Turning Autoimmune Disease Around

Join Dr. James Odell for Season 2 of the Science of Self-Healing Podcast! He's the medical and executive director for BRMI, as well as a practicing naturopathic doctor for over 35 years, and he's here to share with you his extensive knowledge of medicine from a different perspective.

The Bioregulatory Medicine Institute

The Science of Self-Healing Podcast

50 million Americans live with an autoimmune disease. Nearly 80% of them are women.

If that's you, you already know the fatigue that doesn't lift, the flares that show up with no warning, the feeling that your own immune system has somehow become the enemy.

You've probably been searching for real answers for a while now.

This episode asks a different question than the one you've been asked a hundred times.

Not "how do we suppress this?"

But "why did the body lose its balance in the first place?"

In this episode, we get into:

• Why women are hit so much harder by autoimmune disease than men

• The hormone shifts that hit hardest at puberty, postpartum, and perimenopause

• The mold hiding in places you've never thought to check

• How your gut microbiome quietly tips the scales of your entire immune system

• Why your mitochondria might be running on empty

• A framework called homotoxicology that reframes autoimmune disease as the body's last, loudest attempt to protect itself, not a system simply malfunctioning

• The bioregulatory tools that work with your body instead of against it: targeted nutrients, gut repair, low-dose naltrexone, mold binders

Your immune system didn't betray you.

It's been trying to tell you something for a long time.

Let's finally turn that around.

Transcript: Turning Autoimmune Disease Around

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Science of Self-Healing podcast. For health and wellness knowledge from a different perspective. Produced by the Bioregulatory Medicine Institute, also known as BRMI. We are your source for unparalleled information about how you can naturally support your body's ability to regulate, adapt, regenerate, and self-heal. I'm your host, Dr. James Odell, the medical and executive director for BRMI, as well as a practicing naturopathic doctor for over 35 years. And remember, this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for the direct care of a qualified health professional who oversees and provides unique and individual care. The information here is to broaden our different perspectives and should not be construed as medical advice or treatment. Let's get started.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Science of Self-Healing.

Today we're tackling something that's quietly become one of the biggest health stories of our time: autoimmune disease. We're going to get into why women bear the brunt of this so much more than men, what's changed in our environment that's driving the numbers up, why your gut and your mitochondria end up at the center of all of it, and what a bioregulatory approach to actually turning things around looks like. Conditions like Hashimoto's thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, Sjögren's syndrome, psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease, and celiac disease are showing up more and more, and they're hitting women hard. Right now, an estimated 50 million Americans are living with some form of autoimmune disease, and nearly 80 percent of them are women.

Conventional medicine has gotten better at diagnosing these conditions and managing symptoms, but here's the frustrating part: a lot of women are still dealing with fatigue, pain, digestive issues, hormone swings, brain fog, and inflammation even while they're "on treatment." So the real question is, why is this happening, and why is it happening to women so much more than men?

A Different Way of Looking at the Immune System

From a bioregulatory medicine point of view, autoimmune disease isn't just a case of the immune system going rogue and attacking the body for no reason. It's better understood as a breakdown in the body's ability to regulate itself. Your genetics, your hormones, what you're exposed to environmentally, what you eat, how stressed you are, the state of your gut microbiome, even how well your mitochondria are working, all of that is talking to your immune system constantly. When that conversation breaks down, the door opens for autoimmune disease.

Why Women Get Hit So Much Harder

Let's start with why women get hit so much harder. The numbers are honestly striking: about 90 percent of lupus patients are women, and women also make up the overwhelming majority of Hashimoto's, Sjögren's, and rheumatoid arthritis cases. A big piece of that comes down to hormones. Estrogen actually helps regulate inflammation and immune activity throughout a woman's life, but it's not static, it rises and falls dramatically at certain points, and those fluctuations can throw immune regulation off balance. That's why so many women notice their first autoimmune symptoms during puberty, pregnancy, the postpartum period, perimenopause, or menopause.

