Mona SharmaCelebrity nutritionist and wellness advocate

What If Your Symptoms Aren’t in Your Head?

18 May 2025 · 1 min

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In this segment of the YouTube video, Mona Sharma and a guest discuss Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and its relationship to modern lifestyle stressors. Sharma emphasizes that mast cells are a vital defensive mechanism that, when constantly activated, can become stuck in a defensive state, leading to chronic symptoms. The guest expands on this by describing MCAS as a mismatch between our bodies and contemporary environmental factors such as high stress, toxins, perfumes, and artificial light, suggesting that the body cannot accommodate these rapid changes. Together, they frame MCAS not merely as a medical condition but as a symptom of lifestyle and environmental incompatibility, urging listeners to recognize everyday exposures that may trigger mast cell activation.

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If the body adapts to constantly defending itself, it's going to get stuck there because keeping itself alive. So people started understanding this concept of mast cells, the concept of a cytokine storm within their body. So they're gradually starting to understand this but they're not recognizing like just the impact of the smallest things that they could be doing every single day. And when we think about that concept of a mast cell, people always talk about your body defending itself or attacking itself. I think it's the most brilliant gift, magnificent ability for your body. It's trying to keep you healthy and safe. It's re regulate and move back to resilience. Right. So I'm curious from your perspective in understanding. Let's start with mcas.
We're incongruent with the amount of stress in our lives, with the extreme amount of toxins, perfumes, artificial light and all these things. And it's our body is not able to accommodate those changes. So I do view MCAS as like a lifestyle and environmental mismatch from how we're supposed to be living.