{"id":8507,"date":"2022-05-12T14:19:05","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T13:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/?p=8507"},"modified":"2022-05-12T14:19:05","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T13:19:05","slug":"omega-3-against-autoimmune-diseases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/blog\/omega-3-against-autoimmune-diseases\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Omega &#8211; 3 help against autoimmune diseases?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Content<\/span><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"#auto\">What are Autoimmune Diseases<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"#omega\">The Impact of Omega-3 and Vitamin D<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong><a href=\"#conc\">Conclusion<\/a><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Autoimmune diseases come in different forms and mainly affect older adults. In the US, about <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/omegaquant.com\/how-do-omega-3-and-vitamin-d-play-a-role-in-autoimmune-disease\/\"><b>24 Million people suffer from one of over 80 different autoimmune diseases<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which can greatly impact their lives. They are even the third leading cause of morbidity in the industrialized world and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/12848952\/\"><b>leading cause among women!\u00a0<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There is more and more research done on the topic and researchers are trying to improve the treatment for these types of diseases, instead of just focusing on the alleviation of the symptoms. At the moment, most treatments focus on reducing the negative effects of the disease on the patients.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2022\/01\/vitamin-d-reduced-rate-of-autoimmune-diseases-by-22\/\"><b>a new study<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is looking at the impact of supplements and vitamins on the onset of autoimmune disease and how they can possibly be used to reduce the amount of people suffering from an autoimmune disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Interestingly, the study found that harmless supplements such as omega-3 and vitamin D, which have no known side effects, could potentially play a role in this process! <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But let\u2019s start from the beginning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8504\" src=\"http:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Immune-System-O3-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"437\" height=\"291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Immune-System-O3-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Immune-System-O3-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Immune-System-O3-510x340.jpg 510w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Immune-System-O3.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 437px) 100vw, 437px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a id=\"auto\"><\/a>What are autoimmune diseases?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Autoimmune diseases come in many different shapes and forms but what they all have in common is that they are all based on a <\/span><b>malfunction of our own immune system<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>How does our immune system work<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicalnewstoday.com\/articles\/320101\"><b>immune system<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> defends our body against invaders and dangerous pathogens like viruses and bacteria.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To do so, it relies on a series of complex mechanisms and a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/info.gbiosciences.com\/blog\/cells-of-the-immune-system\"><b>variety of so-called \u201cimmune cells\u201d <\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that have different functions in our body. These cells and tissues work together to detect a foreign cell and then (through a complex messaging system) send another type of immune cells out to attack the dangerous invader. So one of the most important qualities of the immune system is that it is <\/span><b>able to distinguish our own cells from foreign ones<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. It can also recognize faulty and dead cells, which then get \u201ccleared away\u201d by the immune system.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The immune system uses the proteins on the surface of cells to identify them and usually learns how to ignore our own proteins at an early stage in life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Just like the rest of our body, our immune system is constantly evolving and \u201clearning\u201d. The older we get, the more pathogens and foreign cells we get exposed to and our immune system starts to increase its <\/span><b>repertoire of antibodies<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (a specific type of cell that locks onto the invader and therefore marks it for other cells of the immune system to come and \u201ckill\u201d it) and becomes stronger. However, after a certain age, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/articles\/10.3389\/fragi.2020.602108\/full\"><b>aging has the inverse effect<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on our immune system and can increase its susceptibility to infectious diseases and a decreased effectiveness of vaccinations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But what if the immune system doesn\u2019t work properly? This is when certain disorders can develop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Immune System Disorders<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are 3 types of different immune system disorders and in this article we will focus on the one related to <\/span><b>autoimmunity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These three types are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthline.com\/health\/immunodeficiency-disorders#:~:text=Immunodeficiency%20disorders%20prevent%20your%20body,one%20you%20were%20born%20with.\"><b>Immunodeficiencies<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: one or several parts of the immune system do not function. This can be inherited or caused in a number of ways such as age, alcoholism, malnutrition or an infectious disease. AIDS is such an example.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medicalnewstoday.com\/articles\/hypersensitivty-reactions\"><b>Hypersensitivity<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: this describes the immune system overreacting to an invader that can damage otherwise healthy tissue. An example is an anaphylactic shock following the exposure to an allergen.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><b>Autoimmunity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: this is the type of disorders we will be focusing on in this article. They describe conditions, where the immune system mistakes our own healthy cells for foreign ones and starts to initiate an immune reaction against them. The <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hopkinsmedicine.org\/health\/wellness-and-prevention\/autoimmune-disease-why-is-my-immune-system-attacking-itself#:~:text=On%20a%20basic%20level%2C%20autoimmune,into%20gear%20and%20attacks%20it.\"><b>origin of those conditions is not entirely clea<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">r, but studies indicate that it is probably a combination of factors like: lifestyle, heredity as well as hormonal and environmental influences.