Now, if you personally have an autoimmune disease, or you know someone who has an autoimmune disease, this video is so vitally important. And I think many times people give you advice in what to do, or even doctors or videos tell you what to do based on maybe a study, you know, you hear a study that says, well, if you do this, your risk for autoimmune disease decreases by 50% or whatever. Well, that's cool, but I want to know why, and this video is all about why, and it's about the path of physiology, or the mechanism of how this disease is created. And it has everything to do with several factors, but a vitamin D deficiency is at the heart of this problem. In fact, some will say you can't even get an autoimmune disease unless you first have some type of vitamin D deficiency in the first place, which is fascinating.
An autoimmune disorder involves this perfect storm of various things that must occur at the same time. A vitamin D deficiency, that would be number one. Number two, it's usually triggered by maybe a virus or a bacteria or another pathogen. You can be exposed to something weakening your immune system, like a vaccine. You can also be exposed to stress, and the worse stress is losses. That's why there is a huge connection between people who have losses and then developing autoimmune issues. And we also know a big part of this originates in your gut, because your diet's not right. That triggered the whole mechanism. And as an additional thing, you can have a genetic weakness or susceptibility to autoimmune diseases in general, or you could have a genetic weakness with either the absorption of vitamin D, or the conversion of the inactive vitamin D to the active vitamin D, which is very applicable to me, because I found out I have that problem. I have a hard time converting the inactive vitamin D to the active form, which explains a lot of my history of having all sorts of inflammatory conditions. But thank goodness, I know enough to keep my lifestyle in check to prevent certain genes from kicking in. And that's really cool about this topic of epigenetics. If you really understand epigenetics, which I am including more and more in my videos, even though you have certain genes that make you susceptible to all these conditions, you personally can prevent all these conditions from occurring. You can keep these genes turned off 100%. And all it takes is knowledge, and that's what this video is all about.
So vitamin D deficiency is the most important thing in relationship to autoimmune diseases. Now, there are many barriers to getting vitamin D that go beyond just the genetic one that I just recently found out I have. If you're obese, you're going to have problems absorbing vitamin D. If you have insulin resistance, okay, you're going to have a hard time absorbing vitamin D. If your skin is a little bit darker, you're going to need more vitamin D to break through the barrier. And during the winter, you're not going to get vitamin D, or you're inside all the time, it's becoming more and more difficult to get vitamin D. Not to mention, as you age, your skin becomes thicker and you don't get enough vitamin D.
All right, so what is this relationship between vitamin D and your immune system being overactive? When you think about an autoimmune disease, you think about some crazy immune response that your body is attacking itself. It's generating antibodies. That means certain immune cells that are against your own tissue, which is insane. Why would your body do that? There must be some massive confusion.
Well, when we talk about vitamin D, what's unique about vitamin D is that it controls your very complex immune system. It can either increase or boost or decrease or suppress certain parts of the immune system. And when you think about vitamin D suppressing the immune system, you might automatically think, well, I don't want to do that, because that's going to weaken my immune system. Well, just hear me out, because I've never met anyone who had a weakened immune system by taking Vitamin D, and you're going to learn exactly why.
Now, to explain this, I do want to bring up some new terms for you, but I'm going to define them. I think it's really important for you to understand this. So in an autoimmune situation where you have this inflammation, inflammation is the hallmark of autoimmune issues. This is why the number one selling drug on the planet is an anti-inflammatory. And that just means a lot of people have autoimmune diseases as well as inflammatory diseases. So when you have this immune inflammation, there are several things that are turned on, OK? And the first one I'm going to talk about is something called NF-κB. And without getting technical, this is something that triggers a lot of inflammation and is part of the immune system defense mechanism. So inflammation is there to help you, well, in theory anyway. And so any time you have an infection, any time you have an autoimmune disease, you have this NFκB thing in active mode. It's always turned on. When you have an autoimmune disease or you have cancer, cancer tends to spread into areas of inflammation. Interesting. In fact, one of the new strategies for treating cancer is to block NFκB. And this NFκB is triggered by pathogens, heavy metals, stress, few other things like oxidized LDL, which is kind of like this bad cholesterol that can invade your arteries. This is going to involve inflammation and cause plaque formation and clots in new arteries. But what's interesting is that they are finding more and more that the plaque in the arteries is biofilms filled with microbes. So what's probably happening is your immune system is trying to kill off the microbe, and that's why it's there.