The postpartum window is especially interesting. During pregnancy, the immune system actually shifts gears to protect the developing baby. After delivery, it has to rebound back to its pre-pregnancy state, and for women who already have an underlying genetic susceptibility, that rebound can be the trigger that sets autoimmune symptoms in motion.

Genetics play a role too. Women carry two X chromosomes, and a lot of immune-related genes live on that chromosome, so there's more going on genetically when it comes to immune regulation. And on top of that, women's immune systems are simply more reactive than men's. That's a good thing when you're fighting off an infection, but that same heightened vigilance is part of what makes it more likely the immune system will occasionally turn on healthy tissue. So really, this isn't about an immune system that's too strong, it's about one that's lost its sense of where to draw the line.

What's Changed in Our Environment

Now, genetics alone can't explain why autoimmune disease has exploded the way it has over just a few decades, our genes haven't changed that fast. That points the finger squarely at environment and lifestyle.

Think about everything modern life throws at the body: industrial chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, air pollution, hormone-disrupting compounds in everyday products. A lot of these substances mess with hormone signaling, ramp up oxidative stress, and interfere with normal immune function, and over years of exposure, that adds up to real strain on the body's regulatory systems.

Mold is a big one that doesn't get talked about enough. Water-damaged buildings can harbor molds that produce mycotoxins, and for people who are sensitive, that exposure can trigger something called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, or MCAS. Basically, mast cells start dumping out histamine and other inflammatory chemicals, and you end up with fatigue, brain fog, digestive trouble, headaches, skin reactions, and food sensitivities. Some researchers are even looking into whether EMF exposure from wireless technology might make mycotoxin production worse, which is part of why reducing EMF exposure and addressing mold are both worth taking seriously.

Some practitioners also point to chronic parasitic burden as another piece of this puzzle. But here's the nuance: parasites usually aren't the root problem on their own. They tend to move in when the terrain's already compromised, especially when mold toxicity, gut dysfunction, and sluggish detoxification have already worn down the body's natural defenses.

Diet has shifted dramatically too. So many of us are eating diets built around ultra-processed foods, refined sugar, industrial seed oils, artificial additives, the works, and that pattern is tied to chronic low-grade inflammation and a gut microbiome that's out of balance. Food isn't just fuel, by the way. It's information your cells are reading constantly, and it shapes how your immune system behaves.

A Note on COVID-19 Vaccines

Now here's a topic that's come up a lot for women already managing autoimmune disease: COVID-19 vaccines. The mRNA vaccines work by giving your cells a snippet of genetic instructions to build a small piece of the virus's spike protein. Your immune system spots that protein, flags it as foreign, and mounts a full response, antibodies, memory cells, the works. Rheumatology studies have found that a real percentage of patients experience a flare in their disease after vaccination, and that shows up with both autoimmune conditions and certain cancers, including what some researchers are calling turbo-cancers. There's also growing evidence pointing toward new-onset autoimmune disease following vaccination, things like autoimmune glomerulonephritis, autoimmune rheumatic disease, and autoimmune hepatitis. So if you're already dealing with an autoimmune condition, it's worth being cautious here and talking it through carefully with a practitioner you trust.

And then there's stress, which never seems to let up. Women today are juggling careers, caregiving, financial pressure, family demands, and a nonstop stream of digital noise. When your stress response is switched on for too long, it disrupts the conversation between your nervous system, your hormones, and your immune system. Over time, that shows up as inflammation, hormone dysfunction, poor sleep, digestive issues, and a body that just can't bounce back the way it used to. Adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha and rhodiola are often used here to help the body recalibrate that stress response.

