Top 15 Remedies to Reverse Autoimmune Disease

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Axe, and each and every week on this podcast, I explore the science and principles and how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. Today, I'll be diving into how to heal and reverse autoimmune disease, and many cases of autoimmune disease can be reversed.

I'll be going through the exact diet, supplements, herbs, and lifestyle factors and natural treatments that can help support healing of autoimmune disease, and also I'll be going through the root causes, toxic Environmental, and many other on today's episode. This is an important topic because almost all of us have someone in our life that has autoimmune disease.

And so even if you're not a person suffering, you can help someone who is. Hey, make sure to subscribe as well to this channel and hit the notification bell so you don't miss a single episode. This podcast continues to grow and explode due to your support because we're helping transform the lives of millions of people together in body, mind, and spirit.

Well, let's start off going through what is autoimmune disease exactly? Well, it's a condition where your immune system mistakenly attacks your own body's tissues, leading to inflammation and damage. And what this might look like is, let's say your body becomes sensitive to something like gluten or casein or, or some sort of Uh, protein or inflammatory compound that enters your body?

Well, over time, your body will respond with inflammation and an immune response in order to get it out of your body. But if it doesn't happen over a period of time, the body will say, okay, I'm going to go out a step further and attack other things that are similar to this protein, like gluten.

And what happens is, is oftentimes your body then will start attacking its own thyroid, and so that leads to Hashimoto's, or its own joint tissue, which leads to rheumatoid arthritis. And so what's very, very common for your body then to kind of take a step outside and attack more things that have similar— that are similar in structure, which is a big basis for autoimmune disease.

Now, normally the immune system protects the body from harmful invaders like bacteria and viruses, but in autoimmune disease, it cannot distinguish between healthy tissue and harmful substances. And so that's the root of autoimmune disease. Now, the good news is, is that we can help the body start to reverse that process.

Now, the reality is autoimmune disease affects approximately 5 to 8% of the US population, and undiagnosed cases are probably up around 24 million in terms of Americans that are undiagnosed. Now, also, here's some shocking statistics. 80% Of autoimmune disease patients are women, and autoimmune diseases are among the top 10 leading causes of death in women under the age of 65 years old.

Now, there are 15 most common autoimmune diseases, but I also want to touch on other conditions that are borderline and have— and are autoimmune in nature, but not completely full-fledged like the top 15 here I'm going to mention.

The top 15 Most common autoimmune diseases include rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, celiac disease, multiple sclerosis, also known as MS, type 1 diabetes, inflammatory bowel disease, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves' disease, psoriasis, Sjögren's syndrome, myasthenia gravis, autoimmune hepatitis, scleroderma, Addison's disease, and vitiligo.

Also, I do want to mention these conditions I'm going to mention now have an autoimmune component: fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, inflammatory bowel syndrome known as IBS, migraine headaches, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and autonomic dysfunction known as dysautonomia.

Those also have a very similar thing to autoimmune disease where the body is attacking some of its own tissues, causing ongoing inflammation. Now I want to dive into these 7 contributing factors to autoimmune disease based on clinical studies. The first being genetics. If you have a family history of autoimmune disease, you are more likely to have autoimmune disease yourself.

According to one study, genetic predisposition accounts for 30% of autoimmune disease risk. A study involving 2,000 twin pairs found a significant genetic contribution to autoimmune diseases. Showing that, uh, really who your, you know, your parents, if they had it, there's a strong likelihood you can have it, specifically for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Now, I do wanna say there's also, oftentimes when we attribute things to genetics, um, oftentimes there's also a lifestyle factor, because what your parents were doing, you often will do, have pick up very similar habits in the way you eat, in if you exercise or not, a lot of different things in terms of lifestyle there. But there has been, again, a correlation here when it comes to genetics.

And specifically, as we talk about epigenetics, if your parents were very unhealthy and had, let's say, leaky gut syndrome or autoimmune disease issues, what tends to happen is, is they're passing on their gut health to you. I mean, we've seen this constantly in the field of epigenetics where you, the, the health of your parents impacts to the 3rd and 4th generation.

That's what we see in terms of the medical science. In fact, the Bible references something very similar to what your parents do. Will affect 3 and 4 generations, or what you do specifically will affect the 3 and 4 generations. We see this with women that are pregnant. The health of their gut microbiome significantly impacts that of their kids.

So there is a genetic component there, uh, an epigenetic component. Also, infections increase your risk of autoimmune disease. You know, viruses and bacteria can trigger autoimmune disease. Here's an example. Epstein-Barr virus has been linked to MS and lupus. A study with 500 MS patients showed 90% of them had a history of an Epstein-Barr infection, suggesting a strong correlation.

