continued….

Cortisol, stress, trauma and health…..

‘Your hormones relay the messages from the brain to tell the rest of the body what to do next. If you are sending stress signals from the brain, they will be relayed to the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys. The adrenal glands release a stress hormone called cortisol when they receive a danger signal from the brain’.

‘Cortisol is a hormone. Almost every cell contains receptors for cortisol, so cortisol will behave according to the cell it’s acting upon. When cortisol is balanced, it will help control blood-sugar levels, fluid balance, help you wake up in the morning, reduce inflammation, help with memory, and aid in fertility and blood pressure regulation. Cortisol, like stress, is not bad. Too much cortisol can be damaging. When you are chronically releasing cortisol because you are chronically overwhelmed and chronically sending danger messages through your relay system, you will start seeing tissue and organ breakdown in your body, as well as weight gain and a decrease in your libido. This is one of the root causes of leaky gut. Cortisol breaks down the protective lining of your intestinal wall. Prolonged cortisol release can interfere with sleep or cause you to wake up fatigued in the morning even if you did get 8 hours of sleep. It can cause weight gain in the belly area, even when you are exercising and eating well. It affects your immune system, contributes to joint pain and inflammation, tanks your libido level, and can cause anxiety and depression— all of which are common symptoms in autoimmune disease as well. Adrenal fatigue is a primary cause of hormone imbalance in both men and women’

Extracts from Solving the Autoimmune Puzzle: The Woman’s Guide to Reclaiming Emotional Freedom and Vibrant Health by Keesha Ewers (2017)

Sharing…

Extracts from Solving the Autoimmune Puzzle: The Woman’s Guide to Reclaiming Emotional Freedom and Vibrant Health by Keesha Ewers (2017)

‘Autoimmune disorders now cumulatively make up the third leading cause of death in the industrialized world. Recognized in about 50 million people, but only 1 out of 3 are diagnosed, diagnosable autoimmunity is present in at least 72 million people in the US. To provide a context to evaluate the celiac impact of autoimmune diseases, cancer affected approximately 9 million people and heart disease affected approximately 22 million people in the United States. We know that you are 10 times more likely to develop an autoimmune disorder if you have celiac disease. How far early childhood trauma goes into those cases and would provide an avenue for healing is the great front ier’.

‘I am one of the 50 million Americans who has received an autoimmune diagnosis…….. I found a way out and have written this book as a roadmap for you to find your way out too’

The four pillars of the Freedom Framework can be applied to any autoimmune disease to get you from feeling awful to feeling like a human again.

The steps are:

Un-Cover root cause(s)

(The five root causes are: 1. Physical 2. Mental 3. Emotional 4. Spiritual 5. Your Story)

  1. Confront the data collected through laboratory testing and your own story.
  2. Connect your beliefs and behaviors with your current reality.
  3. Create the life you want to be living with full intention.

These will be the anchor pieces to your puzzle. They are: 1) your genetics, 2) environmental toxins, 3) leaky gut, and 4) trauma. This last piece of the puzzle is the one I call the missing piece.

I have not “cured” my autoimmune disease. I have “reversed” it. I have “ended” it. Why this distinction? Because if I went back to the diet, beliefs, behavior patterns and ways of dealing with stress and anger that I once had when I was first diagnosed, I would once again activate the genes that put me at risk for RA in the first place’.

‘Women are diagnosed with 80% of the over 145 identified autoimmune diseases (that number is still growing). Several autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, myasthenia gravis, and multiple sclerosis, afflict women anywhere from two to 10 times more often than they do men……

…..our sex hormones, our x chromosomes, and a history of pregnancy all play a role in the development of autoimmune disease, but there are other important pieces to the autoimmune puzzle in women as well. One of those pieces is what I call the autoimmune mindset. The autoimmune mindset is formed in childhood and impacts your health in adulthood’

Informed choice of approach concerning health, whether that is an allopathic or a more holistic, natural and functional approach, should be available to all and everyone’s right, without suffering any type of pushback or pressure. More as soon as I get back home and round to writing a post………..

