I've Got an Autoimmune Disease and I Keep Hearing I Should Be Doing the Autoimmune Protocol Diet, What Is It?

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I've got an autoimmune disease and I keep hearing I should be doing the AIP diet. What's that? This is JJ Virgin, four time New York Times best selling author, celebrity nutrition expert, 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. Karen C. From Instagram asks, I've got an autoimmune disease and I keep hearing I should be doing the AIP diet. What's that? Hey, it's JJ and I've got Dr. Sarah Ballantine, also known as the Paleo mom with me to answer this question. By the way, she's the world's leading expert on the AIP or autoimmune Protocol diet, and she manages her own three autoimmune disease diseases with this, so she knows what she's talking about. She has a super gift for translating complex scientific research into understandable, actionable strategies. And on the side, she's a professional improv comedy performer. She'll be right back. Stay with me.

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The autoimmune protocol is a complementary approach for health for anybody with autoimmune disease, or in fact any chronic illness that is built on four main pillars. The first pillar is nutrient density. And this comes from the recognition that the immune system is a nutrient hog. It uses nutrient resources like no other biological system in the human body. And when we don't eat enough of the nutrients that the immune system needs to work optimally, the first part of the immune system that really breaks down is the part that is responsible for shutting off the immune system when it's been activated. So the regulatory aspects, you can think of it like this. If you had a cold or a flu, your immune system would gear up and start fighting off that virus. Now what happens if the immune system can never turn off? Well, that's kind of an exaggerated example of what's happening in autoimmune disease. The immune system is attacking our own tissues and nutrient deficiencies are a key driver of that immune over activation that is happening in autoimmune disease. The second pillar is about eliminating food triggers. So we also recognize that there are very strong links drawn in the scientific literature between certain food compounds and immune system over activation, gut health, hormone health, all of these different inputs to how the immune system is regulating itself and functioning. So by removing all of the most common triggers, we can really start to hone in on how the body is responding to foods. So we provide both the nutritional resources for the immune system to act normally and optimally while removing anything that might be triggering the immune system into this exaggerated response that we see in autoimmune disease and chronic illness in general. The third pillar is lifestyle. It actually has nothing to do with diet. So the immune system is actually sensitive to a variety of different day to day choices. Of course, food is a really key player, but so are sleep, stress, activity, social connections, the time we spend outside and in nature. And so the automune protocol actually incorporates a focus on dialing in all of these lifestyle factors because they're so fundamental for immune regulation. The fourth pillar is bio individuality. So really understanding our own individual bodies. So just like everybody's autoimmune disease manifests slightly differently, one symptom might be dominant, the progression might be a little bit different. We know that there's, for example, a collection of at least 68 different genes that you might have a few of that increase your chances of getting an autoimmune disease. Then there needs to be some kind of environmental trigger which might be an infection, it might be toxin exposure. And then we know diet and lifestyle are key drivers of the immune system dysfunction in autoimmune disease. So because everybody has slightly different genetics, the gut microbiome, for example, which is a really important part of healing, is restoring a healthy gut. Everyone's gut microbiomes are unique because we recognize that each one of us has slightly different biological processes at play. That means our autoimmune triggers are going to be slightly different. That means our optimal diet may be slightly different. That means our optimal lifestyle may be slightly different. Our tolerance for something suboptimal might be more or less than somebody else. So a key aspect of the autoimmune protocol is self experimentation. So the automated protocol actually has three phases. The first phase is elimination, where we sort of dial in and try to do everything perfectly to give our bodies the best opportunity to heal again. Complementary. So this is to the exclusion of a medical intervention from a doctor.

Right.

It doesn't mean that we fire our doctors and never see them ever again. But the second phase is reintroductions, where we test our own individual tolerance to some of the eliminated foods and we try to reintroduce them back into our diets. And the final phase is maintenance, where we basically dial in on our own personalized optimal diet and lifestyle to maintain lifelong health.

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

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