Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 42 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part one of a series on autoimmunity, and today we'll be talking about alternative views of the immune system and of autoimmunity, and later on in this series, we'll be discussing how you can resolve autoimmune conditions through a bioenergetic approach. And for those of you who don't know, autoimmune conditions are incredibly common, and the main approaches to treating them really are pretty off base and don't offer very much merit. So we'll be discussing an alternative view that completely changes the conventional and functional medicine approaches to autoimmunity, and today we'll be working on breaking that down in more simple terms. We'll be discussing why elimination diets and avoiding dietary triggers is not the solution for autoimmunity. We'll discuss the role of gut health and intestinal permeability in autoimmune conditions, and why leaky gut isn't the primary cause of autoimmunity, as it's made out to be from the functional medicine perspective. We'll also talk about the problems with immunosuppression and symptom management for autoimmune conditions, and we'll discuss alternative views of the immune system that create a completely different picture of autoimmunity. If you're new to this podcast, after listening through this series, I'd highly recommend you go back and listen to episodes one through seven, where we took some time to create a foundational understanding of the bioenergetic approach to health and nutrition. To check out the show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where I'll be linking to the studies and articles and anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, like chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, gut symptoms like bloating or inflammation, brain fog, hormonal imbalances, poor sleep and insomnia. Or if you're dealing with any autoimmune conditions, which we'll be discussing today. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I will walk you through the main things that you want to do to maximize your cellular energy. And as we'll be discussing today, that's really the key to resolving not only those low energy symptoms, but also autoimmune conditions, and we'll be digging into that again a little bit today, in the different views of the immune system, and how energy relates to those views of the immune system, and then further on throughout the series, as far as nutrition and supplementation. But if you do sign up for this free energy balance mini course, I'll walk you through the main things that you want to do as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned to maximize your cellular energy. And I'll also explain why this is the key to not only resolving these low energy symptoms, but also chronic health conditions like autoimmune conditions and various other degenerative conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started. So autoimmune conditions are have basically become this massive problem. It's kind of a huge epidemic. Now there's, I mean, the some of the estimates as far as the percentage of people at least in the states that have autoimmune conditions suggest that between five and 10% of people do, which is huge. I mean, that's between one in 20 and one in 10 out of every person in the, you know, in the United States, which is a massive amount of people who have these issues that were somewhat unheard of for a period of time, and if they weren't unheard of at all, they were only something that really happened in old age, and now they're also happening and people who are younger and younger, I mean, it's extremely common, you know, just to name a few of these, because people might be familiar with the conditions, but not not Knowing them as autoimmune issues, but Hashimotos, hypothyroidism, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Crohn's, multiple sclerosis, als type one diabetes, psoriasis, eczema, Addison's, ankylosing spondylitis. There's a bunch of others, but that's just like a kind of a short list. As far as ones that are pretty common. I don't know if I'm I think I did say multiple sclerosis. Sclerosis, but another one too is Parkinson's, which used to be characterized as more of a neurodegenerative condition, and now they're saying it's more autoimmune, and that's happening more and more too, where the number of autoimmune conditions is growing, and the number of conditions that were considered to just be degenerative and are not considered to have an autoimmune component is growing too. And there is a reason for that, and we'll dig into that, and that has to do with kind of this alternate view that we'll be presenting, as far as what's actually going on in autoimmunity compared to the more conventional views, or even some of the alternative views that kind of explains why, why autoimmunity is not this simple idea of our immune system attacking ourselves or our own tissues, and that's what's basically put forth through most of the models. The idea is that our own immune system is attacking our own tissues, whether it's our thyroid in the case of Hashimotos or joints or cartilage or connective tissue in the case of rheumatoid arthritis or lupus or Yeah, I mean, various aspects of the skin in situations like psoriasis or eczema. So yeah. So in these situations, basically, the idea is that our immune system is, for whatever reason, getting dysregulated. And we'll talk about the kind of conventional views of why that is and why those aren't necessarily the case, and present some alternatives, but that our immune system has become dysregulated and is accidentally basically attacking itself, and that this is causing degeneration and causing all these symptoms and things that we characterize as diseases. And it becomes a lot more clear when we present this alternative view, why it seems like these things are, are coming about in epidemic type proportions, and why so many conditions that were never thought to be autoimmune could be considered autoimmune. So we'll dig into that. But to start, I think, just to, just to build a bit of a foundation here and understanding autoimmunity, it's really important to understand just how our basic immune system works. You want to start there?

Mike 7:02
Sure. So basically, there's the current model of the immune system, or current understanding. And this is a bit basic. I mean, it can go really in depth. There's tons of different proteins and and and combinations of protein and fat based molecules, and all these different types of molecules that are involved in the immune system. And can it can get really in depth, but the idea is there's two basic branches, there's the Innate branch, and then there's the adaptive branch. The Innate branch is like a generalized response, and involves phagocytic cells, that can engulf different antigens. The antigen being, whatever is this, I guess, problematic compound or or portion of a problematic organism.