This can also be true with Lyme disease, CMV, and mold. Those are other types of infections. COVID is another one. And so, what happens is your body is sort of like a bucket. It can take so many toxins and so many pathogens, but at some point, it reaches a tipping point.

And some these stronger viruses like Epstein-Barr, uh, can tip the scale and put you into something like MS or type 1 diabetes, uh, because it sort of fills your body with, with too— just too much stress from viruses and, and other, and other, um, other pathogens within the body. The 3rd leading cause of autoimmune disease contributing factor is diet.

Diets high in gluten, sugar, and processed foods trigger inflammation. In fact, High sugar intake increases autoimmune disease risk by 30%. Research involving 3,000 participants showed a direct correlation between high sugar diets and elevated inflammatory markers, which are signs of moving into autoimmune disease.

So simply removing added sugar from your diet can decrease your risk of autoimmune disease by 30%.

And I think this— a big part of this is due to sugar feeds Candida in the gut and micro— uh, bad micro— microbe overgrowth, which then there's a condition called leaky gut, which I'll talk about in a little bit, that's been highly correlated, more than any one of these things, by the way, uh, is correlated with autoimmune disease. Let me just go ahead and get into this fact really quickly.

I mentioned that genetics have about a 30% rate of correlation with autoimmune disease, diet about a 30% correlation. Leaky gut syndrome has about a 70% correlation. And so if, if people with leaky gut Leaky gut is a primary factor of causing autoimmune disease. All right, let's get into number four here: environmental toxins, chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals.

Exposure to pesticides increases autoimmune risk by 20%. And so we found that a survey from 1,500 farmer farmers showed a higher incidence of autoimmune disease compared to the general population of those that worked with chemicals like pesticides. Number five is hormone imbalances. Those have been shown. Shown to exacerbate symptoms, especially in women.

One study found that estrogen influences your immune response. This was a study done on 800 women, and they found that when those estrogen levels get too high or get off, it can increase autoimmune disease as well. This is also why I'm not a big fan of birth control pills. When that estrogen gets too high, it starts to cause hormonal issues Which then can lead to autoimmune disease.

And number 6, emotional and mental stress. According to a study, if you have emotional stress, cortisol starts going up, stress hormones start going up, you have a 50% increase in flare-ups of autoimmune disease. And number 7 is, I mentioned this, poor gut health.

A study on 600 patients found that 70% of Crohn's patients had increased intestinal permeability implementing gut health in autoimmune conditions. And so we mentioned a lot of things here.

Probably the greatest factor of someone developing autoimmune disease though is leaky gut and having an inflamed gut lining, which of course several things impact that, but especially diet along with other lifestyle factors, pesticides, taking antibiotic medications, birth control. These all contribute to that leaky gut syndrome.

Now I wanna go through a study here Uh, specifically a, a second study on leaky gut syndrome. Uh, and they found that leaky gut allows toxins to enter the bloodstream, which triggers autoimmune disease. Again, I mentioned this earlier, but 70% of autoimmune patients showed signs of leaky gut.

The study involved 400 participants with various autoimmune diseases, highlighting a significant association between your gut, if it's healthy or not, and the link between autoimmune disease. Here's what happens in leaky gut syndrome. Your intestines act like a net, your gut lining.

And imagine very small holes in a fishing net, and only very small things should be able to pass through, like vitamins and minerals and digested proteins turned into amino acids. Those then get in your bloodstream and your body can utilize those.

Well, if your body has bigger holes in it than it should, if that gut lining does, things start passing into the bloodstream that should never get into there, like gluten and casein and heavy metals and certain viruses and pathogens, that then causes inflammation in your bloodstream. And over time, that can lead to autoimmune disease if that inflammation isn't turned off.

And so it's very, very important that you heal your gut if you're going to heal autoimmune disease. Now, I want to get into some specific foods that cause autoimmune disease according to studies. And what I did is I combed through, you know, all of the research going through What are those big foods and compounds that really exacerbate and make autoimmune disease worse? Number 1 is gluten.

Gluten has been linked to— consuming gluten linked to celiac disease and other autoimmune conditions. In fact, 1 in every 133 Americans have celiac disease. According to studies, many people are undiagnosed with a gluten sensitivity. Now, I do want to mention, it's not always that people are allergic to gluten. It's that we're allergic to gluten that hasn't been properly prepared and processed.

There was a study done on patients with celiac disease, 17 patients specifically, and when those patients consumed gluten, 13 out of 17 had major reactions. However, if they consumed gluten in the form of an ancient grain like einkorn wheat, which has gluten but less of, and it was fermented via a sourdough process, zero Out of 17.

So if you're a person with autoimmune disease, you do not want to be consuming gluten in its raw form. You don't want to be consuming whole wheat bread or white bread or grains that have gluten unless it's an ancient grain like einkorn wheat and it's turned into a sourdough bread. That would be allowed on some autoimmune, autoimmune disease diet protocols.