Now, this NF-κB thing that's critical, this inflammation is coming from this big cell called the macrophage, and the macrophage is kind of like the first line of a defense mechanism, where it's going around and it's literally eating pathogens and cancer cells, and it's also signaling other parts of the immune system to turn on certain defense mechanisms, one being inflammation. And so this NF-κB thing, it's kind of like the start of this whole immune process, right? You have this inflammation, but then there's a cascade of things that are going to happen next, and most of them involve more inflammation.
Okay, I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the term cytokine, but I do want to bring that up because that is part of this inflammatory process. Cytokines are signaling communication things that are involved with inflammation. And there are several different cytokines that I want to talk about, because they directly relate to the topic at hand, which is vitamin D in autoimmune diseases. And so let me just first define the word interleukin. Inter means as a means of communication. Leukin basically is related to a leukocyte site, which is a white blood cell, or targeted at a leukocyte site. So interleukin basically is this communication between white blood cells. Okay, so that's all you need to know about that. And so there are many different types of interleukins. There's like, I think there are 50 different kinds. The two that I'm going to talk about are the interleukin or IL-1β, which very basically and simply is recruiting other parts of the immune system. It's like saying, hey, I need more help in this immune reaction. Okay, so that's what an IL-1β does. And another one, which is an interesting one, which is IL or interleukin 6, this one also recruits more inflammation, more immune help. It's involved in something called C-reactive protein, another inflammatory protein. But what's interesting to me about this IL-6 is, on my genetic test, I have a problem with this protein. Okay? My genetics show that I'm a hyper responder, so when I have an immune reaction, I'm going to respond a lot worse than the average person, which is not good, but it's good that I know what to do about it. This also explains a lot that happened in my past, like if I overtrain, I will end up with a lot of inflammation. If I eat poorly, I will just fill up with inflammation. If I get poison ivy, I will react way more than the average person. But the cool thing, which is the whole point of this video, is that vitamin D turns this off. It just turns it off like a switch.
And personally, because I don't convert vitamin D well, I need to take Vitamin D in much higher amounts than the average person, like at least ten to twenty thousand IUs I use, if not a little bit more per day. But of course, I don't have any autoimmune problems, so I don't need to take necessarily like forty or fifty thousand IUs, but ten to twenty thousand IUs is a good amount for me.
There are some other things that you can do to turn off this inflammatory process, because if you have an autoimmune disease, you want to really have a multi-approach to this problem. So omega-three fatty acids. Cod liver oil. It's a must, very, very important as a natural anti-inflammatory. But omega-six fatty acids compete with omega-three. So if you're just consuming omega-three fatty acids and you're not eliminating omega-six fatty acids, it's not going to work, so you have to do both. OK? This means avoiding certain foods going to restaurants, junk foods, cooking with omega-six fatty acids, like corn, canola, soy. Instead, you could do like olive oil, coconut oil, things like that, butter. But make sure you do a lot of omega-three fatty acids. Here's the confusion: A lot of people have omega-three fatty acids. They think if they just take a little bit of it, it should knock out the inflammation really fast. Well, if you're deficient in omega-three fatty acids and your ratios are not like a one to one, OK, realize that a lot of people have like a ratio of twenty-six omega-six to one omega-three, they're so far out of balance, it's going to take months, if not a few years, to re-establish in your immune system, in your nervous system, enough of the omega-three, so you just need to make it part of your new lifestyle. And just include it as a regular thing, like a couple tablespoons, or if you get them in capsules, you know, take a good amount of that each day.
