THE INFECTION CONNECTION

Palmer Kippola helps you to rout them out

While in medical school, Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, was at the center of a family drama that created the kind of stress that led his immune system to falter. Jacob developed what he calls “the drop-dead flu,”which he thinks may have been infectious mononucleosis, caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV).

The flu or EBV in turn triggered a host of debilitating and long-lasting inflammatory disorders including fibromyalgia, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Toréa Rodriguez’s Hashimoto’s thyroiditis may have been triggered by a succession of stressful events, including the unexpected death of her mother and a serious bicycle accident. Toréa didn’t completely heal until she cleared a host of gut infections, including Helicobacter pylori, clostridium and giardia.

“CHRONIC INFECTIONS FROM BACTERIA, VIRUSES, PARASITES AND FUNGI MAY BE THE PRIMARY ENVIRONMENTAL TRIGGER FOR AUTOIMMUNE DISORDERS”

Renowned autoimmunologist Aristo Vojdani, PhD, believes his mother’s devastating rheumatoid arthritis was triggered decades earlier after oral surgery caused her severe case of gingivitis, the common gum infection, to enter her bloodstream. Dr Vojdani is confident his mother would have avoided the arthritis had the gingivitis been treated with antibiotics prior to surgery.

Not all infections lead to an autoimmune disorder, but these examples highlight the synergistic nature of infections and autoimmune conditions. An increasing number of studies reveal that chronic infections from bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi may be the primary environmental trigger for autoimmune disorders (see box, page 33).

Likewise, many healthcare practitioners who treat autoimmune conditions have observed that a hidden infection frequently precedes the initial autoimmune attack or appears opportunistically once the immune system is weakened. An autoimmune healing program that lacks a plan to clear infections may be incomplete.

Consider the following compelling evidence of the close relationship between infections and autoimmune disorders:

• One study found that 70 percent of patients with chronic fatigue