Immune Dysfunction and AIDS

REPRINTED FROM BEYOND HEALTH® News by Raymond Francis AIDS is only one small part of the largest epidemic in history, the epidemic of immune dysfunction disease that is sweeping the planet. This pandemic is affecting not only humans, but marine mammals, birds, fish, frogs, and virtually all living creatures. Because this epidemic doesn't yet have a name, I call it 20th Century Syndrome. The reason this epidemic is going unrecognized is that we give it a variety of conflicting and confusing names including: AIDS, allergies, asthma, arthritis, chronic fatigue, chemical sensitivities, chronic herpes, chronic hepatitis, eczema, Grave's Disease, lupus, migraine, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, Sjogren's Syndrome, and other immune dysfunction diseases. Immune dysfunction syndromes are complex. They affect every system in the body, and have no single cause. They result from a combination of factors including poor nutrition, toxic overload, chronic distress, and antigenic overload. An antigen is something to which the immune system reacts by producing antibodies. Antigenic overload results from our excessive exposures to disease-causing organisms such as bacteria, viruses, yeasts, molds, and others. Overload also results from constant exposure to allergens, blood products like transfusions and clotting factor, and vaccinations. Conventional wisdom says that a virus causes AIDS. This is not possible. Viruses don't cause disease. There are "disease causing" viruses living in our bodies every day of our lives. If viruses were the cause of disease, we would all be dead. This is not saying that viruses don't participate in a disease process, but infections are an effect of disease not the cause. This is an important distinction. Infections occur when we become diseased and damage the natural balance between the microbes and us. Disease comes first, infections second. So, what causes AIDS? How are we upsetting that natural balance? Here are some of the factors: Historically, man seldom ventured far from the place where he was born. People were exposed to a population of viruses within a small geographic area. Now, we can be exposed to viruses from around the world in a matter of weeks. This results in a viral load not experienced by our ancestors. Kary Mullis, the 1993 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, said that, "The immune system took twenty million years to develop. It was never developed to handle the extreme situation of bathhouse exposures." It is a fact that AIDS risk groups test positive for more different kinds of antibodies than the general population. Is this antigenic load meaningful? Studies published in Science and other journals show that our immune systems are able to regulate viruses whose number and diversity is below a certain value, but unable to stop the growth once this value is exceeded. Repeated chronic immune responses to foreign antigens can overload our immune systems to the point where we develop infections because the immune system is too overworked. Toxins such as heavy metals, industrial chemicals, excessive alcohol, pesticides, prescription drugs, and recreational drugs can damage immune function, and make us more susceptible to infection. In AIDS, prescription and recreational drugs, including antibiotics, AZT, cocaine, heroin, and nitrite inhalants, are critical contributors to toxic overload. Combine antigenic overload with toxic overload, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, erratic sleep patterns, and chronic stress, and you have a recipe for serious immune suppression. The combination of these factors compromises normal cell function. Once a significant number of cells have been impaired, this creates molecular havoc and systems feedback and control are lost. This precipitates a cascade of events resulting in failure of the body's self-regulating systems, including the immune system. When immunity is compromised, infections develop. To treat these infections, doctors prescribe immune-damaging antibiotics. Most physicians still believe in the outmoded concept that germs cause disease, so they try to kill the germs. The need to rebuild immune competence never occurs to them. However, to prevent or reverse AIDS, it is necessary to maintain or to rebuild immune competence. Rebuilding immune competence, requires rebuilding digestive competence. Numerous studies observe that the opportunistic infections we see in people with AIDS are very similar to those seen in nutritionally-deficient animals. This happens because, in people with AIDS and other immune dystoreunction diseases, there is a striking incidence of digestive malfunction. Digestion is impaired, and food doesn't get properly broken down into its elemental building blocks—the raw materials out of which the body builds, repairs, protects, and produces energy. Treatment with antibiotics is a leading cause of digestive malfunction. Antibiotics do more than just kill "bad bugs," they also kill "good bugs." Even one treatment with antibiotics can initiate a cascade of events capable of enormous damage to immune function. The abnormal gut flora resulting from antibiotic treatment inhibits proper digestion and assimilation of food, causing malnutrition. Undigested food results in putrefaction, which produces toxins. These toxins damage the immune system. Once normal gut ecology is altered, this provides opportunity for yeast, fungal, bacterial, and parasitic infections. These do further damage to gut tissue, add to antigenic overload, and place new burdens on an already overtaxed immune system. Partially digested food remnants, resulting from impaired digestion, are capable of functioning as antigens and causing immune reactions. When intestinal permeability is increased, due to damaged gut tissue, these food remnants can gain access to our blood system. In the blood, the remnants can precipitate food allergies, contributing to antigenic overload, and further increasing gut permeability. Increased permeability can precipitate autoimmune diseases by allowing gut bacteria access to the blood system and causing the formation of cross-reactive antibodies, thus further damaging the immune system. The resulting antigenic overload is capable of inhibiting antibody formation and proper functioning of our disease-fighting immune cells. When impaired digestion is significant, and remains uncorrected, people will waste away and become more susceptible to opportunistic infections. This is very common in people with AIDS. Chronic stress is another contributor to digestive incompetence. The hormones produced when we put stress on ourselves can be very destructive to the body if the stress is chronic. Stress hormones inhibit daily repairs in our digestive system, ultimately causing this system to seriously malfunction. Chronic stress depletes the body's resources, reduces its ability to adapt, and suppresses immune function. In conclusion, AIDS is a many-factored disease caused by a combination of inappropriate lifestyle, toxic overload, antigenic overload, poor diets, chronic stress, and common medical treatments with health-damaging drugs like antibiotics. All the above conspire in a cascade of events to cause what we call AIDS. The same factors that contribute to AIDS contribute to other immune dystoreunction diseases as well. What to do? Limit exposure to disease-causing organisms. Don't volunteer for vaccinations. Learn how to eat a good whole-food diet. Eat lots of fresh, organic vegetables, beans, fruits, and grains. Avoid white flour, white rice, sugar, salt, and hydrogenated oils. People with AIDS must consume mega-amounts of nutrients. Minimize antigenic load by identifying allergens and avoiding allergic reactions as much as possible. Take superior nutritional supplements like the Beyond Health brand. Exercise daily. Get as much exercise as possible. Avoid toxins—this means avoiding meat, dairy, alcohol, recreational drugs, pesticides, prescription drugs, gasoline fumes, solvents, food additives, and so forth. Practice some stress reduction technique daily. Rebuilding immune competence is much more difficult than maintaining it. That's why supernutrition is essential. Studies published in Clinical Chemistry and other journals clearly link nutritional status to the prognosis and mortality of AIDS. Eat only fresh, organic foods. Keep a healthy attitude and avoid negative people and stimuli. It has been shown that just by watching an upbeat movie, a patient finds encouraging improved immune function from several days to several weeks. Digestive competence must be rebuilt. Eliminate parasites. Take digestive enzymes to improve digestion. Since there are only two causes of disease—deficiency and toxicity—if you provide your cells with all the nutrients they need while, at the same time, reducing their toxic load, you can't go wrong. This is the basis for preventing and reversing all disease, and the path taken by all the long-term AIDS survivors I know of. Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist, a registered nutrition consultant, author of Never Be Sick Again, Never Be Fat Again, Never Fear Cancer Again, and an internationally recognized leader in the field of optimal health maintenance. Reprinted with permission from: Beyond Health® News email: [email protected] Copyright 1997, Beyond Health