Foods To Avoid with Autoimmune Diseases
If you’re wondering whether there are foods to avoid with autoimmune diseases, the answer is yes. However, there is no one diet for autoimmune disease. That’s because there isn’t a magic diet for everybody. Not everybody is going to have problems with lectins or nightshades or gluten.
I have written before about the best diet for lupus or the best foods for RA. But there is no single best diet for any one autoimmune diagnosis. There’s only the best diet for you. Your diet should be personalized. Having said that, there are four categories of foods that I watch out for because I have seen them contribute to autoimmune flares.
In this blog post, I’ll discuss the foods that can harm autoimmune patients, identify the red flags that they could be causing problems for you, and talk about how to fix each of the problems so that you’ll feel your best.
Food and Autoimmune Disease
I find that there are four categories of foods that can cause problems in people with autoimmune disease:
• Inflammatory Foods
• Food Intolerances
• Food Sensitivities
• Antinutrient Food Components
Inflammatory Foods
Certain foods cause inflammation in the body. Some of these foods, like canola oil, safflower oil, and soy oil, are high in omega-6 fatty acids, which lead to inflammation when eaten in excess.
Refined sugar is an inflammatory food that causes inflammation by raising blood sugar, causing an imbalance in the gut microbiota, and leading to the production of advanced glycation end products. Also known as AGEs, these inflammatory compounds are created when sugar combines with protein in the body. Additives and preservatives are also inflammatory. They are foreign substances that don’t belong in our body.
Inflammatory foods can cause problems for everyone, but they are especially good at fueling the fire of autoimmune disease.
A list of inflammatory foods includes:
• Artificial flavorings
• Canola oil
• Carrageenan
• Chemical flavors
• Corn oil
• Corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup
• Food additives like MSG
• Guar gum
• Processed foods
• Refined sugar
• Soy oil
• Sulfates
• Xanthan gum
Signs and Symptoms Caused by Inflammatory Foods
The signs that you’re being affected by inflammatory foods will depend upon the weak spots of your body. How inflammation shows up for you could mean low energy, brain fog, pain, rashes, digestive symptoms, or heavy, painful periods. Inflammation can present in so many different ways, it’s not always going to be very clear cut that your problem is caused by eating inflammatory foods.
How to Avoid Inflammatory Foods
Generally, avoid the aisles in the middle of the grocery store, which are mostly packaged foods. Instead, shop for whole foods such as vegetables, meats, healthy fats, nuts, seeds, and fruit. These are often found on the aisles that run around the periphery (or outside limits) of the grocery store.
If it has a label, read it. Make better choices and inform yourself about what things are hiding in the foods you’re consuming. Educate yourself, plan better, and shop better by choosing inflammation-decreasing foods. As much as you can, avoid those added ingredients that are not real foods.
Food Intolerances
Many people who have autoimmune diseases have food intolerances, which means that you’re not digesting the food well and not breaking it down into parts the body recognizes as food. This leads to inflammation, and your becoming intolerant to that food. One of the best examples is lactose intolerance.
Some foods lead to intolerance because they adversely affect the microbiome and feed pathogens in the gut. This can lead to weakening of the gut barrier, which contributes to food intolerances.
You can become intolerant to pretty much any type of food. Some common food intolerances include dairy and gluten.
Signs and Symptoms of Food Intolerances
One way to know if your problem is food intolerances rather than sensitivities is if your symptoms affect the gastrointestinal tract primarily. Symptoms of food intolerance include:
• Acid reflux
• Changes in stool characteristics
• Constipation
• Diarrhea or loose stools
• Floating stools
• Gas and bloating, including extreme bloating after meals
Root Causes of Food Intolerances
The goal is to find out what’s causing your food intolerance and then remove that cause. Maybe you’re lacking the proper enzymes to digest the food well. Acid reflux can be another cause of intolerances. Acid reflux is a sign you don’t have enough stomach acid, which means foods aren’t getting digested well and it’s causing potential reactions.
Gallbladder removal is another cause of food intolerance. Often, if you have had your gallbladder removed, you don’t realize it’s a big deal. Doctors don’t always tell people they need to be doing a different diet. If you’re lacking a gallbladder, you might not be able to tolerate fat and fat-soluble vitamins.
How to Get Rid of Food Intolerances
The answer to resolving food intolerances is to identify the things lacking in your body and replace them. That’s often done through testing. Many people lack the specific enzymes or bile acids needed to digest the foods. Replacing those can solve their intolerances.