So remember, if you're gonna have bread and you have any form of an autoimmune disease, Never consume just plain whole wheat bread or rye bread or barley bread or anything with gluten unless it's fermented into something like a sourdough. Then your body will likely tolerate it, especially if it's a homemade in a 24-hour long fermentation process, according to the studies.

Number 2 major food that will cause autoimmune disease-like symptoms is dairy. One study found that 50% of individuals with autoimmune disease reported dairy sensitivity, and the number may be even higher than that for the group of patients that was unaware. We found that dairy contains a protein called casein that causes autoimmune-like symptoms.

And I do want to mention this: there are different forms of casein. And when you look at the ancient breeds of cows, they have what's called A2 casein. It's a protein that is much easier to digest. It's the same protein that you're going to find in Human milk, goat's milk, cow's milk, it's easier to digest.

Well, many cows today have a genetic variation or mutation where they started producing a type of protein called A1 casein. This protein in conventional dairy has been linked to greater levels of inflammation and autoimmune disease than A2 milk. So if you're going to buy dairy, you're better off doing goat's milk, sheep milk, or doing A2 cow's milk and having it fermented.

If you can do fermented A2 dairy like yogurt or kefir, it gives you your greatest likelihood of not having an autoimmune reaction. However, if you're consuming just regular milk, that's A2 milk, whether it's raw or not, you're going to have a greater likelihood of having an autoimmune reaction or contributing to your likelihood of having autoimmune disease.

And some people don't tolerate dairy either way. But listen to your body, okay, with that. And I would say a great replacement for that would be coconut kefir or coconut yogurt or coconut milk or almond milk. Those are better replacements. Number 3 food that is linked to autoimmune reactions is sugar. There's a 30% increase in autoimmune risk with a high sugar diet according to a study.

So again, you want to stay away from gluten, dairy, especially A1 dairy, and sugar. Of course, processed foods are also linked to an autoimmune disease. Um, risk factors, 25% increase in developing autoimmune disease.

So you wanna stay away from processed and packaged foods, and you wanna stay away from seed oils like sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil, uh, any of those processed oils you wanna stay away from and do extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil as replacements. Nightshades actually also can worsen symptoms.

In a study done on 500 individuals with rheumatoid arthritis, 35% reported worsening of symptoms when consuming nightshade foods like potatoes and tomatoes and eggplants and peppers. So that can be a risk factor. I don't think that's with everybody with autoimmune disease, but there are some. So about 1 out of every 3 people, this— nightshades are going to make things worse.

Lectins are a compound found in a lot of grains and nuts and seeds. Uh, this can increase the risk of symptoms as well. You want to do a diet that's lower in lectins typically if you have autoimmune disease.

And alcohol— actually, uh, people that consume alcohol that have autoimmune disease reported a 60% increase in symptom severity with alcohol consumption because that will cause inflammation of the liver, which then also affects the digestive system.

So we're seeing this, that there are a lot of contributing factors dietarily, but the biggest is gluten, dairy, and sugar of all the things, and of course, processed foods. Now, I also wanna mention here unhealthy emotions. If you have a lot of emotional stress, that will increase your risk of autoimmune disease. As I mentioned earlier, it can increase your flare-ups by 50%.

Also, post-traumatic stress disorder, there's studies on that increasing the likelihood of autoimmune disease by 60%. So we see emotional stress. The best way to deal with emotional stress One is if, if, if there's something that's happened in the past and it still is bothering you today, go back and deal with it. Work with a counselor, forgive and move on.

But according to Chinese medicine, if you've had something happen in the past, maybe you were bullied, maybe there's a form of verbal or sexual or some sort of emotional abuse, and it's still, you still think about it today. It still bothers you. You have guilt and shame associated with something you did or someone did to you.

You gotta work with that and you typically have to confess it to another person. You have to share it with them, pray with them. This is a great way to get also plugged into church and see a Christian counselor. Those are some things you want to do.

But, but here in, in, according to Chinese medicine, if something's happened in the past and you haven't let it go, that along with one other emotional thing I'll mention in a minute, those are the, that, that is the greatest thing that causes autoimmune disease, even more than diet and genetics. Is your emotional state. It's been linked to autoimmune disease.

And so you really want to go back and deal with that. It affects the lungs and the colon. Those are the 2 primary organs associated with immune health in Chinese medicine. And so you want to be very aware of something that's happened in the past. We mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder. That's a form of it. And be able to work with a counselor, work with a friend, work with God. Yeah.

Through healing that past thing. But no, if you have that thing, it's going to keep you from completely healing. If you have something in the past and you haven't been able to work through it and be set free of that unforgiveness, that resentment, that guilt, that shame of that thing that's happened to you.

