Can We Prove a Link Between Environmental Toxins and Autoimmune Disease?
There is almost universal agreement among leading experts at top medical institutions –Johns Hopkins, Harvard Medical School, the National Institutes of Health, Scripps and others –that our day-to-day exposure to environmental toxins — through the air we breathe and the chemicals we absorb through our skin — is a major trigger of autoimmune disease.
However, because most toxins are found in trace amounts, it has been difficult to gauge what effect they might be having on our health. Yet both lab animal and occupational studies of human beings provide us with disturbing insights into how even low exposures to chemicals can cause our immune systems to go haywire. For example, mice exposed to common pesticides – at levels four-fold lower than the level set as acceptable for humans by the EPA – are more susceptible to getting lupus than control mice. Mice that absorb low doses of trichloroethylene (TCE) – a chemical used in industrial degreasers, and that can be found in your dry-cleaning, household paint thinners, paint strippers, glues and adhesives – at levels deemed safe by the EPA, and equal to what a factory worker today might encounter, quickly develop autoimmune hepatitis. And low doses of PFOA, a breakdown chemical of Teflon – which can be found in nonstick cookware, car parts, flooring, computer chips, phone cables, Stainmaster carpet guard, upholstery, new clothing (particularly kids’ clothing), grease-resistant French fry boxes, the disposable cup of soup that you warm up in the microwave, and disposable coffee cups like the ones you get at your local coffee shop) — can be found in 96 percent of humans tested for it. In recent studies, immunotoxicologists have been unable to find a dose that didn’t alter the function of immune cells at each major step that the immune system takes in trying to protect us against foreign invaders.
Even tiny doses of BPA, a plastics building block used in everything from safety helmets, dental sealants, baby bottles, and eyeglass lenses to every-day processed food packaging, has been shown to change basic cellular function at levels currently present in blood samples taken from people as well as animals.
Proving an absolute link between chemicals and autoimmune disorders in humans is hardly easy. Researchers can expose rodents to low doses of chemicals and look for signs of autoimmune disease roughly six weeks to three months later. But in humans, a comparable time span between exposure and disease might be forty years. Indeed, lab work in longitudinal studies of people shows us that autoimmune diseases are often long, slow-brewing conditions that can quietly smolder in the body for a decade or more before actual symptoms of disease appear. Moreover, it may be that a combination of exposures rather than any acute single dose at a single time increases one’s risk of autoimmunity, conditions that are hard to replicate in animal studies.
I suspect that on some level we don’t want to face what all this research is telling us. We don’t want proof, because even if we agree that the soup of chemicals we’re all carrying around within us is harmful, what do we do about it? Talking about the autoimmune epidemic is a bit like talking about global warming before the movie An Inconvenient Truth was released. For the longest time, we couldn’t see, or didn’t want to see, that the smallest rise in temperature would melt the polar ice caps. Likewise, we don’t want to know that the ways we’re polluting our environment are also harming our bodies and causing our immune cells to go haywire. In the international medical world, the scientists who study autoimmune disease now call this epidemic “the global warming of women’s health.” Yet the reality that the environment plays a major role in triggering these diseases hasn’t yet trickled down to the rest of the population.
Donna Jackson Nakazawa is a nationally acclaimed researcher, writer and public speaker on health and family issues. She is the author of the recent book, The Autoimmune Epidemic.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I am a Radiologic Technologist and have been exposed to darkroom chemicals for 28 years. Sometime you can taste the chemicals after being in the darkroom. Ive heard of several techs with RA and I myself have been diagnosed with ReA. Im really wondering if there is a link between those constant chemical exposures and autoimmune disease.
September 8th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I am a dental hygienist and I was recently diagnosed with Hypothyroid Condition. I think it is definitely from working in the dental office for all these years breathing in chemicals from disinfectants, darkroom chemicals, radiation exposure and mercury from drilling amalgams in he air we breath at the office. I am convinced there has to be a link here! I am an otherwise very healthy person and I eat a healthy diet and work out regularly. The doctor wants me to take Synthroid but I am hesitant because I don’t like drugs and side effects. I am still seeking natural ways to cure the problem!! Whenever I tell someone that I believe there is a link to chemicals and my diagnoses they pretty much laugh at me like I’m just some crazy loon. Even the doctors!!! No one wants to hear about it. Although it is a scary thought, I was very relieved to know that I may not be that far off base. Society as a hole needs to wake up! Thanks for writing your book. I started a blog in January http://www.wellnessandprevention@blogspot.com! Very interesting stuff!!