Jay Feldman 7:53
Normally, this is like bacteria, or like a pathogenic, infectious type, you know, virus, bacteria, something, or...

Mike 7:59
Or it could also, it could be a virus, it could be a parasite. It could be a protein of the virus, protein of the parasite, anything like that. It's generally proteins. It can also sometimes it could be like toxins from different foods or that you're exposed to in the environment, or mold spores or things like that. And the essentially, the cells will come in contact with this, and they engulf it, and then they break it down. Or there's other cells that will come in contact with it, and then they will degranulate, so they'll release contents of their cells that have a toxic effect on whatever these compounds are in an attempt to destroy them. So that's the general innate immune response, um. It's pretty non specific. It's, it finds, it finds the um, like a chemo tactic property where it just follows, like, it's like, follows a chemical signal. It sniffs out whatever it is that's like, the analogy, will sniff it out, and then it just it'll engulf it, or degranulate, or something along those lines. And the adaptive system, if there's sort of a crossover, they're not clear cut. But with the adaptive system, there's the introduction of cells that produce antibodies. These are your T cells and your B cells, and these cells will basically produce an antibody to, again, an antigen. This can be an allergen, a poison, a protein of a bacteria, virus or a parasite, and then the ant the antibody will that's produced will bind into the antigen, attached to the antigen, and it essentially tags it, or marks it, for these phagocytic cells to come in and engulf it, or some of these other cells to come in and degranulate which or and release those toxic compounds or it. Also, there's other components in the body, like the complement system, which is like a series of proteins that'll come in and bind to these to. These different things and basically break them down. Or the antibodies themselves can can cause all these compounds to stick together, and they call it agglutination, where they basically congregate. They're glued together to a large extent, and the body can excrete them or destroy them, or a combination of all those above. So this one's a little bit more specific. And with this response, what you find is that initially, the first time the body comes into contact with this antigen, the response is a little bit slower, but the second time that the body comes into contact with the antigen, the response is much more pronounced, much, much stronger and much more rapid, and that's because of the idea of cellular or immune, immunity or memory, immune memory, excuse me. And so basically, the idea is that these cells can can memorize the antigen, or remember the antigen over time. And that's the, specifically, the T cells and the B cells and and then when they buy what they remember is the sequence that the antigen presents. That's, this is the theory is they remember the specific sequence that the antigen presents, and then they are able to continue to make the antibody that binds into that sequence. So that's the, I guess that's the general idea. It can get way more in depth. There's the entire books developed to it, but that's the current mainstream model, and the current like overarching pictures, the breakdown of those two branches, and then with the the Nate sort of being non specific, and just cells attacking whatever the so called antigen or problematic compound or organism is, whereas the adaptive actually has, like a memory component for those organisms or antigens and produces antibodies to those that tag them specifically.

Jay Feldman 11:57
Yeah, and so just to just kind of a quick summary, as far as the innate immune system goes again, this is some sort of, from the conventional view, some sort of foreign particle, you know, often, bacteria, virus, something like that, that's causing problems that leave lead to inflammation, and this kind of first line response. And then with those particular things, you have this kind of secondary line of defense that you said, as you know, takes time. Where is there's this memory system that's created by creating an antibody to the protein, and, you know, in the antigen, which is the kind of problematic intruder. And so then the next time that that intruder is found, because the antibodies are already circling that are produced from the B cells, and you basically already have the signal. It's like the immune system already is aware that this is a problem, and it already has developed the ability to get rid of it. And as far as how this is relevant to autoimmune conditions, basically the what's happening in autoimmune conditions. What, what we see is that there are antibodies created towards our own tissues. So, you know, this is this, again, could be any organ, and there's basically autoimmune conditions that affect every organ. And the idea being that these antibodies are being produced and that the immune system is attacking these tissues for some reason that basically leads us to this kind of mainstream view of autoimmunity, which is that this aspect of our immune system has, for whatever reason, become overactive and essentially dysfunctional and started to attack our own tissues. And as far as why this happens, there's no like, specific, known cause genetics, obviously, right, of course. So genetics is always cited as for all these chronic health conditions.

Mike 13:50
If you don't know just genetics it haha.