For the time being, I am sharing some links and quotes on health and nutrition from a few only of the many resources I have watched, read and explored to some extent this last year as part of my journey while peeling off layers of experience and connecting various  aspects of my own and others’contextually embedded experiences of health.

1.By Dr Mark Hyman (http://drhyman.com/)

‘It’s more important to understand the imbalances in your body’s basic systems and restore balance, rather than name the disease and match the pill to the ill’

‘The facts are in, the science is beyond question. Sugar in all its forms is the root cause of our obesity epidemic and most of the chronic disease sucking the life out of our citizens and our economy – and, increasingly, the rest of the world. You name it, it’s caused by sugar: heart disease, cancer, dementia, type 2 diabetes, depression, and even acne, infertility and impotence’

‘…….- food is information that quickly changes your metabolism and genes’

‘It is food – we now know that food is information, not just calories, and that it can upgrade your biologic software. The majority of chronic disease is primarily a food borne illness. We ate ourselves into this problem and we have to eat ourselves out of it’

‘The body is one integrated system, not a collection of organs divided up by medical specialties. The medicine of the future connects everything’

‘We are eating hybridized and genetically modified (GMO) foods full of antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, and additives that were unknown to our immune systems just a generation or two ago. The result? Our immune system becomes unable to recognize friend or foe – to distinguish between foreign molecular invaders we truly need to protect against and the foods we eat or, in some cases, our own cells. In Third World countries where hygiene is poor and infections are common, allergy and autoimmunity are rare’

  1. In his book The Autoimmune Fix Dr Tom O’Bryan claims that millions of people suffer from autoimmunity even if they are not aware of it. The root cause of most weight gain, brain and mood problems, and fatigue; autoimmunity can take decades for symptoms and a clear diagnosis to arise. Through years of research, he has discovered that autoimmunity is actually a spectrum, and many people experiencing general malaise are already on it. Autoimmune diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, osteoporosis, diabetes, and lupus, have become the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer; however, many people affected are left in the dark, even though many autoimmune conditions can be reversed through a protocol designed to heal the autoimmune system, 70 percent of which is located in the gut. His book includes two 3-week plans: In the first 3 weeks, he suggests a Paleo type of diet during which you cut out gluten, sweets, and dairy, which are the three primary culprits behind autoimmunity. Once the dietary changes have been addressed the focus shifts to the other causes of autoimmunity such dietary issues, the microbiome, etc.

Dr Tom O’Bryan talks about the mechanisms that destroy the gut through inflammation, and the steps we need to take heal the damage at: https://solvingleakygut.com/dr-tom-gut-presentation/

Gluten and its role in autoimmunity at http://thedr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/TenFactsaboutAutoimmuneDisordersandtheRoleofGlutenSensitivity.pdf

  1. Extracts from Dr Pedre’s website http://www.happygutlife.com/sustainability/

‘The body and mind are considered one and the same (by the way, your gut is the link between the two). “Bodymind for us is a word that reflects the interconnectedness of the body, the gut, and the mind. It reflects the emotional intelligence of your body. Practice listening to your body. Recognize your gut feelings as your intuition.”

‘Sustainability is about achieving total wellness, not in the isolation of the self, but in the integrated……. consideration and relationship of ourselves to our environment and our community’

‘Like a pebble tossed into a lake, the lifestyle choices we make through our food choices, habits, and the products we use to cook, clean, and beautify, ultimately ripple out and affect our long-term health. Our choices also impact the natural world and the resources of the planet. As a result, the environment we create can either support or inhibit our vitality’

4. On thyroid issues by Isabella Wentz, internationally acclaimed thyroid specialist and licensed pharmacist, at: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/top-6-ways-transform-your-health-thyroid-disease