All right, let's jump into diet here and talk about the foods that help heal autoimmune, autoimmune disease. Now, here's the principle you need to know. You need foods that are going to be easy on your body, okay? That cause no inflammation. And there's a combination of foods that are not healthy that I mentioned— added sugar, processed foods, seed oils, gluten, dairy.

Those are foods that generally, they're just not good for you. They're really not good for anybody. Now, I did mention sourdough bread and fermented A2 milk, like, like, like yogurt. That's fine. But for most people, there are the foods that Are not healthy at all for anyone. So you should stay away from all of those.

But also there are foods in autoimmune disease, if you have leaky gut syndrome, which at least 70% of people, it's probably much higher actually, of people with autoimmune disease have some sort of intestinal inflammation. Um, there are even healthy foods for some, for some other people that you don't want to consume. For instance, you don't want to consume nightshades.

You don't want to consume raw vegetables. You don't wanna consume salads. You wanna consume mostly soups and steamed vegetables or baked or vegetables that are cooked. You don't wanna do many raw foods at all. You don't wanna do a lot of cold ice drinks, those sort of things. If you have autoimmune disease, you wanna consume a lot of cooked vegetables.

Again, I mentioned soups, steamed vegetables, a lot of wild organic meat that's well cooked. Those are the sort of things you should be eating if you wanna heal and reverse autoimmune disease. And part of the thing is, if something's it's easy to digest.

Your body doesn't have to do much work, versus if your body has to work really hard to digest something like a— like, here's another one: raw nuts and seeds. Those aren't good for people with autoimmune disease either, in most cases.

So this is where cooked meat and vegetables and easily digested fruit and things like rice congee and sweet potatoes, those tend to be much easier for people with autoimmune disease to digest. Those are the sort of foods you want to be eating. Now, according to some studies, leafy green vegetables are good for autoimmune disease if they're cooked because they reduce inflammation.

So, you could take something like chard or spinach, steam it, and consume that. That's one great thing you can do. Fatty fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids. In fact, there's a study done showing that people with rheumatoid arthritis saw a 40% improvement in their symptoms when they took an omega-3 supplement regularly.

So getting wild-caught fish like salmon, mackerel, halibut, sardines, tuna in your diet regularly is a good idea if you have autoimmune disease. Berries and fruit, specifically blueberries and pears, are 2 of my favorites for people with autoimmune disease. I recommend you take pears and you bake them so they're soft. That tends to be a really good food for autoimmune disease.

Again, blueberries at room temperature, those are probably 2 of my favorites. I think there's others that are good. I think applesauce. Again, some of the fruits are better if they're baked and cooked. So that's why applesauce can be great as another one there. Could also be something like, um, uh, like figs, papaya. These are fruits that are very easy to digest.

You want to be careful with some of the excess sugar, but if you're not doing added sugar, then doing fruit should be absolutely fine. In fact, eating berries and fruit, according to a study in the medical journal Nutrients, reduced flare-ups by 35% with people with autoimmune disease. So that tends to be a really, really good option there as well.

Some other foods that really help heal autoimmune disease: bone broth, organic meat, and organs. Okay, bone broth is in particular, probably my favorite food for leaky gut and autoimmune disease. Bone broth contains proline, glycine, hydroxyproline, and glutamine. Those are the 4 most important amino acids you need to heal your gut.

It's what your gut lining is actually made of, are those amino acids. And glutamine is also good for some of the bacterial and the lining of your gut. So you want to get at least 1 serving of bone broth day if you have autoimmune disease.

Now, you could just drink straight bone broth or have it as part of your soup, or you could take it as a bone broth protein powder or some sort of protein powder that's regenerative that has bone broth or collagen in it. That's going to be great. But even better than collagen for autoimmune disease is a bone broth powder or a bone broth protein. Very, very healing for the gut.

Organic meat is also very easy to digest for most people. Everything from bison to beef to venison to poultry like chicken and turkey. Also, organ meats like liver are good. But those are some foods that can help reverse and heal autoimmune disease.

And then also getting some easily digested fiber for most people with autoimmune disease, like pumpkin, sweet potato, yam, squashes like butternut, acorn, and spaghetti squash, well-cooked vegetables— carrots, beets, celery, green beans, cauliflower, cabbage— and then rice. Now, some people disagree with These carbohydrates.

Yeah, you might be a person that maybe you're sensitive to disaccharides or starches like potato. In that case, you'd wanna stay away from even sweet potato for a time, but listen to your body. Most people do well with it. Um, also rice. Now, what I recommend is you get something like a basmati rice that you— that's organic.

You cook it for about 12 hours overnight in a slow cooker and to where it's a mush, and that's called rice congee. That's very healing, very easy to digest. You can consume that with your meals. In fact, in Chinese medicine, they would have most people consume this rice congee along with soups all day, and that's how they reversed and healed autoimmune disease.

