A snippet from "Breakthrough..." by Suzanne Somers

Dr. Ron Rothenberg is interviewed on page 56 of the book(starts a little before that but here's what I found interesting) This is not the exact text, but the information is here. Again this is "Breakthrough, Eight Steps to Wellness" by Suzanne Somers, she interviews cutting edge doctors and posts the interviews along with other helpful information on health.

What is an autoimmune disease?
Autoimmune disease causes your body to react to it's own tissues, the body acts as if they are invaders and forms antibodies and attacks them. Then they list the autoimmune diseases and of course Lupus is one of them.

Why do so many postmenopausal women contract fibromyalgia?
Fibromyalgia is an inflammatory state. Fibromyalgia is very much related to hormone levels. Women have more pain in the premenstrual and mentrual phase of their cycle. The doctor thinks it is a progesterone deficiency, since progesterone helps women sleep naturally and it decreases inflammation. He recommends, as do all the doctors that I have read passages from to use biodentical homes NOT synthetic if your own doctor decides to replace hormones if you test low.

Could this inflammation be fixed by replacing hormones?
Very often ,though there is no 100 percent in medicine. The doctor feels that it can at least be improved by biodentical hormone replacement. Thyroid is very often a missing link, thyroid resistance is associated with fibromyalgia even when lab tests appear normal.

Could you catch an autoimmune disease be fore it had a chance to manifest if you kept on top of testing your CRP?
(CRP measures nonspecific inflammation in other words it will tell you you have inflammation but it will not tell you if it is in the heart, the joints, etc.) The CRP test is the best predictor of who will have a heart attack, much more so than testing for LDL cholesterol.
The doctor says he doesn't know if CRP testing would help for autoimmune, but says a functional medicine approach(there's that functional medicine again) could catch it by especially gastrointestinal causes, then change the diet and lifestyle may be able to prevent or reverse the autoimmune disease.
There are tests better than CRP. Inflammatory cytokines: Interleukin-6 (Il-6), Interleukin-1 Beta (Il-1 beta) and TNF-Alpha (tumor necosis factor alpha) . These tests measure the chemical mediators that tell the liver to make acute-phase proteins such as CRP. Keep inflammation down and keep healthy.

Other things brought up in the interview are Omega 3 fats and Resveratrol and Vit D3, stem cell treatment for autoimmune diseases....

Please get this book, it's free at your local library and worth the trip! The information given to us as readers is priceless.