Jay Feldman 13:54
Yeah, and, and that is true, and that it is cited as one of the main factors here is that there is a huge genetic component, and then there's some sort of trigger sometimes that they'll say that that's some sort of a viral infection or some sort of major stressor, which is often something that does precede, like a primary, like the first autoimmune, quote, unquote attack or flare, uh, often there will be some sort of major stressor. So that's kind of considered to be the trigger. And from this mainstream view, because the antibodies are being produced against our own tissues, this autoimmune attack is going to be never ending until basically the tissue is entirely destroyed. And because of that, the only treatment, from this view where you can't, you can't resolve any of these problems, is to suppress our immune system and basically stop it from functioning using various medications which happen to have a lot of side effects, and because of that, are far from ideal. I mean, of course, even just the idea of suppressing our immune system very. Very you know, some of the more obvious side effects are susceptibility to infection and often cancer as well. But there are various other side effects to these medications, typically, and then the other side of of kind of the conventional treatment is simply managing the symptoms. So again, when you have something like hypothyroidism, that involves, well, in this case, they actually don't typically use any immunosuppressive drugs, and that's because it's so easy to just replicate the thyroids function. You can just take some exogenous thyroid hormones, which, of course, in reality, that's it's not quite that simple. And the treatments for Hashimotos or any hypothyroidism, as far as hormonal treatments go, are pretty problematic and misguided, and they very they rely very heavily on synthetic t4 normally, without considering t3 and a lot of the measurements used there are not very relevant to what's actually going on. But in most situations, where, from the conventional medical standpoint, it's not very easy to make up for the damaged tissue. The main goal is immunosuppression to prevent further damage. And this is very clear in some situation like multiple sclerosis, where you have degeneration of basically the nervous system, but specifically the myelin on the nerves and leads you know, very crippling disease or condition, and many of these other autoimmune conditions are pretty, you know, damaging, painful, you know, cause a lot of problems. And so because of that normal Ed from this conventional view, the best option is simply to suppress the immune system for, you know, as long as possible to kind of prevent this further degradation. And yeah, as I mentioned, the medications have a lot of side effects. Of course, none of this is treating any sort of underlying cause of the situation that we'll discuss. And it's not, you know, the the prognosis is relatively, you know, bleak. I mean, it depends on the situation. Not all of these things are deadly, but it's, it's not something that, you know, you would expect to it's not something that, from the conventional view, is expected to improve. So, you know, luckily, from our view, that's not the case. But before that, you know, I think a lot of people in the alternative space, I mean, just considering a how common autoimmune issues are, but also people, you know, in these situations, are typically trying to find ways to improve their health, trying to find other solutions. And so a lot of them find this alternative, you know, various alternative views, and some of the most popular when it comes to autoimmune conditions are coming from the Paleo sphere and functional medicine sphere, where there's a different approach to autoimmune conditions that basically depends. It circles all around gut function, gut health and this idea of molecular mimicry, where I'll give the basic overview, and then if you want to jump in, okay, the basic idea here is that the lining of our intestines is supposed to be intact and prevent food particles from the food that we're eating and breaking down from just entering the bloodstream as large particles. We want to instead absorb them through our cells intentionally. And when there are various stresses on our gut, it can create an effect that's called intestinal permeability, where basically the lining of the intestines spreads out enough for food particles to enter through, directly into the bloodstream. And considering that this is not ideal, it can lead to basically an immune reaction and an inflammatory reaction. And from the from this alternative view, and through this idea of molecular mimicry, there's this idea that our immune system recognizes these specifically proteins from the food that we're eating, and this could be from various grains or nuts and seeds or eggs dairy, which are normally the common ones. All of those are the common ones that are considered to be culprits. Our body recognizes those as inflammatory, as problematic, and mounts this immune reaction to them and creates antibodies towards them, and happens to kind of get confused more or less, and find that our own tissues are very similar to some of these other proteins that are being absorbed, and starts to mount that same, that same reaction towards our own tissues, and then ends up creating antibodies towards our own tissues, viewing them as basically inflammatory in the Same way as these, you know, tiny food particle proteins, and they're from this approach. I mean, that's, that's kind of the, the most basic part of it. And then from that approach, the basically solution is to prevent the continued intestinal permeability, doing various things to. To quote, unquote, heal the gut and various dietary iterations to avoid all these possible trigger foods, all these possible foods containing triggering proteins, specifically grains and dairy are really common gluten and from wheat being one of the most common ones, sometimes also nuts and seeds. Typically it involves an elimination type diet, or just avoiding those things for for an extended period of time and replacing them with lots of vegetables and meat. But that's kind of the basics of it. And then I'll let you dig in further.

