Speaker A
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today, I can't wait to get into this listener-based topic. I want to be talking about autoimmune issues in general and how they honestly can be cured. I'm going to share with you a
Dr. Stephen Cabral explains how autoimmune diseases like ankylosing spondylitis can be cured by addressing root causes and systemic inflammation.
Key Takeaways
- Autoimmune diseases are systemic and inflammatory, not isolated to one body part.
- Genetics predispose but do not determine autoimmune disease development.
- Healing autoimmune conditions involves reducing systemic inflammation and supporting detoxification.
- Conventional treatments suppress symptoms but do not cure autoimmune diseases.
- Lifestyle changes and movement are critical components of autoimmune recovery.
Summary
- Autoimmune diseases are systemic inflammatory conditions affecting different body parts, such as the spine in ankylosing spondylitis (AS).
- AS causes inflammation and fusion of the vertebrae, leading to pain, stiffness, and limited mobility.
- Conventional medicine treats symptoms separately, but autoimmune diseases require addressing systemic inflammation and root causes.
- Genetic predisposition, like the HLA-B27 gene for AS, does not guarantee disease onset; gene expression is influenced by inflammation and environment.
- Dr. Cabral shares his personal autoimmune journey and emphasizes that healing is possible within months by reducing inflammation.
- Movement, detoxification, and nutrient supply are important in managing autoimmune symptoms and improving function.
- Autoimmune diseases can impact other organs such as eyes, lungs, and heart beyond the initially affected area.
- Biologic drugs used in conventional treatment are immunosuppressants that target inflammation but do not cure the underlying cause.
- Understanding and addressing systemic inflammation is key to reversing autoimmune conditions.
- Genetic testing is less useful than focusing on lifestyle and environmental factors that influence gene expression.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
little bit about my story, so many people that we've seen in our practice. I'm going to use an example called ankylosing spondylitis, but you could replace ankylosing spondylitis with rheumatoid arthritis, Hashimoto's, or any other autoimmune-based issue. I want you to know that the way
Speaker A
that we go about finding the root cause is the same; however, the protocols may differ, and I'll share all of that with you here today. So ankylosing spondylitis, I'll often refer to just as AS since it is a mouthful. It's easier
Speaker A
just to say AS than ankylosing spondylitis. But ankylosing spondylitis, AS, is an inflammatory issue just like all autoimmune issues. Okay, the difference is autoimmune issues are given a name based on where they strike in the body. So for
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ankylosing spondylitis, it is mainly the spine. So what is it? Well, instead of inflammation of the small joints, and let's say the hand or the elbows or so, like rheumatoid arthritis or the thyroid, which would be Hashimoto's autoimmune
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based tissue, then ankylosing spondylitis is inflammation of the vertebrae in the spine. So when you look at your spine, it's all those little bony protrusions, essentially. Well, in between all of them is space. That space allows for them to
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sit on top of discs for cushion, and it gives your spine a nice shape as well. The issue with ankylosing spondylitis is that the inflammation over time can actually start to fuse or harden the spine, and that's obviously going to lead
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to pain and a lot of debilitating postural and spinal-based issues. Now, again, all autoimmune issues are inflammatory-based, and they affect different parts of the body. The issue with ankylosing spondylitis is that it's really rheumatoid arthritis of the spine. It
Speaker A
honestly is. It's even considered a rheumatoid-type autoimmune issue without the rheumatoid factor or certain blood markers being elevated, but they even refer to it as a seronegative spondyloarthropathy, which is referring to essentially arthritis of a particular
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area of the body, in this case the spine, versus rheumatoid arthritis, which is more of the smaller joints of the body. So you can really look at this and rheumatoid arthritis in a very similar fashion. Now, conventional medicine won't
Speaker A
really, but honestly, a lot of the same biologic drugs—that biologic means it shuts down your—you really should call them immunosuppressive rather than biological drugs. Biological makes them sound a lot nicer, but they're immunosuppressants, and so they use a lot
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of the same RA drugs, rheumatoid arthritis RA, right, versus ankylosing spondylitis, which is AS, but they use a lot of the same ones. So we'll talk about that in just a moment. I just want you to understand is that
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conventional medicine likes to give everything a different name, but really we're talking about inflammatory syndrome, right? Inflammatory symptoms affecting a certain part of the body. We'll find out what that is in just a moment. But here's what the effects of AS are.
