AutoImmune Protocol (AIP) Diet Explained and My Favourite Resources

Autoimmune conditions like RA can really throw a wrench into things and feel so untreatable except with heavy duty pharmaceuticals. A friend of mine under 40 years old recently was diagnosed and was surprised to learn about the connection between the gut and diet and autoimmune response.

Lately I have had some questions from clients about the AIP diet and thought more of you might be interested in this so a blog to get you the info you need has emerged out of it and this is it!

Firstly, how I help clients understand the gut and immunity connection is to have them ponder where it would make most sense for the body to have a lot of immune protection/components. It's kind of cheating because I already said we are talking about gut health but YES! in the gut ... where everyday our insides come in contact with the outside world and also possible bacteria, parasites, viruses, and other "intruders" through the food we eat.

The health of our gut-immune interface affects the whole body and restoring it to health is a key piece in addressing autoimmune conditions such as RA, Psoriasis, Celiac and Hypothyroidism (Hashimoto's thyroiditis).

This gut-immune interface can get inflamed from eating certain foods and from untreated pathogens (like parasites, bacteria, yeast, viruses) and mix the body (specifically the immune system) up so it starts in error attacking parts of our body. There are other things that impact this but sticking to diet here.

The goal of the AIP diet is to decrease inflammation coming from foods so the gut can heal and the immune system can rebalance from its overactive autoimmune state wherever in the body the autoimmunity is expressing. People generally don't think that diet could have such a powerful effect on an "autoimmune condition" but yes it absolutely can when you address the causative factors in the diet and digestive tract and help bring the body into a state of healing.

Testing food sensitivities helps identify the irritating foods for the individual but there are also foods that just by their nature have components that are anti-inflammatory and so best avoided. I just came across some excellent handouts on the YES foods for AIP diet for a client and in the process found the article I wanted to write already written ... I do love when that happens!

Dr. Sarah Ballantyne, PhD is known as PaleoMom and the following article is thorough, well-referenced and ... well she just does an excellent job with explaining all the key aspects of the diet as well as the recommended foods in a way I think you'll find comprehensive and easy to understand. Great, user friendly list of YES foods there too. (-:

Here's the link! https://www.thepaleomom.com/start-here/the-autoimmune-protocol/

And the Essential AIP Book is a great one for recipes which will help enormously with the practical piece of changing your diet. You can do this!

If you'd like support call the office at (403) 609-8385 to book in where we can see where you are at and address the other pieces that impact gut healing too. I had psoriasis in the past and know this path of healing well! xo