The Gut-Immune Connection

A lot of these threads, the mold exposure, the mast cell activation, the chronic stress, all converge on one place: the gut. And that's worth its own conversation, because the connection between gut health and immune function might be the single most important piece of this whole puzzle. About seventy percent of your immune system actually lives in your gastrointestinal tract. The intestinal lining is supposed to act like a gatekeeper, letting nutrients through while keeping out anything that shouldn't be there. When that barrier gets compromised, what people often call "leaky gut," partially digested food particles and bacterial fragments can slip into the bloodstream and stir up the immune system. That's not necessarily the root cause of autoimmune disease on its own, but it can absolutely keep the fire burning in people who are already susceptible.

And the trillions of microbes living in your gut aren't just along for the ride. They're actively shaping digestion, nutrient absorption, hormone metabolism, and immune regulation. Antibiotics, poor diet, chronic stress, toxins, and infections can all throw that microbial community out of balance, a state called dysbiosis, and research keeps linking dysbiosis to one autoimmune condition after another. This is basically terrain theory in action: the idea that health isn't about waging war on invaders one at a time, it's about the condition of the internal environment those invaders are trying to survive in. A balanced gut terrain keeps things in check. A disrupted one invites trouble. That's exactly why restoring gut integrity and microbial balance is such a foundational piece of bioregulatory care.

The Energy Crisis Behind the Exhaustion

Now let's talk about something almost every woman with autoimmune disease will tell you about: exhaustion. Not the kind of tired that a good night's sleep fixes, the kind that sticks around even when bloodwork comes back "normal" and the disease is supposedly under control. A lot of that traces back to your mitochondria, the tiny structures inside nearly every cell that generate the energy your body needs for repair, communication, detoxification, and immune regulation. When chronic inflammation, toxic exposure, nutrient deficiencies, oxidative stress, infections, or long-term stress wear mitochondria down, energy production drops, and that's when you get the fatigue, the brain fog, the muscle weakness, the sense that your body just can't keep up anymore. Supporting mitochondrial health isn't about masking symptoms, it's about restoring the body's actual capacity to regulate itself.

Seeing the Bigger Picture

Which brings us to the bigger picture. Conventional medicine describes autoimmune disease as the immune system mistakenly attacking the body's own tissue, and that's true, but it's only part of the explanation. The deeper question is why the body's regulatory systems lost their balance in the first place. Your immune system doesn't operate alone. It's in constant communication with your nervous system, your hormones, your gut microbiome, your mitochondria, and your detox pathways. When that communication breaks down, the result isn't usually one isolated problem, it's a body that's struggling on multiple fronts at once. That's why so many women with autoimmune disease also deal with digestive issues, sleep problems, anxiety, nutrient deficiencies, hormonal shifts, and environmental sensitivities, all at the same time. Those aren't separate problems. They're symptoms of the same underlying loss of regulation.

There's actually a name for this in bioregulatory medicine: homotoxicology. It's the idea that the body handles toxic burden, environmental, dietary, even emotional, in phases, and it will do almost anything to keep that burden away from the vital organs, even if that means pushing it out through the skin, the joints, or eventually the immune system itself. Looked at that way, autoimmune disease isn't so much a malfunction as it is the body's last, most visible attempt to manage a load it's been carrying for a long time.

So What Can Actually Be Done About It?

A bioregulatory approach doesn't start with suppressing symptoms, it starts with finding and removing whatever's driving chronic inflammation in the first place. That might mean uncovering hidden food sensitivities, treating a chronic infection that's been flying under the radar, or finally getting a handle on poor sleep, but for a lot of people, the biggest piece is mold exposure. Considering that nearly half of U.S. homes show some evidence of dampness or water damage, this is a bigger issue than most people realize, and no amount of supplements or detox protocols can outrun an environment that's still triggering the immune system every single day. Once that source of exposure is identified and dealt with, the body's own healing mechanisms tend to work a lot better. Often, binders like activated charcoal or chlorella are used alongside that process to help mop up residual mycotoxins.