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Really, anytime there is a lot of inflammation in the body, it leads to a lot of white blood cells. It leads to then a lot of inflammation in the body, so there's a lot of oxidative stress, which leads to aging. There's a lot of
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oxidative stress leading to inflammation and fatigue. Okay, so that's a big part of it. The other issue, though, is specifically more for AS, right? It's leading to more back pain and stiffness, so people feel it a lot more, especially
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waking up in the morning or staying seated in the same position for a lengthy period of time. So if you do have AS, just like if you have any form of arthritis, even though it might not feel comfortable, a lot of times you just want
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to get your body moving, go for a walk in the morning, do your stretching, do some light movement. I'm not—I can't give you a specific protocol right now, but all of these things are extremely helpful. Get the body moving, move the
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blood flow to the area, supply it with nutrients. We will talk about the lymph and detoxification just in a moment. As the disease progresses, just like most, there is a limiting of mobility, so there's a limiting of function just
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again. Think about rheumatoid arthritis, how it begins to gnarl the knuckles and small joints in the hand and really attack the elbows and other joints. Well, over time, that limits mobility. We have to make sure that we cut this off as quickly as
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possible. All right, the interesting thing, though, with ankylosing spondylitis or AS, ankylosing spondylitis, it's important to understand is that autoimmune issues are a systemic issue. It's not just, "Oh, Hashimoto," so it affects the thyroid gland in my neck, or RA, it affects the
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joints of my hands, or again any one of these is affecting my spine. No, eventually, again, this is systemic inflammation, and yes, you're genetically predisposed to more of the spine in this case, but keep in mind it eventually can
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affect your eyes. Okay, that's a big problem, right? Affect your eyesight. It can affect your lungs and your respiration, and it can affect your overall cardiac ability, your heart's ability to function. So this is why, sure,
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we'll say we need to help with the spine with AS or the joints in the hands with RA, but it's not. These things eventually lead to other health issues, and that's the problem with conventional medicine is they're treating all of the parts of
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your body symptomatically and as separate units when really AS and all autoimmune issues are a systemic issue, but it's just your Achilles heel is genetically predisposed to wherever you are. So in AS, you've probably heard about the gene HLA-B27. Here's the issue: we're
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all genetically predisposed to something. That doesn't mean that just because you have this gene, you're going to get ankylosing spondylitis, not in any way, shape, or form. Keep in mind, I shared this before, but I want to share with you
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again. We've worked with now hundreds of thousands of private clients one-on-one in our practice, and many of them have autoimmune issues. But I had an autoimmune issue at 17 years old. Okay, it's been in
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my genes. It was in my genes for the first 16 years as well but didn't get it until 17. All four of my grandparents had rheumatoid arthritis, both my parents had rheumatoid arthritis, then at 17 I get it. Why do I get it at
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17? Well, inflammation filled up my rain barrel, right, and then it overflowed, and then my genetic predispositions began to show themselves: Addison's disease, type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, mast cell activation syndrome, POTS, insomnia, allergies, acid reflux. All these health
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issues I had, were they all separate? Of course not, right? The acid reflux wasn't separate from the allergies, which wasn't separate from the inflammation with the rheumatoid arthritis. Well, okay, well, I had those for many years, but I know for sure
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by the age of 27, when I finally healed—and it doesn't have to take you 10 years; typically, this is a 4 to 6 month, 3 to 6 month process with autoimmune issues, probably, you know, right around that mark—
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but here's the issue: okay, I've lived for almost 20 years now from when I healed. So I had an autoimmune issue from 17 years old to about 27 but haven't had it since. So is it in my
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genes? Yes. Do I have the same genes today? Yes. It's the expression of those genes. So never feel like your genes are your destiny. They're not. They aren't, and honestly, for most people, looking at your genes is not the best use of your
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finances, your investment. It's not. Your genes tell you nothing, honestly, nothing except what you were predisposed to. It is what we're going to talk about in just a moment that really needs to look at for the expression of those genes. It
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literally tells you nothing. I have the same genes I had at 16 years old before I was diagnosed with these diseases, and then I finally got diagnosed with them at 19 years old, same exact genes, right? And now, more than almost 30 years later, same
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genes but none of those diseases. So be careful with
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they use incense non-al non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs okay fine what's it doing it's lowering inflammation but artificially because you're not working on the root cause so when you lower inflammation or you feel better the problem is you didn't fix anything and
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so it's still there it's still attacking and IDs people don't know but it can lead to Serious ulcers serious digestive issues serious kidney issues we have to be careful with using IDs um especially ibuprofen like that's just a big one as