And they actually called soups one pot. There's a principle around, if you've heard, food combining, and that's where you try not to eat certain foods together because your body needs to produce different enzymes in order to break down that food, and certain foods are broken down at different pHs.

So, They would typically recommend, the people that are into food combining, that you don't want to consume sweets like cake with meat because meat tends to be much more acidic in nature, whereas maybe sweets might be like, even fruit might be more alkaline. And then also there's very different enzymes that are produced for breaking those down.

And so it's, it, that's harder for your body to digest when you're consuming a lot of different things together in a meal. Um, This is also where some people to heal leaky gut have been on a mono diet. Let me give you an example of what a mono diet is.

This is where somebody for breakfast may only eat an avocado, and then for lunch they may only eat, uh, maybe let's call it, uh, wild salmon, and for dinner they only eat red meat. Okay? Or maybe there's just 2 things they eat. Okay? Just meat and vegetables, things that are easy to digest. So a mono or a duo meal, um, because then your body has to produce less stuff.

Well, part of the idea here with Chinese medicine, they called soups one pot, and they believe when, when things are cooked together for a long period of time, they sort of meld and mingle together. And so when your body gets to eating a soup, it really, it almost views the entire pot as just eating one thing rather than a bunch of things together.

That's the idea there, but that's been recommended in Chinese medicine for a long period of time. He's eating— doing rice congee, soups, and then a lot of herbal teas like ginger tea to help heal and reverse autoimmune disease. And I've used this with patients, and I've seen great results with some of these principles that I'm sharing with you.

But basically, it's this: if you want to heal and reverse autoimmune disease, do a lot of organic meat, a lot of bone broth, some organ meats, easily digested vegetables that are well cooked, Easily digested fiber from things like pumpkin and squashes and sweet potatoes, rice congee, soups, and, you know, easily digested fruits like pears and, and blueberries.

If that's your diet, you typically can reverse autoimmune disease. I mean, really, it's meat and vegetables, meat and vegetables, meat and vegetables are the basis of that diet as well.

You know, I have a friend of mine named Terry Walls, and she went on a diet of just eating meat that's cooked and vegetables that are cooked, and she reversed her MS. She had MS, she was in a wheelchair, couldn't walk, absolutely reversed it. I had another patient, her name was Cheryl, who came in to see me, and she came into me with MS in a wheelchair, unable to walk.

We started her on this diet I'm sharing with you right now, along with some of the other things I'm going to share, some herbs. She did a lot of great things. She was under chiropractic care. She Uh, would focused on prayer for healing. But she started on this program I'm sharing with you right now, dietarily. And after 2 weeks of not— and by the way, she wasn't able to walk for years.

She was out of her wheelchair. I mean, it was an absolute, you know, absolute miracle. But really, she started doing the things to start to heal and reverse autoimmune disease in her body. And the reality is, is that your body can heal relatively quickly. Remember, every single year. Your organs are new, almost your entire body is new every year.

So, if you can start doing all the right things and following what I'm sharing with you, I mean, you can heal in a tremendous way.

By the way, if you're a person and you're saying, hey, I want to work with a practitioner on this to help me reverse this, I actually have trained some practitioners because I, a lot of times I get emails and questions, hey, where can I find a functional medicine doctor or practitioner to help me with this? You can visit Axe Wellness, axewellness.com.

I've done a video there that shares the principles, and at the end of that training video, uh, you can, uh, you can schedule a call with, uh, with, with a practitioner I've worked with that can, uh, walk you through. And, and, you know, if you decide to start care, then create a very customized plan for you.

And so anyways, just did want to mention that for people that are looking to explore, uh, and have greater aid. All right, I want to now touch on the top 7 herbs and then also the supplements For reversing autoimmune disease. And all of this information is based on proven clinical studies and ancient history.

The first herb, and what I believe is one of the most powerful for reversing autoimmune disease, is an herb called astragalus. Astragalus is probably one of the top 5 herbs used in Asian, Asian medicine. We don't use it near enough today in Western and American medicine, but studies have shown it can help reverse autoimmune disease. In fact, listen to this.

People that took astragalus, the one group saw a 70% improvement in their symptoms compared to a placebo that saw a 35% improvement. So again, we see astragalus had a really big impact. This is a study done on 120 people. The people in the study also saw a 45% reduction in CRP.

That stands for C-reactive protein, which is probably the most The most common inflammatory marker we test for today, and the placebo group only saw a 20%. And so, you can see here really a massive, massive improvement in the astragalus group. And there are several other studies that have proven that astragalus reduces inflammation, but specifically supports reversal of autoimmune disease.

