Rethinking Autoimmune Diseases

I classify myself as what I have termed a “strict adaptationist.” Many health care practitioners – and essentially all alternative health care practitioners – view fevers, and swelling around a sprain, and the mucus production during a cold all as signs of the body’s intelligent attempting to correct an imbalance. Those are all adaptive.

There are many other conditions, though, which few would consider to be intelligent attempts to correct imbalances. Parkinson’s disease, plaque buildup in arteries, SIBO, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune diseases, and most prominently, cancer – these are all examples of diseases that virtually no one, alternative or conventional, believes to be the result of an adaptive response by the body.

Within the strict adaptationist model, though, each of these does in fact represent just such an adaptive response. I can’t cover every disease and its “adaptationist” explanation, so I will limit myself to a set of conditions that are being diagnosed at an alarmingly increasing rate: autoimmune diseases.

I’ll describe what I believe is the most compelling hypothesis about how and why they arise. I’ll also describe how an autoimmune process potentially initiated by exposure to the spike protein – via infection or mRNA shot – could initiate an autoimmune process leaving someone unable to digest carbohydrates and starches later in life. Finally, I’ll describe an updated treatment approach I’ve developed based on my in-depth study of this model of autoimmunity.

The lock-and-key problem

I first learned about the work of Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein (RRB) when I was in graduate school studying the politics of HIV and AIDS. RRB was among a vocal minority who questioned whether HIV alone was both necessary and sufficient to cause AIDS, and he wrote a fantastic and meticulously documented book making his case for doubting the HIV-only theory.

He believed HIV could be a causative agent in the development of AIDS, but it could not do it alone. The autoimmune spiral RRB proposed as the cause of AIDS-defining immune cell destruction – and I’m proposing that spiral could also explain the gas and bloating some people experience upon eating carbs and starches – requires exposure to and infection by two pathogens concurrently.

Pathogens (viruses, bacteria, parasites) have various proteins on their surface that are shaped very similarly to proteins found on our own cells. Suppose someone encounters a pathogen with a protein shaped like a lock on its surface. Their immune system produces an antibody shaped like a key to fit that lock.

Suppose, at around the same time, that person is exposed to a pathogen that has a protein shaped like a key on its surface. Their immune system will produce an antibody shaped like a lock that fits that key.

Now for the final step. Suppose that person has a protein in their body shaped like that key on the pathogen. Further, let’s say the protein with that key shape is an enzyme necessary for digesting carbohydrates (called sucrase isomaltase). The person’s immune system is now producing antibodies against both locks and keys. Not only do those antibodies now “fit” each other, but the lock antibodies also target the keys that are the carb-digesting enzyme.

I realize this is a lot to keep track of. The take-home is that the spike protein, whether by natural infection or via injection and whether by design or not, has segments within it that are shaped like both locks and keys. The carb-digesting enzyme is also shaped like a key. This is the exact scenario RRB outlined in his model of autoimmune disease, both how it is initiated and how it perpetuates.

What this means for treatment

The implications for treatment are quite profound. The standard model sees all manifestations of autoimmune disease as examples of a dysfunctional immune system that needs balancing. RRB’s model sees it as the immune system doing its job just as it is supposed to. The problem arises through a unique combination of concurrent exposures to proteins that look like locks and keys.

The treatment focus in this adaptationist context is on the antibodies themselves, because they are the “decoys” that maintain the feedback loop driving yet more antibody production even after the pathogen is gone. But it is not enough to enzymatically break down antibodies. Doing so will generate breakdown products that will need to be safely excreted through the bowel, the kidney, or other routes. It will be important to have therapies in place that allow this to happen efficiently.

If you or someone you know has been diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, or if you have noticed significant digestive issues that have arisen in the past 6 years, we should talk. Schedule at gregnigh.com/schedule-now; Rhode Island patients can schedule an in-office conversation via rhodeislandnaturopathic.com/schedule. You can also email Lisa to schedule at drnigh_info@gregnigh.com or call 503-719-4806. Mention this article to get 10% off your scheduled consultation.