle of prescriptions, tests and more questions than answers. That's why Dr. Aaron Hartman wrote his new book Uncurable. As a physician and a parent, he's lived through the pain of being told there's nothing more we can do. But instead of accepting that, he built a new path, one that combines traditional and functional medicine to uncover what's really driving illness. Uncurable is more than a book. It's a roadmap to help you find the root causes your doctor might have missed, reactivate your body's natural healing systems and finally believe in what's possible. Again, if you've lost hope or trust in the system, this book will help you take back control. Go to UncurableBook.com and grab your copy along with Dr. Hartman's free resources to help you start your healing journey today.
There's others peoples who have people who have IBS, gut issues and you'll do anti sarcomyces CE antibody testing or other antibody testing to rule out, you know, inflammatory bowel versus ibs. And you'll see these positive auto antibodies, the colonoscopies, their scopes normal but they have the systemic inflammation. And because there's over 120 of these, literally autoimmune diseases can attack any organ in your body and look like almost anything. Now to have an autoimmune disease. And this is where you get in the weeds with autoimmune that we'll probably talk a little more today. You have to have four things. Genetic predisposition, chronic infection, leaky gut, and a triggering event. And so knowing you have to have leaky gut, these people tend to have gut issues. They may be asymptomatic or symptomatic. And because you have chronic infection of some sort, again, that could be chronic Lyme, Epstein Barr, hsv. It could be gut issues with dysbiosis and Sibo. So now all of a sudden it makes sense why autoimmune illnesses can look like almost anything. That can be a great mystery on this kind of disease, especially if people aren't doing full spectrum autoimmune screening, which helps identify these. So what can be done? Well, if you have, you know, the first thing is if you're having a multi system, part of the workup for these mystery illnesses, looking for infections, looking for mold, looking for autoimmune issues. And so if you do it autoimmune pain on positive, that's super helpful. Then you have to start working on your gut. You have to start trying to find the underlying infection. You have to start working on if there's a trigger, if you know it's something happened, it could be a stress, it could be moving into that, molding and building. It could be new job, it could be a difficult relationship. I tend not to do anything about the genetic presupposition because we can't change our genes. But all of a sudden, hopefully this helps you understand how these mystery illnesses, these difficult to diagnose multisystem, multisymptom entities can have a root cause and it can be found. So if you've had an autoimmune disease that you've missed for years and someone hasn't diagnosed it, I'd be curious to know how they eventually found it for you. Share below. I think also when you share with this information or even asking questions helps other people that are following this to learn about their own health condition. It also helps us to know how to address future podcasts, information, et cetera, because our goal is to educate, encourage, empower. Last but not least, well, we actually have two more mystery illnesses to talk about and we'll talk about that next. The last two are going to be dysautonomia and then mast cell activation syndrome. So we'll talk about those next in our series.