And I really like this for Hashimoto's thyroiditis. I like it for Graves' disease. I like it for— I like it for— for any autoimmune issue, especially if there's a digestive or immune— also immune component. And when I say immune, I mean more things that are related to lung health, colon health, inflammatory bowel disease. That's where astragalus really shines as an herb.

The number 2 herb for autoimmune disease would be turmeric. This has been shown to be particularly effective for patients with rheumatoid arthritis, According to a study, it showed a 60% improvement in pain and swelling in a group that took turmeric or curcumin compared to a placebo at 30%. So this is really good for if you've got joint issues related to autoimmune disease.

Ginger is another good one. I like this both for joint issues, also for digestive, but in this study I'm going to mention, it was shown to help with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Studies showed a 55% improvement in the ginger group. And by the way, ginger has been used for autoimmune disease and leaky gut syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years, typically drank as an herbal tea.

They'd recommend 1 to 2 cups of tea of ginger a day. In fact, I want to share a story. When I— I had leaky gut syndrome myself for about a year. It was my first year of practice, and I was working like 80 hours a week, and I was very stressed. And then I met a Chinese medicine practitioner.

He said, and I was trying to figure out, I started having loose stool myself and digestive issues, and I thought, well, gosh, I'm eating perfectly. Well, I met this man and he said, Josh, you're working too many hours. You're very stressed. And what he did for me is he said, hey, you need to cut back on work hours. I did.

And he recommended I drink this tea and I would do a blend of astragalus, licorice root. Ginger, uh, like slippery elm. He, it was this concoction of all these different herbs together, and I would make it as a tea and I drank it 3 times a day. Well, within a, within, I forget if it was 1 month or 3 months, but a short period of time, completely reversed, got completely normal.

I mean, I felt amazing. And so historically, consuming teas for this sort of thing can be very, very effective as well. Um, if you don't want to take it as a supplement, it's another, but you, you could do, you know, I like to kind of do both. I will take a supplement, I will take capsules. I will do herbal powders to smoothies and I'll drink tea.

And so, it depends on the way that I like to get my— or the way you prefer to take your supplements. I tend to do a blend of all of those. Ashwagandha is another herb that's been shown to be particularly effective against lupus as well as Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Those forms of autoimmune disease, studies have shown that ashwagandha is great.

Part of the reason ashwagandha works is that it's an adaptogen, as is astragalus. That helps lower the stress response and cortisol in the body and balance thyroid hormones. So it really works hormonally to improve your symptoms and even indirectly through reducing stress. Echinacea is another herb with some great studies specifically on multiple sclerosis.

People saw a 50% improvement when taking 1,000 milligrams of echinacea a day. Boswellia, which is known as frankincense, or Boswellia serrata. There is a double-blind placebo trial on this herb which has shown to have a 50% reduction in pain and stiffness.

I really like, if you have joint issues, combining turmeric, Boswellia, and even something like ginger together, doing all of those harmoniously together 2 to 3 times daily. You will see a tremendous improvement in rheumatoid arthritis when you're doing those, especially when combine it with an omega-3 supplement. And then another herb I really like is licorice root extract.

This has been shown to have improvements in patients as well, doing about 500 milligrams a day, especially those with digestive issues as well or lupus. One other here, ginseng is another one. Panax ginseng has been shown to be effective against MS. I also really like Panax ginseng for type 1 diabetes. And I do want to mention, certain autoimmune diseases are easier to reverse than others.

I really think that probably the most difficult is type 1 diabetes, but there are things you can do to improve the condition.

Ginseng, chromium picolinate, cinnamon, berberine, you know, and following a diet that's very similar to what I mentioned, especially with mostly meat and vegetables, you will absolutely be able to greatly support support and heal part of that, but you may just not be able to reverse it completely.

Now, some of these, like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, um, and rheumatoid arthritis, I've gotten thousands of patients to where they had zero symptoms at all related to it. But, uh, again, did want to— did want to mention some are harder to reverse than others, but all of them can be greatly improved.

Also, if you struggle with fatigue, ginseng is a really effective herb combined with echinacea and ashwagandha for improving those markers as well. One, one other one, hit on a mushroom here, and it's reishi mushroom.

In fact, in, in Chinese medicine, this is known as the herb or the mushroom of immortality, and this has been shown to improve symptoms of fatigue and specifically MS, but any sort of autoimmune disease. Reishi mushroom is also good to take long-term.

I get reishi mushroom, I'll do it as a powder oftentimes Uh, in, in my morning smoothie, I do a multi-mushroom blend, uh, of about, uh, 1 to 2 grams daily of mushrooms. So those are the herbs and mushrooms. We covered 9 of those that are actually the most effective at treating autoimmune disease. Now I want to hit on the vitamins, minerals, and supplements.

Number 1 is vitamin D. A study done on patients with MS found that consuming 5,000 IUs of vitamin D daily had a 50% reduction in relapse rates of autoimmune markers and reduced something called IL-17, which is an inflammatory marker associated with autoimmunity. So vitamin D, 5,000 IUs a day, is very effective.

