Health Matters
From "Maple Street Co-op News", Feb/Mar 2005
Chemicals and the Immune System (Part 3)
by Kathryn Alexander, DThD
To most of us, immunity means the ability to resist infection and the
implementation of vaccination programs to reduce the incidence of epidemics.
But while we boast that we no longer have to deal with the plague or
the measles, we ignore the magnitude of other health problems related
to immune
dysfunction such as the rise in incidence in allergies, cancers of the
immune system (lymphomas, myelomas) and auto-immune disease. In fact,
some immunologists suggest that the "decrease in immune function
is most likely the same (50% or less) as the decrease in reproductive
capacity" and
correlate this with the millions of tons of toxic chemicals that have
been dumped into the environment.[1]
If these chemicals do cause immune system suppression – and there
is plenty of evidence to indicate that they do – it would certainly
explain the emergence of immune deficiency syndromes and the sudden
appearance of strange "new" virally triggered diseases such
as CFIDS (chronic fatigue immune
dysfunction syndrome), CJD (the human form of mad cow disease), ICL
(idiopathic CD4+ T-lymphocytopenia, a profound immune suppression without
evidence of HIV infection) and the rise in allergies such as asthma
which has increased worldwide at the rate of about 50% per decade, not
to mention the pandemic occurrence of auto-immune diseases.
Toxic chemicals and immune dysfunction
Evidence supporting a cause-effect relationship between toxic chemicals
and immune dysfunction is hard to amass, and once again we look to correlative
evidence in animal and human populations.
During the mid-1980s to early 1990s, we witnessed disease epidemics
in our marine life where colonies of dying seals, dolphins and porpoises
were washed ashore. In 1987, 20,000 North Sea harbour seals were beached,
and a similar fate occurred in the 1990s to dolphins in the Mediterranean.
In the case of the dolphins, mortality was blamed on a relatively weak
distemper virus which had
never harmed the dolphins before. On autopsy, these animals were found
to have up to 400 times the normal levels of organic toxic chemicals
(PCBs and dioxins) in their fat and brain tissue.
These findings echoed the results of previous investigations where the
magnitude of the immunesuppressive effect of these chemicals (up to
a 50% reduction in immune competence) was discovered. Without a functional
immune system, these animals were unable to resist even harmless bacteria
and viruses.
The Arctic Ocean is heavily contaminated with these chemicals, and populations
such as the Inuit who depend upon marine life for food have the highest
levels of PCBs found in any population. Their children have pronounced
immune system deficiencies; meningitis and inner-ear infections occur
at rates 30 times those of American children; and they cannot be vaccinated
since they do not
produce any antibody response.[2]
These disasters may seem remote from our experience, but other forms
of immune dysfunction – such as the rise in incidence in auto-immune
disease – plague the West. There are around 80 autoimmune diseases
which include multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, insulin-dependent
diabetes
mellitus (IDDM), Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, Grave's and Hashimoto's
thyroiditis and lupus. In the United States, 14 to 22 million citizens
(5–8% of the population) are affected; and although genetic susceptibility
does play a role, the genetic pool does not change that radically to
account for this increase. Therefore we look to the involvement of environmental
factors.[3]
In auto-immune disease, the immune system starts to attack its own tissues.
The programming of the immune system to recognise "self" occurs
during the foetal phase in the thymus gland.
We have two main branches of immune cells: the B cells, which have the
capacity to form antibodies to foreign tissue or bacteria; and the T
cells, which then authorise the destructive phase. If your B cells form
antibodies to your own tissues and the T helper cells authorise the
go-ahead, then we see
the onset of auto-immune disease.
However, a properly programmed immune system allows for such a possibility
and has a colony of T suppressor cells which can inhibit any self-attack.
It is suggested that toxins may directly affect the programming of the
immune system during the foetal stage, leading to an imbalance in activity
between the T helper and T suppressor cells.
That toxins do affect development of the immune system has been confirmed,
but no correlation as yet has been made with auto-immune disease. However,
what has been identified is that persistent viral infection can be a
triggering mechanism.4 Links have been made between Coxsackie virus
(aseptic meningitis) and IDDM; between Epstein–Barr virus and
human herpes virus 6 and MS; between Helicobacter pylori and gastric
autoimmunity; and between Listeria and mycobacterium and Crohn's disease.