Mike 20:34
Yeah, well, just, I guess to back up. Well, I guess I'll go through this one first with the with the molecular mimicry point of view, it's not just food particles, but it's also like and food proteins. It's also microbes and and thing and microbes, bacteria and parasites and fungus and things like that, also inducing immune responses and then having molecular mimicry from the proteins housed in those microbes, for example, with ankles and spondylitis, they talk about a specific bacteria is Klebsiella, with rheumatoid arthritis, they talk about Prevotella. And then with with lupus, I think what was it? Staph, staphylococcus. And then there's also with strep, there's associations with different autoimmune disease with strep. So a lot of these are considered actually pathogenic bacteria that you can have them in the gut, but in specific, with ankylosing spondylitis, and I'm using this as an example, stopping eating starch has been shown to stop the overgrowth of klebsiell in the gut, which helps to stop the progression of Ankylosing Spondylitis and and then the idea is that at some point, the gut barrier is weakened and the the bacteria, the immune system is exposed to the bacteria, and The proteins within the bacteria are somewhat similar to the proteins along some of the connective tissue within the spine and the bone of the spine, and then it leads to the, basically the inflammation and calcification and fibrosis of the spine over time. So basically, the solution to it for obviously, you can take the immunosuppressant drugs to the mainstream view, and then sort of eat whatever you want and still have the disease. Progress is just a little slower, but also, but a lot of people found relief going on zero starch diets, or very low starch diets, not allowing any starch to reach the colon, to ferment with the Klebsiella. The thing that's nice about the molecular mimicry point of view, as opposed to the mainstream point of view, is the mainstream point of view sees this as some type of genetic issue with some type of environmental trigger, and we don't really know at all what's going on, and just it just genes and and the environmental trigger, and you just got exposed to a virus or something like that. It's and there's nothing you can do about it. Yeah, the idea is that you can't do anything about it, so we have to manage the disease state over time. And that just obviously, it always involves some type of highly patented and expensive experimental drug that works on some specific, highly mechanistic, reductionistic pathway of the immune system. But it also, you know, you might get tuberculosis and you might get cancer, and you might get this, and you might get that, or some rare, some rare infection, like toxoplasmosis or something, because it completely shuts down different portions of the immune system, and at the expense of, you know, like you don't have the symptoms, but you still have, if there is an infection going on, whether you're looking in the alternative molecular mimicry point of view, or the point of view that we're going to point out, you still have the ongoing infection. You still have the ongoing inflammatory signal it's not able to reach its its entirety, for inflammation, like it doesn't reach its peak for inflammation, because you have the immunosuppression where basically the what something in the pathway, the metabolic pathway, the immune system, has been broken by this drug, or inhibited, or whatever it is, whatever the specific drug does. Most of them are like these monoclonal antibody drugs and things like that. And so essentially, you just have to use this drug over time. The nice thing about the molecular mimicry idea with paleo is that it actually seeks to address some component, and whether or not you believe the this theory or the other theory that we'll discuss and that or that Jay will bring up and discuss in a second, you still have an option there. The idea with molecular mimicry is that there is some sort of an actual environmental trigger. Because even even if you believe the idea of genetics here, it's kind of hard to sit here and say, Oh, we just we went from like zero to. Point something percent autoimmunity 50 years ago to five to 10% now it's like even if you had that as even if you try to describe the mechanistic process as genetic that doesn't fit within the genetic dogma circulating around how long evolution takes, or how long mutations take and things like that. You don't see it in just one or two generations. It would have to be happening over the course of extended period of time. Gradually, you don't just see jumps like that. Doesn't make any sense, um, at least from my point of view. I mean, if, by all means, if it makes sense to somebody else and they can explain it, I'm all ears, but, but from the idea of random mutation over time leading to these things. I don't see any I don't see that making any sense. And I also don't like theories that don't offer an option to treat, besides some, you know, drug that also does harm, the idea would be to not do any harm first. So in the molecular mimicry theory, the idea is that you do have some type of infective component, and then you or you have some type of compromised gut component involving the is the leaking of different proteins within within the bloodstream, causing an immune reaction. And so basically, the fix within this, within this view, is sealing up the gut and then getting rid of problematic immunogenic foods. And if you have an infection, wiping it out, which, in the next theory that we're going to talk about, those steps and those processes are all valid. And so even if the theory isn't 100% right, if it could be, but I mean, the I think both of us are on board more with this, this third option, even if this theory isn't right, it still provides a lot of room for improvement, and a lot of room to basically do something about the situation, as opposed to accepting the situation as a destiny. And the thing is, is a lot of people will find that they actually are on paleo. There's been a lot of success even with autoimmune paleo and at least managing autoimmune diseases. And then even beyond that, even without paleo Dr Allen erbringers No starch or low starch diet for Ankylosing Spondylitis has been a success. And I forget the doctor's name in Germany, but or even here they have. Dr Terry walls has her MS protocol. Both of them have utilized low linoleic acid diets, which is an omega, which is the Omega six polyunsaturated fatty acid. But Terry wall's diet also has microbiome modulation, and then she also, she has a low carb diet too. I mean, obviously that's not necessarily our agreement, um, 100% with that. But besides that, like she has microbiome modulation and the consumption of nutrient dense diet, and those have been those have made, obviously, a significant difference for her, but also for others, the low linole, just the low linoleic acid diet itself has been extremely successful in stopping the progression of Ms. For for MS patients, which is a all of the autoimmune diseases are extremely debilitating. Most people, we assume who are going to be watching this video are going to be interested in it because they have some type of autoimmune disease. But for other people who don't have an autoimmune disease, it's important to realize that most autoimmune diseases are extremely debilitating, especially in the later stages when you first start, you know, for example, with Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, when you first start, you know, you may just have some mild inflammation, and it will flare sometimes, and you'll, you know, with Crohn's or ulcerative colitis, you know, you just might have bloody diarrhea like 20 times a day, which is absolutely, you know, it's very just uncomfortable and like, bad for, like, Having a night good lifestyle. And then for diseases like multiple sclerosis, when you start losing neurological function and just having parts of your body completely shut down and you're not able to control them, or for diseases like ankylosing spondylitis, where you have like Arthritis and Inflammation just rip through your spine and completely limit movement and function and eventually cause calcification. Or for something like rheumatoid arthritis, where your joints are swollen and inflamed all the time and you can't move, and it's regardless of what you do, it's an inflammatory process, not like osteoarthritis, where you can rest and it's better. Or something like lupus, where you essentially have your your lupus, or scleroderma, you have all of your connective tissue Fibrosing and causing huge issues. I mean, all these diseases can be extremely debilitating, and over time, they just get worse. So the idea that you don't have to take a medication that opens you up to risks of cancer and rare rare infections and a whole host of negative side effects, then you can do something about it with dietary and lifestyle modifications. I think is like the idea of it is great, and we've all the things. Is not just an idea. We've seen people do it. There's tons of anecdotal evidence, and research is catching up and starting to show the benefits of using these different modalities. And then. Obviously the pathways with for these different modalities are being mapped out. So the other thing that, before you Jay moves on into the next idea, is that.

