Are Autoimmune People More at Risk for Viruses and Infections?

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More at risk for viruses and infections? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert, and fitness hall of famer. I've been on a lifelong quest for answers to the toughest health questions, and now I'm sharing what I found with you. Welcome to Ask the Health Expert. Nancy from a recent masterclass asked are autoimmune people more immune compromised and therefore more at risk for viruses and infections? Hey, it's JJ and today I've got autoimmune expert Dr. Terri Wahls with me. She has over 3 million views and counting on her TEDx talk where she shares her personal Ms. Story of how she ditched the wheelchair and got her life back through diet and lifestyle. A former international taekwondo competitor from an Iowa farm family, she now spends her time as a clinical professor at the University of Iowa researching the impact of therapeutic lifestyle interventions on Ms. Symptoms. Stay with me. We'll be right back with the answer.

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So who's more immune compromised? Certainly, if you have an autoimmune process, that means that your immune cells are not responding in normal ways and so that you may be having excessive production of inflammation molecules. These are called cytokines that can cause some collateral damage to otherwise healthy parts of your body. That also would suggest that those immune cells may be less responsive to protecting you from internal threats such as a cancer and external threats such as viruses or bacteria. In addition, people who have a serious autoimmune disease are often taking medications to blunt the damage that the immune cells are doing to their bodies. And so these drugs can have potent side effects. Because you know anytime, jj, that you are blunting the effect of your immune cells to protect you, or rather that you're blunting the effect of the immune cells to damage yourself, to damage your cells, to blunt the effect of the autoimmune disease processes, you're also blunting the effect of those immune cells to protecting you from other threats. So it will make the immune cells less effective at isolating the viruses, less effective at killing the viruses. So it will take a longer time for your immune cells to clear the virus. And one of the things that we see in the current health crisis is that if it takes a longer time to clear the virus, you appear to be more likely to have a slowly building immune response that can then lead to this excessive response that can lead to the overproduction of these immune molecules, these inflammatory molecules known as cytokines, that then can lead to this excessive dumping of fluid into the lungs and a pneumonia. If you did a chest X ray, the lungs are now sort of a ground glass white appearance. There's very low blood oxygen, and the person may need to have an intensive care unit, they may need to have oxygen, and they will also be at risk for other problems with thickening of the blood in the bloodstream and blood clots that go to other parts of your body, causing damage to liver, kidney, lungs, and potentially even the brain. So if you have a serious autoimmune problem and you're taking immune suppressing drugs, you appear to be at higher risk for viruses infections including COVID 19 if you have an autoimmune problem. However, you've done a great job with your diet and self cares so you've actually gotten good control of your disease and you are not taking any disease modifying drugs then you are probably not at particularly greater risk. In fact you are probably at the similar risk to someone who is on no medication and is otherwise healthy. So I would really depend then on are you taking disease modifying drugs or are you able to get control of your immune processes simply by using diet and lifestyle?

This is JJ with Ask the Health Expert. I do this five times a week, so make sure you never miss a show by going to subscribetoj.com.

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