Speaker A
well all right these biological medications we need to call them what they are they are immunosuppressants okay so immunosuppressants are used to go after things like tnf Inhibitors or Incan 17 all these different uh Incans or different types of white blood cells or
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parts of our immune system signalers that we shut them off to just say oh don't attack the joints uh we're just going to shut off that part of the immune system well here's the issue it could lead to then dying from pneumonia
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unfortunately other things like that when you actually need your immune system for those types of functions so we have to be really careful with those things sometimes corticosteroids are used so you might say well when I take corticosteroids uh I feel R well yes
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because it's a very powerful anti-inflammatory however leaves you more predisposed to concussions to potentially Alzheimer's disease in the future and much more when you're raising cortisol levels to that degree um there are other fancier drugs called disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs that are
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used for as as well again it's essentially rheumato thritis of the spine does it need to be treated different no not it really doesn't and they really don't treat it differently for conventional medicine as well however they classify it differently
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it's used you go to a different specialist Etc but in in natural medicine which we're going to talk about next uh it's we can look at all autoimmune issues as a same and then find out which specific underlying root
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cause you have okay I'm going to get to that actually right now so just quickly what else does conventional medicine do physical therapy physical therapy is like trying to take a bucket to the ocean to empty the ocean like again you
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should do it you absolutely should but it's not getting the underlying root cause so it's not like Mo spinal Mobility know those things matter they do strengthening your core matters like all of those things matter but you're still not getting the underline root
Speaker A
cause like it's just it's not going to happen right um conventional medicine gives very little lifestyle recommendation they talk about being a little bit more mobile doing your physical therapy stopping smoking they don't talk about diet at all and how
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such a huge Factor it plays with inflammation in the body you know the the average standard American diet is an 18 to1 Omega 6 Omega-3s that matters right like a polysaccharides that I spoke about before all of those things
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matter and i' I've shows on all of these things at Steven cal.com podcast you're welcome to Simply type in your keyword and it will pop up if if those things are new to you so those matter um and
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then of course conventional medicine you know if you're a surgeon what do you love to do well surgery right like that's what you get paid to do and so then eventually when things get bad they'll go in and either fuse parts of
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the spine or actually remove certain parts that are causing impingement on the nerves Etc and I think we have to be you know really careful with that as well I'm I don't want people to suffer like that's the truth so I get it I
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understand I support people however they can and need to be supported but what I want people to understand is that all autoimmune issues have an underlying root cause throw your genetics out the window honestly we all are predisposed
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to something I'm not predisposed to Hashimoto but I am predisposed to rheumat arthritis which is why I got it as a teenager way too young to get it I mean my grandparents didn't even get it until their 50s or so maybe early 60s U
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my parents maybe got it in their later 40s uh well why don't I have it right like so we have to look at all of these specific things and understand that they're part of our genes but they are
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not our destiny so what do we do how do we heal from all autoimmune issues the first thing we need to do is to always understand is that all disease comes from a deficiency in the body and or a
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toxicity usually it's both to be honest with you it's like by the time we've just gotten to I mean I was a special case at 17 years old I was not a you know I don't have great jeans and all
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those things but again you can't blame it on your genes because I'm healthy now you know 30 years later so we have to understand is that um are gen are genes allow us to be susceptible but it's as I
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said before it's just it's not something that we're destined to have so what what are some of deficiencies well deficiencies could think be like magnesium vitamin B6 uh vitamin B12 could be zinc could be a lot of different things right those are
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deficiencies probably Omega-3s to Omega sixes it's a big deal okay now what are some toxicities well let's look at all autoimmune issues all 90% of autoimmune issues have a gut related component that means that from taking antibiotics birth
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control alcohol fried foods high stress Etc right infections we have more gut permeability and we got the G permeability from maybe bacterial overgrowth yeast overgrowth H pylori or parasites right or food sensitivities and so then when we eat we're actually
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spilling these pathogens into our bloodstream and that is then increasing what white blood cells or the immune system which then does what creates inflammation the inflammation then sets off our genes and whatever is there right so inflammation is not the root