November 21st, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Hi Donna,
I have 2 comments. One is really more of a question. In your book you explain how immune fighter cells attack viruses based on their own “bar codes”, that our body determines as invaders and how they send out antibodies to ultimately destroy the virus. But, you go on to say that in less than healthy people (variety of reasons) this system malfunctions. The fighter cells mistakenly confuse our healthy cells that have a similar DNA sequence to the virus, and therefore attack the healthy cells too.
Is it possible that instead of the cells making mistakes due to attacking healthy cells that have a similar DNA sequence, that there are other man-made chemicals that are lurking throughout our body that share a similar DNA sequence to the invading virus? So that maybe say something like methylmercury, for example, has a similar DNA sequence to EBV, and so that when our bodies reach their threshold from a viral attack, the fighter cells keep attacking everywhere that they find an invader with a similar DNA sequence? So if the mercury is in our fat tissue, for example, our immune system causes inflammation everywhere they find the mercury? Of course this could be triggered by so many toxins like plastics, xenobiotics, etc.
I hope that even makes sense? I am not a scientist, but I am a nutritionist and someone with an auto-immune condition, so I am very interested in this topic. My other comment is that I also believe there is a genetic predisposition for people who get auto-immune diseases. But it isn’t as specific as everyone thinks. It may be as common as the differences in how we each metabolize toxins. For example people who are slow drug metabolizers are probably more susceptible. There is a relatively new test out by Roche called the Amplichip CYP450, that can identify 4 different levels of drug metabolizers; poor, intermediate, extensive and ultra- rapid metabolizers.
This test is pretty good at identifying how people will react to many medications. The poor metabolizers have the most side-effects, and therefore cannot handle as high a dosage of a toxin (or drug). I bet if we did this test, we would find that most people with auto-immune disease fall in this category, or the intermediate level. If the results showed a connection between poor metabolizers and auto-immune disease, then it would be even easier to make the case for implicating environmental toxins as a precipitating cause.
Again, I don’t know if this would work, but I suspect it plays a role. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Also, I haven’t finished your book, so maybe you go into this somewhere. But I thought I would get this out while fresh in my brain.
Thanks for all your research into this subject. We need all the help we can get. Please keep up the great work!
Best Regards,
Robin
January 26th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I have heard that exposure to common environmental toxins (i.e. chemicals) can lead to autoimmune disease.
I have no idea why I came down with MS, but I know that I have no family history of the disease. Thought not of as a genetic or inherited disease, more and more research is showing that original idea NOT to be a true one, among the scientific community, regarding what causes Multiple Sclerosis.
Waking up one sunny day and realizing that something is terribly, TERRIBLY wrong with your body, well it’s the worst feeling in the word, because these autoimmune diseases tend to pop up out of nowhere, and everything regarding the cause of these types of diseases, well it is still a bit sketchy.
Hopefully our scientific minds of our society can come up with a cure for the cause, as well as the progression of these types of diseases.
Thanks for writing this blog. Best wishes!!!
-d =P
February 11th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
I just finished the book and stumbled upon the website mentioned on the book jacket. It is essential reading for all of us but I have yet to figure out how to inspire interest. The general public is totally clueless and believes that the government would not allow unsafe products to be sold. Anyone who follows the news knows nothing is further from the truth.
I doubt this is going to be a simple puzzle to solve since each of us has our very own assortment of chemicals in our bodies. Nobody really knows how these multiple chemicals act when combined. Other chemicals actually prevent the liver from doing its job of metabolizing out the toxins we meet. If your liver is not working you change everything that is known or written about toxicology.
Whatever is going on, it needs immediate action. It may be a complex puzzle but we need to start to unravel the mystery of autoimmunity. The cost of the research must be weighed against the staggering cost of these illnesses.
March 15th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Donna,
I enjoyed reading your book, “The Autoimmune Epidemic.” It’s real eye-opener! A year ago, I was diagnosed with 2 autoimmune diseases simultaneously (they’re related systemically) — IgAN (a form of Glomerulonephritis, inflammation of the kidney filtering units), and Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) Vasculitis (in my case, the major symptom was a major skin rash). After a year of treatment, my kidney function is normal again and remains stable.
I read in your book about flame-retardant chemicals and their association with autoimmune diseases. Shortly before my symptoms and diagnosis last year, I bought a new sofa months before, and immediately after sitting in it, and still to this day to a lesser extent, my eyes water when I lay down and get near the sofa fabric. Do you have any info regarding any research, law suits, or other claims associating furniture fabrics, fabric treatment chemicals, or core cushion materials, etc., with autoimmune diseases? Any valid basis whatsoever? I wonder if there’s a connection in my case.
Thanks,
Terry