A couple other things you can do. Curcumin is really important for reducing inflammation. We even found blueberries, if you eat a couple blueberries a day, you can actually decrease this interleukin 6. There's another cytokine that I'm going to talk about, and this is an interesting thing, because it's called tumor necrosis factor. Basically, it's this immune protein that destroys tumors and viruses. So as soon as a virus invades a cell, boy, this tumor necrosis factor kicks in there. And in the process, there's a lot of inflammation going on. In an autoimmune disease, you have a lot of this tumor necrosis factor being generated. And guess what? What if there's no pathogen? Like in an autoimmune disease, the pathogen is gone, you just have this immune reaction. Thank goodness, vitamin D is there to actually turn things off.
Now, the last one I kind of want to talk about is called COX. Now, maybe you've heard of COX inhibitors, like Aspirin is a COX inhibitor. It turns off this inflammatory signal in the body. And again, the original reason why you have this COX-2 is to help fight pathogens. It's like a defense mechanism. This is why, with any reason you need aspirin, you could very easily just do higher amounts of vitamin D to turn it off. But there are some other really cool things you should know about to inhibit or stop this COX-2 reaction from happening. Maitake mushrooms are a natural COX-2 inhibitor. Omega-three fatty acids, like the kind in cod liver oil, are another inhibitor of COX-2. Hyperforin, which is a compound in St. John's Wort, inhibits COX-2. In fact, in certain studies, it can work 18 times stronger than aspirin for pain. You think of St. John's Wort to help regulate serotonin for depression, but it also has a potent anti-pain effect.
But don't forget vitamin D! If anyone has an autoimmune disease and they're not taking vitamin D, good amounts of it, they just simply are very unaware. And they need to watch this video. If the doctor who is treating you for autoimmune doesn't suggest this, there is a severe gap in knowledge on the relationship between vitamin D and the immune system, you should have them watch a video.
Now, I've talked about vitamin D being the "off-switch" to a certain part of the immune system. There's another off-switch to just generally your T cells, OK, and your B cells, that's another part of the immune system. And this is a very good thing in an autoimmune disease, because vitamin D receptors are all over the T cells and the B cells, way more than on phagocytes. Now, so far, I've talked about the suppression of your immune system. Now I want to talk about what gets activated, what gets boosted, with taking vitamin D. There are three very powerful, yet ancient defensive peptides. They go way back on the evolutionary track defense mechanism. These three things tend to surround the pathogens and just poke thousands of holes through them, effectively obliterating the pathogen. One's called Cathelicidin. Another one's called LL-37. And the last one is called beta-defensin. Now, these names are not important. All you need to know is it's another part of the immune system that gets boosted. Okay, think about this. When you take a steroid for autoimmune disease, all you're doing is you're suppressing the entire immune system. Vitamin D selectively turns things off, but selectively turns other things on, so it's not going to weaken your immune system.
So now you know the importance and the significance of using vitamin D for an autoimmune disease. There's definitely other things to do as well. If you haven't seen this video, okay, the one on gut health, like the thing that starts the whole process in the first place, I put that up right here. Check it out.