An At-Home Test to Help Identify What Foods to Avoid
The best way to identify what foods your body does, or doesn’t, like is to do an elimination and reintroduction diet. With our practice members, I have them cut things out and see how their body responds. They might note improvement in symptoms or they may notice no change. I also might order labs to measure food reactions with objective data. Later, I will have them start eating the food again. I ask them to see how the body responds when they resume eating the food. Doing a careful elimination and reintroduction will answer the question of what foods your body does or does not like.
Food Sensitivities
Unlike food intolerances, where people can’t digest the offending foods, with food sensitivities, foods can trigger the immune system, leading to immune-driven reactions.
Any food can cause sensitivities, but some of the more common foods that trigger autoimmune patients are:
• Dairy
• Eggs
• Grains
• Nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, etc.)
• Soy
Signs and Symptoms of Food Sensitivities
Like symptoms caused by inflammatory foods, symptoms from food sensitivities are not always clear cut. Having said that, there are clues you’re sensitive to one or more foods and your reaction may be linked to the type of autoimmune disease you have.
For instance, if you have rheumatoid arthritis, you might suffer more pain if you’re having a reaction to a food. On the other hand, somebody with psoriasis will notice his or her skin flare up. Somebody who has Hashimoto’s might start gaining weight or have more brain fog or constipation.
How to Get Rid of Food Sensitivities
As with food intolerances, an elimination diet can help you figure out which foods you’re not reacting well to. But the key is not to just remove the offending food. It’s best to figure out the cause of the food reaction with lab tests. Is it because you’re not digesting the food well? Is it because you have a leaky gut? Is it because you have so much exposure to one food all the time that it is a constant stress on your body?
Figuring out why a food is a problem is just as important as figuring out which foods cause your autoimmune symptoms to flare up. That way you can fix the problem and eventually tolerate those foods again.
Antinutrient Food Components
Certain components of food block your ability to absorb nutrients like calcium. These antinutrient food components include:
• Lectins – A type of protein found in plants that binds to certain carbohydrates. Lectins can cause malnutrition by blocking the body’s absorption and use of nutrients including calcium, iron, phosphorus, and zinc. Legumes, nightshade vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds, squash, melons, and cherries are all foods that contain lectins. Symptoms of lectin intolerance include bloating, gas, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, and nausea. Read more about lectins in our “Lectins and Autoimmunity” blog post.
• Oxalates – Oxalate is a component of many plants, including leafy greens, vegetables, fruit, cocoa, nuts, and seeds. Oxalate binds to minerals like calcium in the gut, preventing their absorption. Foods rich in oxalate include spinach, carrots, nuts and seeds, swiss chard, chocolate, and whole wheat.
• Phytates – These are naturally occurring compounds found in plant foods. Phytates block the absorption of iron, calcium, and zinc. Seeds, grains, legumes, and nuts are some of the foods that contain phytates.
With most of these antinutrient foods, you think you’re eating something healthy, but you may actually be depleting your mineral levels if you eat too much of these foods. Blocking absorption of minerals will create imbalances of the immune system.
Signs and Symptoms of Eating Antinutrient Foods
The way that I suspect antinutrient foods are a problem is:
• If a practice member is eating really well, they keep a food journal and are eating good food and avoiding inflammatory processed food and
• They figured out their food sensitivities and they’re not having intolerances and they’re digesting things well and
• Yet we’re still seeing some symptoms that there is inflammation or other problems and
• We’re still seeing signs of nutrient needs and
• Vitamin levels are difficult to increase, even with supplementation
How to Protect Against Antinutrient Foods
There are ways you can help degrade antinutrient properties of the food. Peel and seed fruits and vegetables, which decreases their lectin count.
You can also prepare legumes and beans by pressure cooking, boiling, or slow cooking to be able to break down some of those components to make them easier to handle. Simply cooking foods in any manner can degrade and deactivate most lectins. Cooking acts like predigesting the foods.
Sprouting and seeding is another way to reduce the antinutrient content and allow the foods to be better handled by the body.
How to Avoid the Worst Foods for Autoimmune Disease
A good diet for lupus patients or the best diet for rheumatoid arthritis (or any other autoimmune disease) requires personalization to give you the very best results. At Caplan Health Institute we can work with you to order the right tests and determine the best autoimmune diet for you.
The first step? Schedule a free 15-minute discovery consultation, by phone or video.
If you decide to come on board as a practice member, we can order tests and create a personalized eating plan. We call our patients “practice members” because they take an active role in their health. In addition, our Caplan Health Institute coaches can work with you to make sure you’re sticking with the plan. You’ll improve your immune balance, decrease inflammation, and even be able to add some “forbidden foods” back into your diet.
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