Immune tolerance refers to the immune system’s ability to respond appropriately. Proper tolerance means it does not over react or under react, and that it tolerates normal everyday things like the foods you eat, chemicals in the environment, and your own body tissues.

When you have healthy immune tolerance you don’t have food intolerances, chemical sensitivities, or autoimmune disease.

However, when people lose immune tolerance, their immune system becomes hyper vigilant. They start reacting to multiple foods, their skin might start reacting to lotions, detergents, or jewellery, and they can also react to chemical scents and odours such as car fumes.

These changes in immune function can gradually lead to loss of self-tolerance, which is autoimmune disease, such as Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism or rheumatoid arthritis.

A loss of tolerance is a fundamental mechanism behind autoimmunity – ultimately an autoimmune condition happens when your body has lost tolerance to itself or parts of itself.

Immune Resilience

Immune resilience is your body’s ability to deal with a pathogen, that is something like a virus or bacteria, and get rid of it. It is closely related to Immune tolerance because a loss of tolerance will impair your immune resilience.

That means that if you have food sensitivities, chemical intolerances or autoimmune disease your immune system is impaired and therefore fighting off an invader will also be impaired.

The good news is that the function of important parts of the immune system can be positively influenced by changes to diet, regular exercise, ensuring you getting enough good quality sleep, supplementation of essential nutrients and fixing any underlying health issues.

Improving Overall Immune Tolerance by improving Oral Tolerance

Oral tolerance is the immune systems ability to react appropriately to food that we are eating. If you find that you have multiple food sensitivities then the chances are that you have lost oral tolerance.

In order to understand this further we have to look at all the bodies systems that contribute to immunity. Whilst the cells involved in the immune system actually do the work of removing pathogens or food proteins once they have entered the body it is important to consider the physical and chemical barriers, which stop pathogens entering the body in the first place.

We have a number of barriers to pathogens, skin, lining of the airways, lining of the digestive tract and the blood brain barrier.  We also have chemical barriers to pathogens such as stomach acid, tears & mucus membranes.

In respect to oral tolerance the function of the digestive tract is key. By its nature the lining of the gut has to be somewhat permeable to let in the nutrients that we need from our food, but it needs to be tight enough to keep out unwanted pathogens or food particles that are too large.

The lining of the gut is made up of cells that are held together by “tight junctions”. A breakdown of these tight junctions from food sensitivities, dysbiosis, stress and other factors leads to inappropriate pathogens and food proteins entering the blood stream and provoking the immune system into action.

In the image above the cells on the left of the picture show healthy gut cells with normal integrity. The cells on the right show inflamed gut cells and the breakdown of the tight junctions allowing food particles that are too large and pathogens to pass in between the cellular lining of the gut (Para-cellular route) and into the blood stream. If there is further damage to gut lining there can be a cellular breakdown that will allow particles to pass directly through the cell (Trans-cellular route), which is more serious and takes more time to heal.

From a clinical perspective it is important to know if someone is suffering with gut inflammation that is causing a breakdown that will allow the permeability outlined above also known as “Leaky Gut”.   With modern antibody testing, such as Cyrex^tm Array 2, a very good understanding of leaky gut can be made, whether the route is paracellular, transcellular and if there is significant dysbios present which can help to guide any advice given.

For those suffering with “Leaky gut” they will often be suffering with some or all of the following symptoms:

• Chronic or alternating diarrhoea and constipation
• Bloating especially after eating
• Food Sensitivities
• Fatigue
• Headaches
• Confusion, difficulty concentrating
• Skin problems, such as acne, rashes, or eczema
• Joint pain
• Widespread inflammation

It is also important to know that you may not have any stomach or gut complaints and still be suffering from leaky gut. It is also possible to have unknown or clinically silent food sensitivities which can drive further inflammation and immune responses.

Fixing Leaky Gut

For anyone who is suffering with an autoimmune condition repairing the gut lining and addressing food senstetivities is going to be key to reducing the provocation of their immune system. There are a number of factors that can be involved in the breakdown of the gut barriers. The first step in starting to heal the gut it to remove any foods that are causing inflammation, which will further promote leaky gut.

For many people they will already know the foods that they are sensitive to but they continue to eat them, if you are in that situation remove those foods and don’t eat them again. Likewise there are many people who have food intolerances that they don’t know anything about, often this is because they do not have any stomach complaints related to foods or that they are actually getting a cortisol boost, giving them more energy, to eating foods that are bad for them. 

Good testing is essential to understanding food sensetivies for those suffering with leaky gut. The only form of testing for leaky gut and food intolerances are the test from Cyrex, Array 2 & Array 10-90x. Array 10-90x tests raw and cooked foods, combinations of foods and many common additives to foods the are present in all our diets these days.

Healthy Gut Bacteria

At the root of many gastrointestinal complaints you will find an imblance in the bacteria that live in our gut. When unhelpful bacteria are allowed to flourish in the gut this can cause inflammation and leaky gut. Some of the by products from bacteria can be particularily harmful such as LPS (lipopolysaccharides) which can cause serious systemic inflammation and oxidative stress.

Therefore restoring a good balance of comensual bacteria in the gut is key to helping people to recover from Leaky gut and inflammation. The best way to do this is to undertake the autoimmune protocol removing grains and dairy and increasing the amount of vegetables, high quality meat and good fats in your diet. 

Vegetables are particularily important to restore the bacteria in the gut, because they are high in fibre. Soluable fibre is essential for the bacteria in your gut to thrive and survive. 

I find this a good way to think about your gut: 

Your gut is like a garden, you need to feed it (fibre), water it and don’t tip in anything that is posinous (junk food, excess sugar, excess alchohol or food you are senstitive to).

The bacteria use fibre as food and the by product of this is that bacteria produce SCFA (short chain fatty acids). SCFA are essential for repair and maintenance of the gut. The most important SCFA related to immune health is Butyrate. Butyrate is very important for overall health in fact it is so important that some gastrointestinal cells will die without it and there is research suggesting that it plays a role in reducing inflammation.

The bottom line is a diet high in fibre is important for long-term health.

Therefore anyone suffering with an autoimmune condition making sure that they have a gut full of beneficial, SCFA producing bacteria is essential to healing leaky gut and positively impacting on their immune function.

And the number one strategy for doing that is to eat a wide variety of fruit and veg. Concentrate on vegetables because of the blood sugar balance risks associated with fruit. You should aim for 6-9 portions of vegetables everyday, cooked and raw. Diversity is important so don’t get stuck eating exactly the same food all the time.

It is possible to supplement with Butyrate the best strategy is for the bacteria in your gut to produce SCFA’s where they are needed in the colon. So even with supplementation a diet high in fibre is essential for a long-term effective strategy.

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