更标准的一版翻译：
现在，如果你个人患有自身免疫性疾病，或者你知道有人患有自身免疫性疾病，这个视频是至关重要的。我认为很多时候，人们会告诉你要怎么做，甚至医生或视频也会根据某个研究告诉你该怎么做，比如你听说一项研究说，如果你这样做，你患自身免疫性疾病的风险会降低50%或其他数值。嗯，这很酷，但我想知道为什么，而这个视频就是关于为什么的，是关于生理学路径，或者这种疾病是如何形成的机制。它与几个因素有关，但维生素D缺乏是问题的核心。事实上，有人说你甚至不会得自身免疫性疾病，除非你首先就有某种类型的维生素D缺乏，这很吸引人。
自身免疫性疾病涉及多种因素同时发生的“完美风暴”。维生素D缺乏，这是第一条。第二条，它通常是由病毒、细菌或其他病原体引发的。你可能接触到削弱免疫系统的东西，比如疫苗。你也可能承受压力，而最糟糕的压力是损失。这就是为什么在经历损失的人与随后发展出自身免疫问题之间存在巨大关联。我们也知道这个问题很大一部分源于你的肠道，因为你的饮食不健康。这触发了整个机制。此外，你可能存在遗传上的易感性或对自身免疫性疾病易感，或者你可能有遗传缺陷，影响维生素D的吸收，或将非活性维生素D转化为活性维生素D的转化过程，这对我非常有共鸣，因为我发现我有这个问题。我很难将非活性维生素D转化为活性形式，这解释了我曾经患有各种炎症状况的历史。但谢天谢地，我知道足够多，能够保持我的生活方式并加以检查，以防止某些基因被激活。这就是表观遗传学这个主题真正酷的地方。如果你真正理解了表观遗传学（我越来越多的在视频中提及），即使你拥有让你对所有这些问题都易感的某些基因，你个人也能防止所有这些情况发生。你可以让这些基因保持100%关闭。而做到这一切所需要的只是知识，这就是本视频的全部内容。
因此，维生素D缺乏是与自身免疫性疾病关系中最重要的一点。现在，除了我最近发现的那个遗传障碍外，还有许多障碍阻碍人们获得维生素D。如果你肥胖，你在吸收维生素D方面会有问题。如果你有胰岛素抵抗，那么你在吸收维生素D方面会很困难。如果你的皮肤颜色较深，你需要更多的维生素D来突破这个屏障。在冬天，你无法获取维生素D，或者你一直待在室内，获取维生素D变得越来越困难。更不用说随着年龄增长，你的皮肤变厚，你无法获得足够的维生素D。
那么，维生素D和免疫系统过度活跃之间是什么关系呢？当你想到自身免疫性疾病时，你会想到那种身体攻击自身的疯狂免疫反应。它会产生抗体。这意味着某些免疫细胞对抗你自己的组织，这简直疯狂。为什么你的身体会这么做？一定存在某种巨大的混乱。
嗯，当我们谈论维生素D时，维生素D的独特之处在于它控制着你非常复杂的免疫系统。它可以增加或增强、也可以减少或抑制免疫系统的某些部分。而当你想到维生素D会抑制免疫系统时，你可能会自动想到，哦，我不想那样做，因为这会削弱我的免疫系统。嗯，听我说完，因为我从未见过有人因服用维生素D而削弱了免疫系统，你将确切了解其原因。
为了解释这一点，我确实想为你介绍一些新术语，但我会定义它们。我认为理解这一点对你非常重要。所以在自身免疫情况下，你有这种炎症，炎症是自身免疫问题的标志。这就是为什么全球销量第一的药物是消炎药。这仅仅意味着很多人患有自身免疫性疾病以及炎症性疾病。所以当你患有这种免疫炎症时，有几个关键因子被激活了，对吧？我首先要谈的是一个叫做NF-κB的东西。简单来说，这是触发大量炎症、并属于免疫系统防御机制一部分的东西。所以，至少在理论上，炎症是为了帮助你。因此，任何时候你受到感染，或患有自身免疫性疾病，这个NF-κB就处于激活模式。它总是开启的。当你患有自身免疫性疾病或癌症时，癌症往往会扩展到炎症区域。有趣的是，事实上，治疗癌症的新策略之一就是阻断NF-κB。而这个NF-κB是由病原体、重金属、压力和其他一些因素触发的，例如氧化的低密度脂蛋白（LDL，类似于会侵入你动脉的坏胆固醇）。这会导致炎症，并引起斑块形成和新动脉中的血栓。但有趣的是，他们越来越多地发现动脉中的斑块是由微生物组成的生物膜。所以可能发生的情况是，你的免疫系统试图杀死这些微生物，这就是炎症存在的原因。
