The 3 Factors Behind an Autoimmune Condition (and Why 2 Are Within Your Reach)

If you are living with an Autoimmune condition, you have probably been handed a diagnosis and very little else. A name for what you have been feeling, a prescription perhaps, and appointments that sit weeks or months apart. What almost no one explains is how the condition actually started, or what you can do in the long stretches between those visits.

Here is the part I most want you to hear. An Autoimmune condition is built, and it is not random. Researchers describe 3 factors that have to line up together for one to develop. You cannot change the first. The second and the third are deeply within your reach.

1. A genetic predisposition

You inherited genes that make Autoimmunity possible. This is the part you did not choose, and on its own it is only a possibility, not a destiny. Many people carry the very same genes and never develop the condition, because genes alone are not enough to switch it on. Think of them less as a 'life sentence' and more as a 'dimmer switch'. What turns that dimmer up, or quiets it back down, is the next two factors.

2. Intestinal permeability, often called 'leaky gut'

The lining of your gut is meant to be a tight border, in places just one cell thick. It lets nutrients through and keeps everything else out. Under chronic stress, infection, inflammatory foods, environmental toxins, and certain medications, that border can begin to loosen. On the order of 70 percent of your immune system lives in and around the gut, so when the border loosens, the immune system shifts into a state of high alert, and the stage is set for Autoimmune activity to begin. This is the factor most within your reach, and it is where a great deal of the leverage lives.

3. A trigger

Something lights the match. A viral infection, a mold exposure, a major stressor, a deep grief or loss, a pregnancy, or sometimes a food the body has stopped tolerating. Triggers vary for each person. You cannot always undo the first trigger, but the ongoing ones, especially chronic stress, are very much within your reach to work with.

Why this matters

Everyone with Autoimmunity has all 3. The first two are the common denominator, and the third varies from person to person. And here is what this model points to: the second and the third are what turn the first on, and working with them consciously may help quiet it back down. The condition that felt permanent is not necessarily permanent. So much of the direction it moves is within your reach to shape.

Left unaddressed, Autoimmune conditions tend to drift the other way. A little more fatigue, a little more fog, a little more distance from the person you were before. And having one Autoimmune condition raises the odds of developing another, something researchers call polyautoimmunity, with more than a third of people going on to develop a second.

I do not say that to frighten you. I say it because you deserve the truth about what you are navigating, and because there is so much you can do, alongside your medical care, to move an Autoimmune condition toward Remission.

Where to go from here

I put the whole picture into a short, free guide: the 3 factors, the 2 paths that open from the same diagnosis, and the first steps that are actually yours to take. You can read it here, free: How to Move Autoimmune Toward Remission.

And if Hashimoto's is your particular story, there is a guide written for you as well, on why 'normal' food can leave you feeling worse, the labs to ask for, and your first steps toward Remission: You CAN Live Fully Alive and Flourish with Hashimoto's.

Related reading on Great Energy

• Normal Is Not the Same as Optimal: The Thyroid Labs to Ask For
• Qigong for Autoimmune Conditions: What the Research Says
• 7 Qigong Exercises for Autoimmune Disease

With Great Energy and Great Love,
Daniela

Daniela Hess, MSED, CTACC, RYT500. Autoimmune Educator and Functional Wellness Consultant. Education and support, not medical advice.

Sources: about 1 in 8 women is living with a diagnosed Autoimmune condition (Conrad et al., The Lancet, 2023), and, through a functional lens, an estimated 1 in 6 once undiagnosed autoimmunity is counted (Dinse et al., Arthritis and Rheumatology, 2020). The 3-factor model of genetic susceptibility, intestinal permeability, and an environmental trigger (A. Fasano, F1000Research). Roughly 70 percent of the immune system resides in and around the gut (Vighi et al., 2008). Polyautoimmunity, more than a third developing a second condition (Anaya et al.).