Just to keep in mind that the gut in all of these is important, the gut and the molecular mimicry theory with infection and gut brings it up, and that's something that's important. And this, not this whole theory, isn't I don't think it's wrong. I think there's a lot of merit to it. But I think that there's like, and you'll, I guess you'll get into it. There's a lot of, there's like, some questions left from this theory. Um, so yeah, I'll leave it at that. And I guess you can go into the the buyer and bioenergetic view and the or, I guess the morphostasis or danger theory that sort of like they're a little all little different, but they're all within the same realm of ideas. Yeah.

Jay Feldman 30:50
Yeah, yeah. I mean, what you're getting at is that this, this view, also basically depends on a slightly alternative view of how our immune system works, and that's kind of what you were getting at with morphostasis and the danger theory, yeah, so we'll get to that. But yeah, I think it is helpful to it's good to point out some of the the benefits that have come from kind of that alternative view of autoimmunity, you know. And just, of course, at the same time you mentioned, one of the things that is that, you know, we don't agree with, there is to do with, like, carb consumption, but it goes beyond that too. And I think that's worth mentioning, where, yes, the gut is a huge component to our health, and that's not only because of leaky gut and and pathogen just, you know, leaking through, or food particles leaking through and that causing an immune response, but just because being able to digest our food, the toxins that are produced in our gut that do enter through leaky gut and and all that. I mean, all of those things are affecting us on a very systemic level. That's that's the idea, and that's what I think is so cohesive about the bioenergetic view, is it includes all of those components, and still, you know, it's still within the umbrella to still explains why that could be having such a massive effect on our health and and contributing to autoimmune states, without it being the sole kind of battlefield of where that's going on. And part of the problem is that when you're only addressing the like leaky gut, is this main and the things that are leaking through it, is this main issue or the only issue? It does lead to things like low carb or just avoiding, you know, any, basically avoiding any forms of carbohydrates or sugar. It also leads to avoiding any potential like allergenic proteins like dairy and eggs, which are really nutritious foods that can be very beneficial and don't need to be avoided. And obviously there are drawbacks to avoiding them. It also leads to a lot of supplementation and things in order to fix the gut, especially if you're still struggling and you're trying to, you know, you've done a lot of these things, and then you keep going to more and more obscure supplements or diets to try to fix it, like the many people who continue to go in more extreme low carb, you know, first it's low carb, and then it's intermittent fasting, and then keto and carnivore, you know, it just keeps going down and down of avoiding any possible trigger. And then you have, you know, the supplements, the probiotics, which we've talked about in a previous episode, that I'll link to, how those can be problematic and can contribute to a lot of these issues, that can contribute to small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and likely contribute to a lot of these immune autoimmune situations. And then you also have a lot of recommendations for omega threes, which we've talked in a previous episode about why those are so problematic and why they can bring relief in an autoimmune type state temporarily in the short term, but it comes at a long term cost, and basically it's doing that through immunosuppression. And yeah, I mean, if some you know, if you're not aware of that, I'll link to that episode. It's definitely worth listening to. But you know what I'm getting at here, too, is it just this kind of never ending chase for various triggers of this autoimmune state, and, you know, kind of trigger, triggers of the immunoactivation and inflammation and triggers of the leaky gut, and you know, you're chasing after mold and heavy metals and any particular stressor or, you know, kind of obscured nutrient deficiencies. And it's not to say that none of those things matter. They all matter, but it's one part of a cohesive system, rather than, rather than any particular one of them being the problem. In most cases, again, if you're living in a multi house, that could be a problem that's causing a lot of issues for you. But in most cases, it's not a matter of chasing down that one particular factor that's dragging your health down. And we can handle a lot of those things. EMS is another one, by the way, where we should be able to handle a lot of those things in reasonable amounts, if things are functioning while on the bio underta. Level, and so that does bring us to this bioenergetic view. And there's one other thing I want to point out about the kind of alternative leaky gut molecular mimicry side of things is that there's this pretty glaring problem where, if our immune system is confusing. You know, has gotten confused through this molecular mimicry, where it's confused these food proteins or microbes. Again, whether it's virus or parasite or bacteria fungus, it's confused those things for our own tissue and started creating antibodies to our own tissue. It's tagged our own tissue as as being dangerous and harmful and a pathogen, and basically an antigen and it needs to be destroyed. So when the leaky gut is fixed and you're no longer having this kind of stressor coming through, the antibodies are still there towards our own healthy tissue from this view. And so even if that's happening, even if there's no longer this kind of trigger, there's no reason why the autoimmune condition would necessarily stop. And much like the conventional view, I don't see, you know, and it's interesting, because you mentioned, like, there's a lot of anecdotal evidence for people who have you could call it remission, have a lot of benefits from these alternative approaches, yet, just from the physiological understanding of especially immune function, I don't see any like I see this as a pretty glaring issue where, how can you have antibodies towards your healthy tissue that just no longer leads to destruction of that tissue, even though you fixed the trigger, you know?