这个关键因子NF-κB及其触发的炎症信号，来自于一种叫做巨噬细胞（macrophage）的大细胞，巨噬细胞就像是防御机制的第一道防线，它四处游走，吞噬病原体和癌细胞，同时它还会向免疫系统其他部分发出信号，启动特定的防御机制，其中之一就是炎症。所以这个NF-κB，就像是整个免疫过程的起点，对吧？你有了这种炎症，但接下来会有一连串的事情发生，其中大部分涉及更多的炎症。
好了，我不确定你是否听说过细胞因子（cytokine）这个术语，但我确实想提一下，因为它是炎症过程的一部分。细胞因子是参与炎症的信号传导因子。有几种不同的细胞因子我想谈谈，因为它们直接关系到当前主题，即维生素D在自身免疫性疾病中的作用。所以让我先定义白细胞介素（interleukin）这个词。“Inter”代表一种交流方式。“Leukin”基本上源于白细胞（leukocyte），或针对白细胞（leukocyte）。所以白细胞介素（interleukin）基本上就是白细胞之间的通讯方式。好了，这就是你需要了解的全部。所以白细胞介素有许多不同类型。我想大概有50种。我将要讨论的两种是白细胞介素-1β (IL-1β)，极其简单地说，它是招募免疫系统其他部分的。这就像在说，嘿，我在这个免疫反应中需要更多帮助。好的，这就是IL-1β的作用。另一个有趣的是白细胞介素-6 (IL-6)，它也招募更多的炎症，更多的免疫支援。它与C-反应蛋白（C-reactive protein）有关，这是另一种炎症蛋白。但对我来说，这个IL-6有趣之处在于，在我的基因检测中，我发现我与这个蛋白有关联的问题。我的基因显示我是一个高反应者，所以当我发生免疫反应时，我会比普通人反应差很多，这不好，但好在我知道该怎么做。这也解释了我过去发生的很多事情，比如如果我训练过度，最终会引发大量炎症。如果我吃得不好，就会充满炎症。如果我接触到毒藤（poison ivy），我的反应会比普通人强烈得多。但很酷的一点，也是本视频的全部重点，是维生素D会关闭这一切。它就像开关一样将其关闭。
就我个人而言，因为我不善于转化维生素D，所以我需要摄入比普通人多得多的维生素D，比如每天至少服用1万到2万国际单位（IU），如果不多加一点的话。但当然，我现在没有任何自身免疫问题，所以我并不需要服用像4万或5万国际单位（IU）那么高的剂量，但1万到2万国际单位（IU）对我来说是一个合适的量。
你还可以做一些其他事情来关闭这个炎症过程，因为如果你患有自身免疫性疾病，你真的需要采取多种方法来解决这个问题。所以欧米伽-3（omega-3）脂肪酸。鳕鱼肝油（Cod liver oil）。这是必需的，作为一种天然的强效消炎剂，非常重要。但欧米伽-6（omega-6）脂肪酸会与欧米伽-3（omega-3）脂肪酸竞争。所以如果你只摄入欧米伽-3脂肪酸而没有减少欧米伽-6脂肪酸的摄入，这是行不通的，你必须同时做到这两点。这意味着避免某些食物：少去餐馆，拒绝垃圾食品，避免使用富含欧米伽-6脂肪酸的油烹饪，如玉米油、菜籽油（canola）、大豆油。相反，你可以使用橄榄油、椰子油之类的东西，黄油也可以。但请务必确保摄入大量的欧米伽-3脂肪酸。这里存在一个困惑：很多人服用了欧米伽-3脂肪酸。他们认为只要服用一点点，就应该能快速消除炎症。好吧，如果你缺乏欧米伽-3脂肪酸，并且你的比例不平衡（比如许多人的欧米伽-6与欧米伽-3比例高达26:1），那么他们严重失衡，在你的免疫系统和神经系统中重新建立起足够的欧米伽-3水平需要数月，甚至几年的时间，所以你需要把它作为你新生活方式的一部分。并将其作为常规补充，比如每天几汤匙，或者购买胶囊，每天服用足量。