From there, supporting the body's natural detox pathways, the liver, kidneys, gut, skin, and lymphatic system, makes a real difference. Good hydration, nutrient-dense food, regular movement, sweating, and quality sleep all help these systems do their job.

Healing the gut is foundational too, restoring microbial diversity with targeted probiotics and prebiotic fiber, supporting digestion, and rebuilding that intestinal barrier with gut-supportive foods like bone broth, so the immune system can stand down and start tolerating things again instead of reacting to everything.

One more tool worth mentioning here is low-dose naltrexone, or LDN. At these very small doses, it doesn't work the way naltrexone does at higher doses, instead, it appears to nudge the immune system toward better regulation, calming the inflammatory overdrive behind so many autoimmune flares. It's not a fix on its own, but for a lot of women, it's been a meaningful piece of getting symptoms under control while the deeper work, gut healing, toxin reduction, nutrient repletion, happens in the background.

Nutrient status matters more than people realize. Vitamin D, magnesium, selenium, zinc, omega-3 fatty acids, and B vitamins, especially thiamine, all play direct roles in immune regulation, energy production, and managing inflammation, and deficiencies in these are incredibly common among women with autoimmune disease.

And don't underestimate sunlight. Beyond vitamin D, sunlight helps regulate your circadian rhythm, supports mitochondrial function, and promotes a more balanced immune response. A little time outdoors every day sends your body signals that genuinely support resilience.

Finally, nervous system regulation has to be part of the picture: mindfulness, breathwork, restorative movement, time in nature, and protecting your sleep all help shift the body out of fight-or-flight and into actual repair mode.

The Takeaway

Here's the thing I want you to walk away with: the rise in autoimmune disease among women isn't just bad luck or "getting older." It's a signal that modern life is putting real strain on the body's regulatory systems, and while genetics set the stage, they don't write the whole story. Environment and lifestyle do a lot of the talking. Immune health, gut health, mitochondrial function, hormones, environment, nervous system, they're all connected, and working with that whole system, instead of chasing one symptom at a time, is where real healing starts.

And maybe that's the most encouraging part of all of this: the body has an extraordinary capacity to adapt, repair, and heal. Autoimmune disease reflects a loss of regulation, sure, but most of what tips that balance is modifiable. Remove the obstacles, support what the body's already trying to do, and real, lasting wellness isn't just possible. It's the body's natural direction, given half a chance to turn autoimmune disease around.

That's all for this episode. Tune in again in two weeks for another Science of Self-Healing. Until then, be well.

Thank you for your time today, and remember that this podcast is made possible by the Bioregulatory Medicine Institute, also known as BRMI, a nonprofit, global, non political, non commercial institute to promote the science and art of bioregulatory medicine. We extend our gratitude to each and every one of you for listening today, and if you haven't already, make sure to visit us at brmi.online. A treasure trove of invaluable information awaits you there. Connect with us across various social media platforms as well. Come and become a member of our thriving tribe. If you've enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to show your support by rating us, leaving us a review, or sharing the podcast within your circle. Our podcast and mission flourish through sharing, and your participation means the world to us. Our organization is sustained by donations, each of which is tax deductible and fuels projects like this. Visit our website, brmi.online, to contribute or simply to explore the wealth of uncensored and impartial information we offer. No contribution is too small. In just two weeks, we'll be back delving into another captivating topic. Until then, we thank you once again for listening. May wellness and wisdom be your path. Be well.

Bioregulatory medicine is a total body (and mind) approach to health and healing that aims to help facilitate and restore natural human biological processes. It is a proven, safe, gentle, highly effective, drugless, and side-effect-free medical model designed to naturally support the body to regulate, adapt, regenerate, and self-heal. BRMI is a non-commercial 501(c)(3) foundation and will expand and flourish with your support. Our goal is to make bioregulatory medicine a household term.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for the direct care of a qualified health practitioner who oversees and provides unique and individualized care. The information provided here is to broaden our different perspectives and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.