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>How do we treat autoimmune diseases?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Autoimmune diseases are <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2022\/01\/vitamin-d-reduced-rate-of-autoimmune-diseases-by-22\/\"><b>common in older adults<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and negatively affect their health and life expectancy. Some examples are rheumatoid arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, autoimmune thyroid disease, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease. Most of these diseases <\/span><b>have no cure and require lifelong treatment <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that mainly focuses on relieving the symptoms that negatively impact the patients in their daily lives and can even reduce their life expectancy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to find out more on the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.com\/blog\/omega-3-against-allergies\/\"><b>differences between autoimmune diseases and allergies<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, we wrote about that on our blog\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a id=\"omega\"><\/a>The Impact of Omega-3 and Vitamin D<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Like we\u2019ve seen above, most treatments for autoimmune disease focus on reducing symptoms and decreasing inflammation to reduce the pain associated with them. However, these medications often have <\/span><b>negative side effects for the patients<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A new study called the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/376\/bmj-2021-066452\"><b>VITAL study<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d has been looking into using harmless supplements as a possible way to prevent the onset of autoimmune disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8506\" src=\"http:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/AD-O3N-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"437\" height=\"291\" srcset=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/AD-O3N-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/AD-O3N-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/AD-O3N-510x340.jpg 510w, https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/AD-O3N.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 437px) 100vw, 437px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is big news in two different ways<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">it looks at <\/span><b>prevention of autoimmune diseases in the first place<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, not just the treatment of the symptoms, once the disease has \u201cstarted\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">the suggested treatment consists of <\/span><b>nontoxic dietary supplements<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D, which have very minimal negative side effects<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>So what are the findings of this study?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It compared several groups of people taking either a placebo, Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids over a period of 5 years with a big sample of 25 thousand patients. This so-called randomized, double blind, placebo controlled trial then analyzed all the data and came to the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/376\/bmj-2021-066452\"><b>following conclusions<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cConclusions <\/span><b>Vitamin D supplementation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for five years, with or without omega 3 fatty acids, reduced autoimmune disease by <\/span><b>22%<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, while <\/span><b>omega 3 fatty acid supplementation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with or without vitamin D reduced the autoimmune disease rate by <\/span><b>15% <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">(not statistically significant). Both treatment arms showed larger effects than the reference arm (vitamin D placebo and omega 3 fatty acid placebo).\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This is good news as it means that <\/span><b>nontoxic supplements like vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids could prevent a potentially highly morbid disease.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However, if we focus on omega-3 fatty acids alone, the study showed that it did not (statistically) significantly lower the incidence of autoimmune diseases, but there was evidence of an increased effect after a longer duration of supplementation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This might be due to the <\/span><b>anti-inflammatory properties of omega-3 fatty acids<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that could potentially decrease the systemic inflammation associated with these types of conditions. But there is more evidence needed to determine if omega-3 fatty acids can lower the initial onset of autoimmune diseases in the first place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/shop\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-8516\" src=\"http:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/shop_now_omega3-510x282-2-300x166-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"448\" height=\"248\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a id=\"conc\"><\/a>Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this article we saw what autoimmune diseases are and while it is not entirely clear how they occur, there have been interesting findings about the use of nontoxic vitamins in preventing the onset of these conditions in the first place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Vitamin D played a bigger role in the outcome of the study than omega-3 fatty acids, but they do also play a role and may even be used to potentially alleviate the symptoms caused by chronic inflammations.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Omega-3 fatty acids have <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.com\/blog\/omega-3-the-natural-anti-inflammatory\/\"><b>strong anti-inflammatory properties <\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and have many health benefits for your heart, mind and body.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you want to find out more about our range of high-quality fish oil and krill oil omega-3 supplements, check out our <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.com\/blog\/\"><b>blog <\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/norwayomega.com\/shop\/\"><b>shop<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Content What are Autoimmune Diseases The Impact of Omega-3 and Vitamin D Conclusion Autoimmune diseases come in different forms and mainly affect older adults. In the US, about 24 Million people suffer from one of over 80 different autoimmune diseases which can greatly impact their lives. They are even the third leading cause of morbidity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[160,284,283],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8507"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8518,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8507\/revisions\/8518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/norwayomega.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}