你还可以做其他几件事。姜黄素（Curcumin）对于减轻炎症非常重要。我们甚至发现蓝莓，如果你每天吃一些蓝莓，实际上可以减少白细胞介素-6（IL-6）。还有一种细胞因子我要谈，这是一个有趣的东西，叫做肿瘤坏死因子（TNF, tumor necrosis factor）。基本上，它是一种可以摧毁肿瘤和病毒的免疫蛋白。所以一旦病毒侵入细胞，天啊，这个肿瘤坏死因子（TNF）就会在那里启动。在这个过程中，会有大量的炎症发生。在自身免疫性疾病中，你会产生大量的肿瘤坏死因子（TNF）。猜猜看？如果没有病原体会怎样？就像在自身免疫性疾病中，病原体已经消失了，但你仍然有这种免疫反应。谢天谢地，维生素D就在那儿，能真正关闭这些反应。
现在，我最后想谈的一个叫环氧合酶（COX）。你或许听说过COX抑制剂，比如阿司匹林（Aspirin）就是一种COX抑制剂。它能关闭体内的炎症信号。再说一次，你拥有这种COX-2酶最初的目的是对抗病原体。这就像是一种防御机制。这就是为什么无论什么原因你需要使用阿司匹林，你都可以非常简单地通过更高剂量的维生素D来关闭它。但还有一些其他非常棒的东西你应该了解，它们可以抑制或阻止这种COX-2反应的发生：舞茸菇（Maitake mushrooms）是一种天然的COX-2抑制剂。欧米伽-3脂肪酸，如鳕鱼肝油里的那种，是COX-2的另一种抑制剂。贯叶金丝桃素（Hyperforin），它是圣约翰草（St. John's Wort）中的一种化合物，能抑制COX-2。事实上，在某些研究中，它的止痛效果是阿司匹林的18倍。你觉得圣约翰草（St. John's Wort）是用来通过调节血清素来帮助改善抑郁的，但它也有强大的抗疼痛作用。
但别忘了维生素D！如果有人患有自身免疫性疾病，却没有补充足量的维生素D，那他们简直太缺乏认识了。他们需要看看这个视频！如果给你治疗自身免疫性疾病的医生没有建议补充维生素D，这表明他们对维生素D与免疫系统关系的认识存在严重缺陷，你应该让他们看个相关视频。
现在，我说过维生素D是免疫系统某部分的“关闭开关”。还有一个开关是作用于你的T细胞和B细胞的，那是免疫系统的另一部分。这在自身免疫性疾病中是件非常好的事情，因为维生素D受体遍布在T细胞和B细胞上，比在吞噬细胞（phagocytes）上多得多。到目前为止，我已经讨论了维生素D对免疫系统的抑制作用。现在我想谈谈服用维生素D后有什么会被激活或增强。有三大非常强大的、古老的防御性肽（defensive peptides）。它们有着悠久的进化防御机制历史。这三种东西会包围病原体，在上面戳出成千上万个孔，有效消灭病原体。一种叫Cathelicidin。另一种叫LL-37。最后一种叫β-防御素（beta-defensin）。这些名字并不重要。你只需要知道这是免疫系统被增强的另一部分。好了，想想这个：当你服用类固醇治疗自身免疫性疾病时，你所做的仅仅是抑制整个免疫系统。维生素D则选择性地关闭某些部分，同时也选择性地开启其他部分，因此它不会削弱你的免疫系统。
所以现在你明白了使用维生素D治疗自身免疫性疾病的重要性和意义。肯定还有其他事情也需要做。如果你还没有看过这个视频，关于肠道健康的那个——就像最初启动整个过程的那个东西——我把它链接放在这里（视频中显示的地方）。去看看。
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