Part 1
It is time to get barefoot and deep into the weeds about the current concepts of how to prevent autoimmunity from the earliest ages in humans. This series of articles is going to be science-heavy out of necessity to understand the truth behind the recommendations that will follow at the end.
It is actually a significant, albeit necessary, oversimplification to a complex process. I am writing in collaboration with Dr. Aerik Williams who is an Allergy, Asthma and Immunology expert with a enviable pedigree.
These may be the most important articles that we write for the next decade. I am grateful for Dr. Aerik Williams for his contributions and editing as he is the true expert in this field.
Reality — what is the problem? It is simple: humans are suffering from diseases of immune self-attack at alarming rates with no signs of abating. I recently had a case of a 4-year-old with Crohn’s disease. I was astounded at the unbelievably young age of onset as I gazed upon this lovely child.
Autoimmunity and allergy defined:
In immunological terms, autoimmunity and allergy are conditions in which one’s own tissues are subject to the deleterious effects of actions of the immune system. This is when a specific antibody and/or cell-mediated immune response targets the body’s own native tissues (autoimmunity) or a benign protein from a food, pollen or animal (allergy), for example, instead of a pathogen.
What this means is that our immune system loses the ability to discern our native cells or these benign proteins from pathogens and subsequently attacks these cells inappropriately leading to tissue damage that we see and feel as disease. This can happen at any age, but emerging evidence is teaching us that the early years are critical at setting the system up for long term success or failure.
Before we understand abnormal, what is normal?
This is when the immune system correctly identifies pathogens and foreign invaders as such and kills them while leaving our well-functioning cells alone to work for us. The immune system also correctly identifies food, animal and plant proteins as benign. This process is called tolerance and it all starts in the womb and progresses throughout life!
Let us go back to the beginning.
While you are conceiving of and producing your little beautiful baby, he or she is a 50 percent split amalgam of genes from mom and dad. While pregnant, mom’s immune system loves the baby’s genes that are hers but not dad’s genes. Therefore, mom’s immune system has to go through a process of shifting away from targeting dad’s foreign DNA by altering the function of her immune warriors to prevent a spontaneous abortion. If this occurs correctly, then junior has made it to being exposed to the outside world through the birthing process.
Mothers are active living creatures with their own load of bacteria in their intestines, on their skin, vagina and placenta. These bacteria start the process of programming the newborn’s innate and adaptive immune system in the placenta to know friendly bacteria from troublemakers. When the infant is born they hopefully slide through the vaginal canal and pick up more bacteria only to immediately latch on to the breast and acquire yet more friends.
These bacteria begin the process of teaching the immune system how to act. This is the key point: the child’s immune system is actually programming itself to tolerate these bacteria and to not respond negatively. This is the beginning of tolerance. If this process gets disrupted for any reason, tolerance can be broken and this is thought to be one of the main break points for the beginning of allergy and autoimmune dysfunction.
End of article 1

With great respect for Dr. Williams and his advice,
Drs. Chris Magryta and Aerik Williams

Dr. Chris Magryta is a physician at Salisbury Pediatric Associates. Contact him at newsletter@salisburypediatrics.com

https://evmedreview.com/reconstituting-the-depleted-biome-to-prevent-immune-disorders/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2784904/

https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter/306-autoimmune-disease

https://www.salisburypediatrics.com/patient-education/dr-magryta-s-newsletter/238-hygiene-hypothesis