Mike 36:40
And by antibodies to it, you mean that the immune cells have memory for that specific sequence. So the idea would be that they if, even if they still came in contact with the supposedly healthy tissue that they've now developed an antibody that semi similar, because the idea of the antibody binding to the antigen, it the idea isn't like a lock and key fit, which is what they initially thought it was. They say now it's more like a hand, hand and glove fit. So like the sequences, even if they're a little bit similar, can still bind into each other. So what you're saying is basically that the immune cells, once the gut is sealed in that inflammatory that's supposedly inflammatory response that the immune cells have found or created the antigen, the antibody to that specific antigen, they it's they still remember that sequence. So why are they not still activating that sequence against the tissue within the body? Why is it not going on once everything's healed up, right? I don't think we have, you're you're saying you don't. We don't think we have a solid answer for that, why that's still not going on, which might be a hole in that theory.

Jay Feldman 37:46
Right from, yeah, from that perspective, I don't see any answer there. From the bioenergetic perspective, I do. But just just to kind of create an analogy, just in a way that someone might be understanding it a little more, maybe not now, well, I guess it is an analogy. You know, if there was a virus, let's say that your body had created antibodies to anytime that virus enters and is anywhere in the body that will lead to the destruction of that of that virus by the immune system. Now, if you have those antibodies towards your thyroid, let's say your thyroid isn't going anywhere, even if the trigger that led to those antibodies in the first place. And again, it's not antibodies just to the thyroid, but simplifying, you know, the trigger that led to the antibody production in the first place might be gone, but the thyroid is still there, and the equivalent of the virus still being there, so it would still be continuously destroyed. So how could you have some sort of remission if that's what's happening on the immune system side. So this is more of an issue with the view of the immune system, as opposed to the idea that leaky gut and molecular Well, the idea that leaky gut plays a role. It does this view of the immune system does kind of affect the molecular mimicry idea, and that's really what it's kind of contradicting. So anyway.

Mike 39:01
I think a fair point to put in there, and this is directly something that Jamie Cunliffe, I think, has alluded to, is that, and I don't know this is fitting, I guess, for the times, but if you had a vaccine that just had the certain antigenic sequence or or had the antigen in it, like a portion of the virus, or a killed virus or a killed portion of the bacteria or something, and you injected it directly into the body, unless it has an adjuvant added to it, it will not produce an inflammatory response. The reason for the adjuvant addition is to initiate an inflammatory response, and I think that this is this brings up an important point from the elect molecular mimicry idea, that in order to establish the like antibody production in general. And the thing is, is antibody production, and this is something else, doesn't necessarily mean that you have a. A like you have had an immune response, but it doesn't mean immunity at that point, just because you can produce an antibody to something, and that's a whole entire different story. But the idea is that when you just inject an inactive or a killed virus or a portion of a bacteria, you don't actually get an inflammatory response. You need the adjuvant. So the idea is that you actually need the inflammatory response involved in the process for the immune response to develop. And this brings into the question just purely of molecular mimicry, like there has to be some other component involved. And this is where the bioenergetic sort of view comes into play, I think. And it also involves, like the inflammatory components and whatnot, which is directly the inflammatory components are directly related to the bioenergetic view.

