Immune Dysfunction
When taking a functional approach, we want to find the triggers and treat the triggers of immune dysfunction. Ideally, we want to do this in the earliest stage of immune dysfunction before full-blown autoimmunity. This is called predictive autoimmunity, something that is gaining more widespread acceptance.
Hidden factors like the smoke this summer forest fires or additives from cleaning products can be a hidden trigger for those with sensitivities.
One potential trigger of inflammation is environmental chemicals such as allergies and chemicals. When overloaded our immune system gets overwhelmed and in an attempt to rid the chemicals it is thought that a cross-reaction may occur with our own tissue, as this leads to a gradual increase in anti-bodies towards a particular tissue like the pancreas, thyroid, brain, or joint.
There are arising concerns for the younger population on their development as well; for kids, it is suspected that low-level toxic exposures influence the brain, attention, and learning.
Assessing for environmental exposures is tricky because we tend to lock toxic substances in our tissues so they often won't show up in the blood.
The body excretes chemicals into the hair as a way to get it out of the body, and this makes it a great substance to test for toxic exposures.
We can gain some important functional information with a simple hair clipping. It is non-invasive and can be done at home and is great for kids
A function test called the hair toxic elements test can evaluate for toxic exposures; If you have a family history of autoimmune conditions or have elevated inflammation get ahold of it asap!
If you want to learn more about the elements tested, click here to view a sample report from our lab
Start cleaning up the cellular environment. If autoimmune is suspected you can still do a lot by taking the approach of "Finding the triggers and treating the triggers".
Most times we can't prevent exposures. Humans have highly developed detox and elimination pathways, but in this modern era, we may need to support this a little more!