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Comment by lobsterman | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and a poor diet can cause diseases that will make your life miserable, e.g. autoimmune.

Where is the evidence that diet alone can cause autoimmune disease? As far as I am aware, development of autoimmune disease is a complex process involving many factors such as genetics and the effect of infections on the immune system. Certainly there is anecdotal evidence of people improving their symptoms or possibly eliminating them through diet but this is not the case for every patient.

Yes, there are many factors, but our diet is the biggest (and greatly underestimated by the medical profession). Many people with autoimmune would benefit from eating paleo, not saying 100%. And yes, it's all anecdotal, but there is a great deal of science behind it. I recommend reading [1] for a better understanding.

Again, anecdotal, but my wife has autoimmune that attacks the thyroid, causing her to have 180 bpm heart beat (24/7). Doctors recommended medicine that further attacks the thyroid, but she went with a paleo diet instead, after a recommendation from my bio PhD sister who also has autoimmune. Her symptoms stopped within a week or two, her values are now back to normal. Could be something else, but I doubt it. She had the same thing 6 years ago and it lasted for 6 months, while eating this medication that damaged her liver.

Turns out gluten in particular is linked to many autoimmune diseases. Here are some shorter blog posts by the same author [2] on gluten, autoimmune and AIP.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be many large scale studies on diet and autoimmune, but personally, after understanding the underlying mechanisms better, and having personal as well as overwhelming online anecdotal evidence, I'm fairly convinced. I recommend keeping an open mind about this one and start reading.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Paleo-Approach-Reverse-Autoimmune-Dise... [2] http://www.thepaleomom.com/category/autoimmune-2/the-whys-of...

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