Jay Feldman 40:47
Yeah, yeah. And I think what makes more sense is to start with the alternative view of immunity and then lead that into the bioenergetic view. So which it kind of, you know, depends.

Mike 40:57
Oh, we just did the alternative, no, no,

Jay Feldman 40:59
No the alternative view of the immune system, which is not, I mean like, it's like part of the bioenergetic so what I mean is that, and also, just to clarify too, when it comes to the molecular mimicry, I think they are saying that the triggering inflammation is coming from the product of the leaky gut, and the inflammatory response to the protein from the food or to the microbe as being the trigger, but it was still a really good point that does matter a lot. So these alternative views of the immune system put forth by William Koch Polly, Matt singer, Jamie Cunliffe, there's been others to matchnikov, so they contrast from this current we already kind of laid out the current model of the immune system, and the this kind of that current model of the immune system depends on this idea of self and non self, and that that's how antigens are determined. And we didn't explain that as much, and I'm meant to, but basically there's this idea that the way that the way that the immune system knows whether to create an antibody to something is by having this kind of by having this idea of what is already self versus non self. So if you just have some inflammation somewhere, you don't all, from the conventional view, you don't just start, you know, creating, uh, like antibodies to it. But it has to be some sort of antigen that is non self, and that the immune system is able to able to sense this non self and the these alternative views. Kind of..

Mike 42:31
The way that, the way that the immune system knows non self, is that all self cells present an antigen that is recognized as self. So the idea within this theory is that all cells that belong to the body, the that are incoherence as the organism, are recognized as self because they all display an antigen on their surface that says, This is me. It's like it, I don't know it's like a name tag. Think of it like a name tag. All the cells are like, Hi. My name is Jay, right for Jay, but anything like a tumor cell or a virus or bacteria, a virus or bacteria would be like, Hi. My name is Klebsiella, hi. My name is, I don't know coronavirus, whereas, and then, like a tumor cell be, Hi, my name is, and then Jay is spelled wrong. So that's how the immune system knows that it's not J. And then the idea is that, since it knows it's not j, it would produce an immune response, um, and the bioenergetic view, and because there's some contradictory evidence with that, for example, like we have the idea of the what I talked about was, with the injection of a of of either an attenuated or a killed virus or protein from a bacteria, there's no immune response to that unless inflammation is present. And then they also talk about, like, for example, like a fetus. And then also you have, like, a commensal microbiome that is technically interacting with you all the time, that doesn't necessarily and healthy people, it doesn't elicit a immune response. And then, or like a negative or inflammatory immune response, I guess, would be better to say. And then they also talked about, in what was the example that Ray Pete quotes in regards to, like, the healthy cows udders actually had a higher diversity and proportion of bacteria than the unhealthy.

Jay Feldman 44:32
And so there's something else William Coke, if I remember correct.

Mike 44:37
yeah, okay, I think it was Pete quoting Coke's experiment. But regardless of that, the idea is that it's not just the idea of self versus non self. And then the other thing is like self versus non self is kind of a hard delineation to make sometimes. Um, and so Cunliffe talks about this, and he starts talking into describing it as a. Of as, like, having to define it differently than self versus non self, and then basically, the theory doesn't work out. So there's, I guess, in with the newer, the alternative theory, there's the component of, like, what's the state of the body and what's the state of the situation involving the presence of these supposed antigens, and that the context of the immune the context of the body and the situation in which the immune response is generated, dictates the inflammatory process and everything else that goes along with it. And I, I guess you, if you want to explain that more, that would be like the morphostasis or bioenergetic point of view.

Jay Feldman 45:41
Yeah, so the fundamental question here that is being asked is, How does the immune system determine what to create antibodies to? Why doesn't it create an antibodies to our arm? And, as you said, and this is based on the idea, from the conventional view, is that this was determined when our immune system was created when we were infants, which is that, as you said, all of our own tissues have a little name tags that say that there are our own tissues and they're ourself, and then you have our non self, which is everything else, and that's how our immune system knows that's kind of the conventional view that our immune system knows ourself and it knows our non self. And you gave a couple examples of how that doesn't make sense. One is you mentioned our microbiome, which is always in flux. So we have these bacteria, microbes, you know, fungus, all sorts of things in our guts. We have them on our skin. We have them in our mouths. How come we aren't always responding to those, you know, but they're there all the time. Some of our some of them are even sometimes pathogenic and sometimes not. So how come our immune system is not always reacting to them? They're always non self, or are they always self? I mean, it's kind of arbitrary, and that's the other thing you were getting at, is that we're always in flux. We're always like our what we call self is always changing. And you had mentioned fetus, and I just want to explain when some when a mother is pregnant, she is creating completely new tissues in this fetus that she had never experienced when she was an infant. So those should be considered non self too.

