Dhru Purohit Show
Autoimmune Conditions are On the Rise — Do Food Sensitivities Play a Role? The Role of Gluten & Dairy in Autoimmunity and How to Address Food Sensitivities Starting with Gut Health
05 May 2025
Chapter 1: How are autoimmune conditions affected by diet?
Hi everyone, Drew Proat here. Autoimmune conditions are on the rise, affecting an estimated 300 million people worldwide. That's almost the entire population of the United States of individuals suffering with autoimmune conditions around the world.
And in today's compilation episode, I talk to two incredible experts about the connection between food sensitivities, specifically gluten and dairy, and autoimmune diseases. Even if you're someone, knock on wood, who does not have an autoimmune condition, you'll want to listen in to today's episode and understand why these two foods, gluten and dairy, are so poorly tolerated by many.
Not everybody, and we don't want to immediately demonize them as being bad for everyone, but why do these two foods come up time and time again as issues for so many people? So much so that they can often lead to symptoms including joint pain, fatigue, and most importantly, digestive issues.
First up, I sit down with renowned integrative medicine practitioner, Dr. Akil, for an explanation on why certain foods can be so problematic for individuals with autoimmune diseases. And in the segment, Dr. Akil highlights the protocol he created to address these issues.
And I also speak with functional medicine doctor, Dr. Elroy Vajdani, about why foods like gluten and dairy trigger immune responses and how implementing an elimination diet can lead to long-term healing and gut repair for some. But first, let's listen in to my conversation with Dr. Akhil Palasamy. What are you finding...
that people are not getting right when it comes to their diet and they're coming in and not understanding how their standard American diet and the specific components of it are maybe increasing their likelihood of autoimmune condition or making their autoimmune condition worse or not allowing them to heal, right?
What are some of the pillars of their diet that are really putting a lot of stress on their body?
Yeah, absolutely. So with diet, I like to separate it out. So I have like a phase one diet, which is more of an elimination diet, which is more restrictive, more focused on gut healing. And then there's the phase two diet where you're kind of reintroducing foods, you're expanding the prebiotic foods, you're rebuilding the microbiome.
And I feel like that's something that's missing, you know, because oftentimes I see patients you know, they're on like the autoimmune paleo diet, which is a very common diet, or the whole 30. And they, you know, felt significantly better.
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Chapter 2: What is Dr. Akil Palanisamy's approach to treating autoimmune diseases?
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Right. Um, so I think that, um, you know, uh, in terms of blood work, the, these auto antibodies, which are the, um, autoimmune kind of markers made by the immune system, um, often can predate the development of the autoimmune disease by like 10, 20 years.
And so if you're getting blood work, screening for some of those autoantibodies can be a clue because that could be one of the signs that you might benefit from this program. But some of the common symptoms I see, fatigue, of course is super common, but that can be caused by this. Joint pains, like different kinds of aches and pains.
And then cognitive issues like brain fog or mood issues, those are probably the three most common symptoms I see.
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Chapter 3: What is the difference between food allergies and sensitivities?
So consuming collagen better, consuming bone broth, making sure that you're intaking a really decent amount of live probiotics in your food, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, whatever it is that you decide that you wanna do.
Those are going to do wonderful things for repairing the barrier, and the Treg cells are very much influenced by both probiotics and the thing that they produce when they're in association with fiber, which is a short-chain fatty acid postbiotic. So do that. Vitamin D, zinc, fish oil, all those things, if you're going to start taking supplements, can really accelerate that healing process.
I remember reading your book when it first came out, but I don't recall, do you have a protocol inside of there that walks people through this process?
Yes.
Yes, you do. So people can get that inside of the book as well.
My favorite supplements for doing this, foods that you can consume if you want to do this entirely with food, which is absolutely possible. And yeah, it's all in there.
Yeah. And you already mentioned a few of those highlights. Now, a couple caveats for people, and I think you mentioned this the last time you were on the podcast, is... A lot of this is also contextual based on how bad things are. People who have had really bad IBS or IBD, which is an autoimmune disease, irritable bowel disease,
they start to include even some of these healthier foods that are fermented and have fiber, and it feels like a bomb went off in their stomach. So they gotta go slow, or they might need to focus on more of the reparative process before they can bring in or find the best tolerated versions of those things. In general, they're not gonna do well with typically a lot of raw vegetables.
Correct.
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