Vitamin B12 has been shown to be effective doing 1,000 micrograms daily, especially those with hypothyroidism. Specifically Hashimoto's. Number 3 would be zinc, doing about 50 milligrams of zinc a day.

Now, I would recommend that you get zinc really a maximum about 30— if you're going to do it long-term, do about 30 milligrams a day, or even, you know, and only do that for about maybe half a year, and then you want to back it down to about 15 milligrams a day. But getting zinc as part of a methylated multivitamin.

Would be a good choice, or an immune system multi, uh, would be a good choice there. But again, zinc, 30 to 50 milligrams a day, has been shown to really reduce symptoms. And zinc is important for this reason: zinc helps repair the gut lining. It works with glutamine and collagen, which is what the gut's made of, along with bone broth.

So taking zinc and bone broth together is particularly effective at helping heal Leaky gut syndrome, whereas vitamin B12 is more important because it supports cellular health and regeneration. Vitamin D is important hormonally. Number 4 is magnesium.

If you have constipation along with whatever you're dealing with, you really want to take magnesium along with— if you have stress and tension and pain. I like magnesium for typically doing about 300 to 600 milligrams a day. Also, if you have headaches or if you have We talked about the borderline autoimmune issues earlier.

For instance, fibromyalgia is one where you absolutely want to take magnesium as well. Again, 300 to 600 milligrams a day of that. Selenium, if you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, has been shown to be beneficial. And then an omega-3 fatty acid supplement is good, especially if you have rheumatoid arthritis. I recommend about 1,000 to 2,000 milligrams daily. And then here's a big one, probiotics.

There's a study done that showed a 60% improvement in gut health symptoms when somebody took a probiotic supplement. This has also been shown to be effective at Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, inflammatory IBS, other forms of inflammatory bowel disease. But taking a good probiotic, I would recommend taking one that has about At least 100 billion CFU daily.

I even think that if you have, if you have a virus, you know, that's associated with what you have going on, or you also have digestive issues, you know, you have leaky gut as part of your autoimmune disease, which most people do, you could take even for a period of time, 500 billion CFU or even 1 trillion probiotics daily.

If you can find a probiotic that has 1 trillion daily, that can really move the needle. Actually helping eliminate those viruses and things like Lyme, getting those out of your system, doing very, very high-dose probiotic.

There is a study done, by the way, on autoimmune symptoms and showing the species of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, those strains in particular, being effective against autoimmune disease. Also, Saccharomyces boulardii has been shown to reduce inflammation of the gut and be effective at reducing those autoimmune symptoms. Now, I also want to talk about this.

We talked about leaky gut syndrome earlier. I'm going to read off to you the symptoms of leaky gut syndrome, because if you have any of these symptoms, oftentimes these are precursors to full-blown autoimmune disease. If you have food sensitivities, multiple to many different foods, that's a warning sign. Chronic diarrhea or constipation.

Gas and bloating, nutritional deficiencies, headaches, fatigue, joint pain, skin issues like eczema or psoriasis. And by the way, those conditions oftentimes are linked to being those borderline autoimmune-like symptoms when we're talking about psoriasis in particular as well that can can can can be an issue. Want to go through a last? I'm going to wrap up here.

A last few things that are really important when it comes to healing autoimmune disease. One of the biggest things is sleep. Sleep is when your body heals and restores itself. Studies have shown that if you are not getting good sleep, it increases your likelihood of autoimmune disease. You want to be getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night. Get to bed earlier, 10 PM at the latest.

Have your room dark, have it cold. Don't be looking at blue light before bed. Read or listen to an audiobook before bed without a lot of light, at least 1 hour before bed. And if you can get— and then get outside a lot. I mean, humans should be outside probably during the daylight hours, probably 70% of the time. I mean, we should be outdoors almost all day.

For the most part, people probably spend about 90% of their time indoors. I mean, it should be, it should, it should be a reverse ratio. And so when you're not outside getting that natural sunlight, It's throwing off your cortisol levels, which then will throw off your melatonin levels. So, you want to be outside as much as possible.

I try and get outside at least first thing in the morning, go for a quick walk of 15 minutes. Around lunch, I go for about a 15 to 20-minute walk. And then, around dinner, I go for a 15 to 20-minute walk. That's how I always get my steps in and I always get my light in during the day, doing it in the morning, middle of the day, and the end of the day when the sun is setting.

Helps recalibrate your hormones, which will allow you to get better sleep at night. And I wanna talk about some natural treatments for autoimmune disease. Again, number one, we talked about this, an anti-inflammatory diet that's based using a lot of meat, cooked vegetables, and fruit as the basis of your diet. Regular, regular exercise.