Mike 47:02
Especially because the fetus has half of the genes of the Father, right, right? Which would which would be non self.

Jay Feldman 47:09
So, yeah, but obviously a mother does not have an, you know, immune attack, immune system attack on her own fetus. Same thing with breast milk, which is again not produced at the time of infancy, and normally the infant would be drinking breast milk, but obviously there are cases where that doesn't happen, and yet there's still not an autoimmune attack on the breast milk. So those are a few examples, and it's just that, yeah, I mean to think that the only self that we're going to have occurs when our immune system is first being created is is pretty absurd. And as Ray Pete has pointed out many times, we're always exchanging DNA with our environment, whether it's from the food that we're eating or other things that we're breathing in. And so we are never the same self as we were yesterday or a week ago. And so this whole idea of self and non self doesn't really make sense from from those standpoints. And so there are these few other kind of researchers of the immune system that have put forth some other more cohesive ideas that are pretty interrelated. It started, I believe it started with William Koch. I don't remember if him or if he or menschocov were first the William Koch talked about basically this idea of our natural immunity, and the idea that when there's a failure in energy and and structure, there's an immune response. So instead of our immune system sensing self versus non self, it senses an energy failure, a structure failure, and that's what creates an immune response. So this would mean that when there's damage caused by bacteria, damage caused by virus or not, damage gentle Well, damage to the structure, or resulting energy failure from something like that, that's going to cause a mounting of an immune response to that pathogen. And these kind of ideas have been further refined by polymatzinger and Jamie Cunliffe, polymath singer, talks about a danger theory where our immune system, again, instead of responding to self and non self, it's responding to anything that is dangerous or could be dangerous, or that creates damage, meaning that you know it's dangerous. And some of these are signals that are very similar to things that we know to be dangerous, or like that our bodies are, you know, know to be dangerous. Some of them are things that are learned. Again, the same idea where, if there's some sort of bacteria, or in this case, one example that's talked about is lipopolysaccharide or LPs, or endotoxin, which is a component of bacterial cell walls, and that when that's entering our bloodstream, it causes a massive immune response and so on. You know, this happens actually, even if there's not direct damage caused by it, but that's normally because it has already caused a lot of damage in the past. And so there's already, you know, it's already learned from the. System. But LPS is extremely destructive for to our energy producing systems and structure. So, you know, it entirely makes sense in a scenario like that. And then Jamie Cunliffe is very he has a very similar idea to polymatger, where his is based on this idea of morphostasis, which is the idea that we want to create and maintain a particular form and structure, and the immune system is basically doing anything it can to maintain that structure, and anything that's disrupting that structure is identified as like a target by the immune system, and that the immune system is basically just clearing out any of the debris, any of the damage structure form, rather than specifically going after killing these pathogens. And so this is another idea we didn't talk about as much, but that there's this whole part of the immune system that's dedicated towards actively killing pathogens. And Jamie conless work is suggesting that that's not the case, and instead, it's just clearing up any damaged area which was damaged by a pathogen, which also involves clearing out the pathogen itself. And you had mentioned a good example for that supports these different views, which was with the vaccine, where, again, just, just introducing some sort of, quote, unquote pathogen, some sort of bacteria, or whatever it is, or a protein from the bacteria is not enough to mount an immune response and create antibodies. Instead, you need to actively create some sort of inflammation, some sort of damage or some sort of energy failure in order to have those antibodies be created. And so that's a perfect example of these theories of the immune system that don't depend on self and non self, but instead are depending on basically damage to the structure and to the energy producing systems.

Mike 51:42
Yeah, so there's a context to it, right?

Jay Feldman 51:46
All right, we're going to wrap up part one of this autoimmunity series there, and throughout the rest of the series, we'll discuss how this alternative view of the immune system translates to a bioenergetic view of autoimmunity, and we'll also discuss how this changes the approach to resolving autoimmune conditions, including how this adjusts what we would want to be doing as far as diet and nutrition go, and supplements and other aspects of lifestyle. If we are dealing with any autoimmune conditions, if you did enjoy today's episode, please leave a like or comment if you're listening on YouTube and a five star rating or review on iTunes. All those things really do a lot to help support the podcast. To check out the show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at these studies and articles and anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any low energy symptoms, whether that's chronic cravings and hunger, fatigue, chronic pain, weight gain, brain fog, insomnia, gut inflammation or bloating, hormonal imbalances, or if you're dealing with any autoimmune conditions, as we discussed today, and you are looking to learn how To resolve any of these issues, including the autoimmune conditions, from that bioenergetic perspective, then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll walk you through what you can do, as far as diet and lifestyle are concerned, to maximize your cellular energy, and I'll also explain why This is the key to resolving these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I will see you in the next episode.