Proper Nutrition is Critical
Lifestyle is an important factor in longevity. You can play fast and loose, but you may pay a heavy toll later.

Let's say you're just now learning this bit of wisdom and you're already along in years. What can you do? It's never too late to correct a lifestyle that may have put you in harm's way. The best place to start? A proper nutritional diet.

All this is a preamble to what you're about to read. Even though autoimmune disorders affect up to 22 million people nationally, according to an article published by the Centers for Disease Control, that doesn't mean you can't fight back now. Before doing so, it may help to understand what might have led a body's immune system to attack itself.

Genesis: The Beginning of the End
All cells of the immune system are derived from stem cells found in bone marrow. The bone marrow is the origin of red blood cells, white cells (including lymphocytes and macrophages) and platelets. In the thymus gland lymphoid cells undergo a process of maturation and education prior to release into the circulation. This process allows the lymphocyte T-cells to develop the important attribute known as self-tolerance. That is, the T-cells are learning to recognize and tolerate "self," meaning any cells that are a normal part of your body!

The thymus gland is a place where a potential problem can develop with memory T-cells.

Injuries, Infections, Everday Wear & Tear
Injuries, infections and everyday wear can affect the condition of our bodies. An injury could be a fall, an automobile crash or a sports injury. An infection can be rheumatic fever or any virus or bacteria, or it could come from an internal parasite. Wear can come from being overweight, overworked from sports such as tennis, basketball, or golf. Or, wear could originate from on your job, such as excessive use of keyboards or jackhammers. The twisting of a knee one time may trigger arthritis many years later, even after the injury is completely healed

Injury, infection or wear can cause some small part of the body to dislodge, perhaps the myelin surrounding the nerve or perhaps some cartilage from a joint. And this is where the process starts.

White blood cells known as macrophages play an important immune role by surrounding, ingesting and destroying invading bacteria and other foreign organisms during a process called phagocytosis ("cell eating"), which is part of the inflammatory reaction. These macrophages consume the broken-off particles and then they report their activities to the memory T-cells

Slow Learners
The dormant memory T-cells activate and develop an aggressive cleanup program. If the memory T-cells do not distinguish between healthy and damaged tissue, the increased T-cell activity stimulates more macrophage activity, which in turn stimulates more memory T-cell activity. Thus the process of self destruction has begun.

Many years may pass before a person suffering this internal destruction feels its affects. The initiating factor--the injury, infection, or wear--may have long disappeared. There may be no evidence of a degenerative disease because not enough material has been destroyed by this process to exhibit symptoms. Arthritis sets in, almost in every case some 10 years after an injury or surgery. Because this degenerative process occurs gradually, people tend to ignore it until it becomes unbearable.

But once you become aware of what's happening, waiting is the worst thing you can do. Why let yourself deteriorate further before deciding to take action?

Once Started, Difficult to Stop
An autoimmune disease is self-propagating. It does not depend on the initiating factor to keep it going. The initiating factor may have healed completely, but the auto-immune process, once set in motion, may continue.

The process is exacerbated by the fact that the mechanism that is supposed to deactivate the memory T-cells when they have completed their mission fails to respond or work properly. So there are an abundance of memory T-cells directing the macrophages to search the body for more material to consume. The immune system is totally out of control, massive destruction begins and the symptoms of pain and inflammation appear.

The destruction accelerates. Symptoms become more severe. In arthritis, for example, pain, inflammation and joint deformity appear at new sites as they suffer macrophage attacks. Medications may take away the pain temporarily, but they can't stop the destructive process set in place long before. The body simply believes it is doing what it is supposed to be doing--protecting itself from an invader.

The Importance of Immunomodulators
But even natural ways of  dealing with the pain and inflammation do not stop the process, because strengthening the immune system can actually strengthen the disease. Conventional medications often take their toll on the kidneys, liver and heart, and do not stop the process. Products, natural or conventional, that treat the symptoms of an autoimmune disease effectively deceive you into believing the deterioration has ceased. This is like cutting the wire to a warning light on the dashboard of your car, rather than fixing the underlying problem with the car.

More-knowledgeable physicians in recent years have begun using products called immunomodulators to help the body overcome these issues. The problem is, these so-called immunomodulators were not true immunomodulators. Instead, they were really immunostimulants or immunosuppressants. These natural or synthetic substances can produce only one effect--either it stimulates or it suppresses the immune system.

It's likely that those who use immunostimulants or immunosuppressants as part of their autoimmune therapy will have to use them until the day they die. It's simply deceiving to think that treating symptoms is treating the disease.

Nutrition: Nature's Answer
There are some true immunomodulators. Some are manufactured and some occur in nature. It is always better to use the natural substances.

Immunomodulators are becoming very popular in the worldwide natural health industry as people start to realize the importance of a healthy immune system in the maintenance of health and the prevention and recovery from disease. Help the immune system, and the body will heal itself. However, there is a lot of misinformation circulating about these natural compounds, much of it put out by companies trying to sell their particular immunomodulator. There are even many health professionals who are misinformed about the action of these compounds.

Natural immunomodulators act to strengthen weak immune systems and to moderate immune systems that are overactive. They do not boost the immune system the same way as immune stimulants such as Echinacea, which could potentially aggravate symptoms. Plant sterols and sterolins are natural immunomodulators found in some raw fruits and vegetables and in, Spirulina.

Spreads and yogurt-type foods containing high levels of plant sterols are commonly found promoting themselves as ‘cholesterol-reducing’ agents. These compounds are destroyed when vegetables and fruits are cooked. Other natural immunomodulators include ginseng root, chamomile tea, reishi mushroom extract and olive leaf extract. Colostrum and spirulina both contain natural immunomodulators.