In genetically predisposed individuals, the antibody produced to arrest
the specific pathogen may also cross-react with normal tissue. Normally
the T suppressor cells would not authorise any crossreactivity (and
indeed, patients may often carry these auto-antibodies for years before
the disease
expresses itself), but increasingly we are finding this not to be the
case.
If we take the global increase in the incidence of IDDM in children,
we see an annual increase of 12% in the UK and 10% in New Zealand. In
the US, 13,000 new cases of childhood IDDM are diagnosed annually –
a figure which is greater than the annual incidence of childhood cancer.
There is little information on the disease, but spikes or dramatic rises
in the US in the mid-1980s coincided with an outbreak of aseptic meningitis.[5]
This points to cross-reactivity of the immune complex with the islet
cells of the pancreas. Perhaps this may explain why vaccinations may
be implicated in the onset of auto-immune disease.
Essentially, immune dysfunction means an inappropriate response to antigens
(whether they be bacteria or viruses, pollens, foods or chemicals) which
is harmful to the host.
Auto-immune disease and oestrogen levels
Interestingly, 80% of people with auto-immune disease are female, so
attention is beginning to focus on the role of oestrogen.
Declining oestrogen levels at menopause are in fact associated with
the onset of auto-immune disease in predisposed women. In younger women
presenting with an auto-immune disease, symptoms are alleviated during
pregnancy. This indicates there is a protective role for oestrogen.[6]
Although it is almost impossible to prove a cause-effect relationship
between the endocrine-disruptive chemicals and immune dysfunction, we
do know that the reproductive hormones modulate the immune system (they
can turn it on, or tone it down) and that environmental oestrogens have
deleterious
effects on natural oestrogen production, its activity and its metabolism
(see previous articles on chemicals and fertility and hormone-sensitive
cancers, "Maple Street Co-op News" Aug/Sep 2004, Oct/Nov 2004,
Dec 2004/Jan 2005).
Perhaps we are not so far off from scientifically proving the link between
chemicals and immune dysfunction.
Protecting ourselves from pollution
I have only covered in brief some of the major trends in immune dysfunction.
Dr Robert Repetto, in his report, "Pesticides and the Immune System",
indicates that the greatest risk from pesticides may well lie in the
impairment of human and animal immune systems. His report gives a comprehensive
overview of pesticides and immune dysfunction, referencing many epidemiological
studies.
[7]
What can we do? Again, my message is the same: we need to limit our
exposure to these chemicals, and communities need to start to tackle
these problems locally. Pollution spreads; it is not containable. Therefore
the more concerted our effort, the greater our protection.
Endnotes
1. "The immune incompetence theory of disease",
http://www.gvi.com/gviWeb/IAAM/immune.html
2. "Pesticides and the Immune System: Overview", http://www.ghchealth.com/pesticides-and-theimmune-
system-overview.html
3. "When the immune system goes on the attack",
http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v5/n8/pdf/7400217.pdf
4. ibid.
5. "Prevalence and incidence of Insulin-Dependent Diabetes",
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/america/pdf/chapter3.pdf
6. "The gender gap in auto-immune disease", http://rubella.net/Autoimmunity/GenderGap.htm
7. "Pesticides and the Immune System: Overview", op. cit.
[Kathryn Alexander is a Maleny-based nutritional healing and detoxification
expert and is available for personal consultations and workshops. She
is the author of "Get ALife: The Detoxification Diet Made Easy!"
(on sale at the Co-op). Kathryn can be contacted on (07) 5435 8138 or
0414 702520
(mobile), or via her website at http://www.getalife.net.au.]
[From "Maple Street Co-op News", Feb/Mar 2005; published by
The Maple Street Co-operative Society Ltd, 37 Maple Street, Maleny,
Qld 4552, Australia, tel (07) 5494 2088, email maplest.coop@serv.net.au,
website http://www.maplestreetco-op.com.au]