Walking in nature is probably the single best thing for fighting autoimmune disease. Stress management. Here's how you reduce stress: schedule things you love to do that take your mind off your condition. Uh, the next would be acupuncture. Acupuncture is very effective at treating autoimmune disease and doing the herbal remedies we mentioned.

I also do wanna mention the most conventional ways that autoimmune disease is treated today. It tends to be with NSAIDs, corticosteroids, and immunosuppressants. It's important to note that all of these medications damage organs and deplete your body of nutrients. We know that NSAIDs damage the stomach and kidneys.

We know that corticosteroids damage your bones, causing osteoporosis, increase your blood pressure, and cause weight gain. We know that immunosuppressants increase your risk of infections and liver damage, and they all deplete your body of B vitamins and other nutrients. So you typically don't want to rely on those unless you absolutely have to. Use natural things instead.

Rather than NSAIDs, do turmeric, do ginger, do boswellia, do omega-3s, do that combination instead. I also want to mention that fasting can be good, doing some intermittent fasting, even if it's just 2 days a week skipping breakfast.

Now, if you have hypothyroidism or fatigue, I don't recommend doing that, but if you generally feel good outside of some aches and pains and maybe digestive issues, then I do think doing some intermittent fasting. Okay. Fasting can be good for autoimmune disease. Also, there are other things that can exacerbate autoimmune diseases. We talked about the viruses earlier.

Of course, heavy metals, pesticides, bisphenol A, phthalates, mold toxins, air pollution— those can all make it worse. But generally speaking, if you focus on your emotional health and your diet and focusing on doing some of these supplements, I believe you can reverse autoimmune disease. You know, as I mentioned earlier, reducing stress really is critical for, for healing autoimmune disease.

Again, schedule things you love to do. Here's some ideas for you. Going on walks. Again, walk and walk and walk some more. Walk with a friend, walk in nature and hike, but walk in nature as much as you possibly can and outside. Number 2, read, listen to audiobooks. Those in particular are great for reducing stress, and it doesn't have to be something to grow.

It could be, it could be your favorite podcast, but also could be just a book for enjoyment. Um, doing a lunch with, with close friends, spending time with community and people you really like, that's beneficial. Uh, going to a place of worship like church or synagogue, going to a place where you can praise your maker and spend time in, in a state of gratitude.

Prayer, reading personal growth books, reading spiritual growth books, prayer and meditation are effective. Uh, as well, doing an infrared sauna can also be great, but just doing things you love to do. Schedule those things. Hobbies. What do you love to do? Maybe it's pickleball, maybe it's, uh, a certain fitness group, maybe it's knitting. Whatever it is for you, schedule time to do those things.

Like for my mom who had cancer and some autoimmune symptoms, she loved being around horses. So she would go to a horse farm 2 to 3 days a week, spend time riding a horse. Just time, just spending time among, with other people who loved horses. It was very healing and rejuvenating for her.

Um, and so remember this, if you want to heal autoimmune disease, one, you gotta take care of your mental health. Okay? We talked about taking care of those things from the past that still bother you today. We talked about, uh, building an attitude of gratitude, prayer, meditation, growing spiritually. All of those things can help heal your mind.

Um, Next is diet, you know, improving what you're eating on a regular basis. Again, a lot of vegetables, fruits, wild organic meat, bone broth is going to be particularly healing, as oils— coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado— tend to be pretty good there as well. We talked about getting better sleep.

We also talked about a lot of the herbs and the supplements and nutrients that can be beneficial. Hey, if you have somebody you know with autoimmune disease, maybe If this message speaks to you, I wanna encourage you to write down, listen to this maybe a second time, write down what are those things that you personally need to start doing to reverse and heal your autoimmune disease.

Also, if you know someone else who needs to hear this information, hey, please share it with them or go on social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, share this episode with them because there are millions of people suffering with autoimmune disease. In fact, there are tens of millions.

And there are actually millions of people with autoimmune disease and they don't know they have autoimmune disease. So please share this with, with as many people as possible. People need to know the truth on how to actually get to the root cause. Here's what's happening. Most people are going to their conventional doctors today.

They're prescribing NSAIDs and immunosuppressants and steroids, which are going to damage their body long-term when there are all natural ways people can heal and overcome autoimmune disease. So thank you, all of you, for being on mission with me and for sharing this episode. I'm so, so grateful for you. Thank you. For doing that. And hey, don't forget to subscribe yourself.

We've got so many great episodes coming out here in the near future. We've had so many awesome guests, everyone from Carrie Underwood, Devani Hari, and a lot of other great ones coming out here soon. Thanks for liking, also for commenting and leaving reviews. And again, thanks so much for sharing this.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode on how to heal and reverse autoimmune disease as part of the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I'll see you on the next episode.