Let me state upfront that I'm not a doctor, scientist or anything else technical. I have no expertise in this area. I am, however, someone with vast experience in autoimmune reactions. As you may know, an autoimmune disorder is where a person's immune system overreacts to a stimulus. Recall Bill Murry in Caddyshack. The gopher is the stimulus, the crazy groundskeeper is your immune system.
In autoimmune disorders, one's immune system has a severe reaction to something which really isn't doing any harm. In some cases, there's no stimulus at all, just a misconceived threat.
Now, the immune system is a great thing. As an evolutionary concept, it makes perfect sense. If the concept of a strong immune system makes sense, we (as a species) have to live with the genetic throw of the dice, that some people's immune system will be too weak or too strong. So far so good. We put up with minor allergies so that we don't die of infection every time we nick ourselves shaving or fall over our own two feet.
An overactive immune system has some evolutionary benefits. Assume you are a 18th century Irish peasant. You spend most of your day shin-deep in pig, cow and sheep manure, no chimney in your hovel, mice and rats in the thatch; periodic malnutrition. Only the strongest immune systems survive. Simple.
Take that same peasant, stick him in urban America with a 21st century middle class lifestyle. Me, for example. No pigs in the house, no cows to milk or animals to slaughter. The air is filtered of dust and conditioned to comfortable temperatures. The milk is pasteurized, foods are processed, the home is sanitized. So, your jacked-up, supersized immune system is getting bored. It senses a bit of pollen; it jumps up and now you have allergies to everything that grows in your environment. I have singlehandedly kept the antihistamine and decongestant industry in funds for the last 30 years. After extensive tests, I am allergic to everything, except dogs.
Your system is so confused that now it starts to attack your own tissues. It doesn't like the look of that thyroid--you get Hashimoto's disorder. Last year, after many years of HD, I asked my endocrinologist about the possibility of thyroid cancer. He laughed. He said I didn't have enough thyroid left to get cancer in. I was not comforted by that response.
Take a less socially-accepted disorder. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in 1983. In UC (I love euphemisms), your immune system attacks the lining of your large intestine, causing inflammation, ulcers, etc. Very unpleasant. But, the same mechanism. Its like your immune system has shorted out and all the lights in the neighborhood have gone out, too.
Now, why do I note the Irish peasant background? There is the little matter of Celiac Disease. Celiac is another autoimmune disorder that attacks the intestine, but is activated when the sufferer ingests wheat products. What a great proof of my theory!! The 17th, 18th and 19th century Irish peasant had little access to wheat products. An evolutionary tweak to boost the immune system that had a side reaction of wheat intolerance was not a big deal. Irish Catholic religious practice made reception of Holy Communion infrequent. Potatoes were the main starch, maybe with some oats.
So, Celiac makes for a great case study on how autoimmune disorders work. It is not a problem, in the evolutionary sense, to be sensitive to wheat if you never get to eat it. As far as I know, Celiac is the only disease that has "family origin in the west of Ireland" as a risk factor.
So here's the theory: A sanitized lifestyle early in life promotes immune disorders. Get your kids dirty, early and often. Don't Panic if they eat food that dropped on the floor. Give their immune systems something to worry about.
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