The root cause for Alopecia Areata

Ever looked into the mirror and found a horrific image of yourself with an overnight bald patch? That’s alopecia areata. If losing hair is one of the worst nightmares for a girl, losing them in bunches and patches is a killing experience.

The first search result on google is that there is no treatment for this except some steroids for temporary relief that sets serious long term side effects.

I wondered if man could reach Mars, why are some diseases that are so much earthly left uncured? Diabetes, thyroid, arthritis, alopecia areata, etc.?

It’s because all these diseases stem from the same cause, ie., Autoimmune disorder!

What is Autoimmune disorder? It’s a condition when your own immune system goes rogue and attacks you. They are capable of attacking joints, endocrine glands, and other systems that hamper with hormone secretions.

If you have trouble with your thyroid, you are susceptible to other diseases like diabetes, arthritis, etc. What’s appalling is that the doctors never tell you that you are prone to other diseases if you have thyroid disorder.! They wait for the patient to come back again with another disease and give them medicines for the symptoms to subside.

When I dug a little more, I realized that there aren’t a lot of research papers established on the autoimmune disorder either. Some papers have just slammed that its genetic and nothing can be done while some have genuinely pointed that when the human body faces severe viral or other pathogenic attacks, the immune system is triggered and is instructed to keep attacking the body forever.

While everyone is talking about external factors that trigger this, there’s a piece of vital information that we miss altogether. Who instructs the immune system, to just go and attack everything on its way like a blindfolded soldier swinging his sword at the whole kingdom?

These instructing cells are called T-cells. So, they’ve been giving wrong instructions to the system all this time! They were lying! LOL! The truth is they do this because they lack the maturity to distinguish between pathogens and healthy cells.

Over 50 million Americans are suffering from autoimmune disorders. And the reason? Those tiny immature irresponsible T-cells incapable of giving the right instructions.

To know why they are acting childish looking for attention, let's look at their life cycle. T cells are born in the bone marrow and are transferred to their schoolie., a vital gland called “Thymus” for training. It’s a gland located right above the heart and in between the collar bones. It’s most significant responsibility is to train T-cells fight against infections and even cancer cells.

There’s a mystery behind this gland that doesn’t surface in most medical talks. Every human is born with a fully grown thymus gland at the time birth. Right after the birth, this gland stops growing.

And when puberty hits, this gland starts shrinking slowly. Very slowly supposedly. At the age of 75, it’s a little more than just fat. Basically it gets slowly replaced by fat irrespective of how thin or fat you are.

So, what’s happens to the baby T- cells that must be nurtured? They get released prematurely into the system and mess it all up! This one fact made me wonder if we are living every day or slowly dying every day!

So, if thymus shrinks for everyone, why isn’t everyone facing autoimmune disorders? Why only some fall prey to this? It's mainly for two reasons: Bad lifestyle and genes.

We’ve heard too much about a bad lifestyle. So, let's skip to talk about genes. Just like the way people write down life’s happenings in a diary, our body’s happenings are written down in the DNA. Every ailment is recorded. When chronic ailments occur, they are passed on to the next generation. Bad life style along with bad gene = auto immune.

There is very little research and no treatment for this at all. People need to take insulin, thyroid hormone, etc, for the rest of their lives and they can anticipate a hundred other chronic diseases as well. The quality of life decreases tremendously and it can be strongly said that autoimmune is as difficult as cancer. I’d like to put it on the profit-making policy of the pharmaceutical industry for not letting intense research happen.

So, if we can help our thymus glands stay alive and propagate, we may even slow down the aging process. Once again, there are no proven ways to this.

The thymus is a mysterious gland and nobody knows what triggers its involution. Some say hormones released during puberty triggers its fading away. But to stay happy, our body needs to be happy. Let’s treat our body like a temple.

Did I mention that thymus has an amazing significance in Indian Dharma? It is one of the seven chakras in body called “Anahata” or heart chakra. In order for our bodies to function in an optimal way, all of our 7 chakras need to be balanced and allowing our energy to flow smoothly through our bodies. If one of the energy centers is not functioning well, then the others won’t function as well as they should.

Ways to keep thymus active:

1. Eating platefuls of vitamin C rich foods like dark leafy greens, Brussels sprouts, kiwi fruit, broccoli, berries and tomatoes.
2. Growth hormone injections.
3. Thumping and tapping the gland .
4. Keeping stress away by practicing mindfulness.
5. Follow AIP : Auto Immune Protocol diet which is basically an elimination diet. It helps get rid of every food item that causes inflammation and triggers immune flareups.

Since genetics is something we cannot alter, let's alter our lifestyle by keeping stress away, eating healthy food, maintaining healthy relations with people, exercise for 30 mins every day and letting go of a sedentary lifestyle.

Peace!