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cause by any way you know stretch of the imagination or or anything right it's not okay so we say yes autoimmune inflammatory where does it come from okay well there is intestinal permeability can you just fix the intestinal permeability no
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you have to ask why do I have intestinal permeability okay I have intestinal permeability because you might have bacterial overgrowth or yeast overgrowth all right so we need to work on those right so what do we do that's when we
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now move into more of the specialized protocols but besides the gut based issues there's also heavy metal issues right it can be a heavy metal problem that that's a big one as well so we fix the nutrition we fix the the proper
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movement within the body um and we work on a lot of these things they're all line for you honestly in the rain barrel effect the rain barrel effect is free you just pay shipping I I am dedicated to getting that information to the
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entire world you go to stepen cal.com freebook that's for the us if you're International you can just go to stepen cal.com shop and and you can find it in the equal life store so to keep in mind it's free you just pay shipping I
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literally pay for the book to be printed and we we lose a little bit of money in the shipping my job is to get that information out to people it tells us it's an extended version of how we get
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sick to talk about the top 10 ways so then we have to remove those right and then I talk about how to get well in the second half of that book so that's the rain barrel effect you can get on Amazon
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you can do whatever you'd like but again um all of this information is also in the podcast I just want people to be able to access it share it with others however they can so we find the root
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cause after that we need to empty the rain barrel we do so what does that mean we do a functional medicine detox 21 days that alone is remarkably beneficial but I want to be honest you're not healed even if you feel better you've
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just dramatically empty the rain barrel you still need to work on the underlying rukas food sensitivities candida um bacteria H pylor parasites heavy metals like Mercury aluminum uh lead arsenic cadmium deficiencies like your magnesium your zinc uh those are common ones that
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we see your Omega-3s like all of those matter as well and so that's as you start to get into more custom protocol all right let's say you have gut overgrowth we do the CBO protocol let's say you have parasites we do the Paras
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support protocol what if you have heavy metals we do the heavy metal detox protocol what if you have mold you do the mold detox protocol so it's like you do whatever that real underly rot cause is and then as you're doing that you do
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feel better you really do and this is typically as I've said about 3 to six months sometimes a little longer for the hardest cases that's okay and what what would we do after that well if you're on medications you don't stop your
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medications you work with your doctor then to begin to wean medications as able and then you maintain your results with the de-stress protocol that I write about in the rain barrel effect the proper diet exercise stress reduction tox removal rest emotional balance
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scientifically back supplements success mindset now it may sound complicated but it's not I mean it's really not it is just being pretty good at all of those things you don't need to do them like all perfect you don't I'm not perfect
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most people I know that aren't perfect so you get your body moving with a little bit of walking you get to bed a little bit earlier like you we teach you all of those things and every single one
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of these Labs that you test for your deficiencies and toxicities you do them right at home and they come with a coaching call so honestly I'm sharing this here today I want you to know that I want to help in
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any way that I can so you can work with my team by literally just going to Steven cal.com bigv that'll do all of your at home lab tests if you can't afford that I get it I understand go to stepen cal.com
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starter-kit that's a much less expensive option to get started um so that comes with a free coaching call it's included comes with a free plan everything A to Z of what you need to do but also if you
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don't we on a work with my team I'm okay with that as well work with an Integrative Health practitioner level two we we have like no stake in that game I just want you to know that I just
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want you to know that you have options besides conventional medicine and that you can heal so you can go to Integrative Health practitioner. org head on over there click on the practitioners find a good level too most of them work virtually so you can work
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with anyone anywhere in the world that speaks to you and that's a great thing to do as well so my goal is to get this information out every single day in the cabal concept A free podcast if you have
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questions leave them Below in the comments I would love to hear from you if this was helpful let me know I would love to hear from you what would you like to hear next time and and also if
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help that's what it's all about thank you everybody I appreciate you always feel free to share these shows with anyone you believe they could serve thanks so much for tuning into Today's Show before you go don't forget to hit
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Topics:autoimmune diseaseankylosing spondylitisinflammationsystemic inflammationrheumatoid arthritisgene expressionHLA-B27immunosuppressantsautoimmune cureDr. Stephen Cabral
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