Susan Blum, M.D., is the founder of the Blum Center for Health in Rye Brook, New York, an advisor to the Institute for Functional Medicine, and serves on the Medical Advisory Board for The Dr. Oz Show. An assistant clinical professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, she has been treating and preventing chronic disease for more than a decade. She lives in Armonk, New York with her husband and three sons.
The Immune System Recovery Plan is the first, clear explanation of:
- exactly what our immune system is
- why understanding immune health is more important now than ever before
- shows how immune health can impact all aspects of one’s life: from energy, to mood, to weight-loss, to disease prevention
When we think of the immune system, we usually think of trying not to catch the cold that’s going around the office and making sure not to spread germs while we’re on the subway or at the gym. But actually, the immune system is actually a huge “army” of cells—over 70% of which are located in our intestine. Every day when our bodies encounter “foreign invaders”—and this includes food we eat, mold, parasites, bacteria, and viruses—the immune system gets to work identifying those invaders as foreign and then attacking them to break them down so that the body can process them. Most of the time this “immune combat” happens without us feeling anything, but sometimes you can actually feel your immune system taking action. When you encounter a flu virus, for example, you feel your immune system fighting the invading virus by experiencing a fever, aches and pains, and a sore throat.
Now, more than ever before in history, people’s immune systems have gone awry.
Over 23 million people suffer from autoimmune disease, which happens when their immune systems mistake their own tissues for foreign particles and start attacking their own bodies. People with autoimmune diseases— a category of at least one hundred diseases, including multiple sclerosis, Graves’ disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, colitis, psoriasis, lupus, Hashimoto’s and many others—experience their immune systems attacking tissues with symptoms like fatigue, puffiness, muscle and joint pain, weight gain, abdominal discomfort, diarrhea, and difficulty concentrating.
So why are we seeing autoimmune disease reach an epidemic? Dr. Susan Blum presents several explanations, including:
1. Gluten: The gluten in our food today contains higher levels of extremely concentrated gluten proteins. Our bodies cannot digest these proteins and the result is that our immune systems go into overdrive, often attacking our own tissue in an effort to process them. The result is autoimmune disease, especially celiac
2. Chronic Stress: Chronic stress results in elevated hormone levels, which sends our bodies into overdrive and results in our immune systems attacking our own hormonal-regulating systems. The result is autoimmune disease, especially thyroid disease and arthritis.
3. A lack of good bacteria in your gut: We live on the 5 A’s: antacids, antibiotics, alcohol, Advil, and animal foods—which results in a depletion of the healthy bacteria in our guts. The result is a compromised immune system and autoimmune disease.
4. Toxins: We encounter more toxins in our environment than ever before. As our result, our immune systems have trouble identifying between foreign toxins they should fight and our own tissues. The result is autoimmune disease
In her book, The Immune System Recovery Plan, Dr. Blum presents a unique and clear four-step process to cure the causes of autoimmune disease, but more importantly, she shows how to prevent it in the first place. By following the steps in this book, anyone can boost their immune health and balance their immune systems. This will help everyone balance their weight and feel energized, focused, and vital.
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