Hello Gerry,

First of all, welcome to the list. It's always nice to have someone new take
an interest in the Paleo diet.

I heartily support Jean-Claude's wonderful post regarding the positive impact
of a Paleo/Instinctive lifestyle on the course of Addison's Disease. Although
I do not have full-blown Addison's myself, I do suffer from adrenal fatigue
and poor adrenal reserve. That means I do have to take a small amount of
supplemental adrenal hormones on a daily basis, and more if under severe
physical/emotional stress. My condition has vastly improved since I was diagnosed with
Celiac Disease several years ago. The Paleo Diet, of course, eliminates all
grains, and therefore, gluten.

I was sick for at least 15 years before the Celiac diagnosis, and I suspect
that during that time I may have done some irreparable damage to my hormonal
system while consuming a high grain nearly vegetarian diet. Perhaps if I'd found
out early on, I would have been able to recover to the point where I would
not have to take supplemental adrenal and thyroid hormones. Who knows.

The following article is a case study about the connection between Celiac
Disease and other autoimmune diseases, including Addison's. I punched "Addison's
Celiac" into Google, and got 4860 hits- that will give you every good reason
to trust that a Paleo diet could very well be beneficial to your condition.

I would also like to add, that although the Paleo pros and cons of salt
consumption have been discussed on this list ad nauseum (check the Archives),
anyone with compromised adrenal function knows that it is all too easy to become
dangerously ill if one's sodium level falls too low. People are often admonished
to make sure to get enough potassium, but this can be dangerous advice for an
Addisonian. Someone with Addison's Disease would likely not have survived in
Paleolithic times, but today we do survive, so one must be careful not to get
caught up in the thinking that a strict Paleo diet by itself will cure any
condition.

Maddy Mason
Hudson Valley, NY

J Endocrinol Invest. 1999 May;22(5):390-4. Related Articles, Links


Unusual association of thyroiditis, Addison's disease, ovarian failure and
celiac disease in a young woman.

Valentino R, Savastano S, Tommaselli AP, Dorato M, Scarpitta MT, Gigante M,
Lombardi G, Troncone R.

Centro di Endocrinologia e Oncologia Sperimentale del CNR, Dipartimento di
Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare L. Califano, Italy.

The coexistence of autoimmune endocrine diseases, particularly autoimmune
thyroid disease and celiac disease (CD), has recently been reported. We here
present a 23-year-old woman with a diagnosis of hypothyroidism due to Hashimoto's
thyroiditis, autoimmune Addison's disease, and kariotypically normal
spontaneous premature ovarian failure. Considering the close association between
autoimmune diseases and CD, we decided to search for IgA anti-endomysium antibodies
(EmA) in the serum. The positivity of EmA and the presence of total villous
atrophy at jejunal biopsy allowed the diagnosis of CD. On a gluten-free diet the
patient showed a marked clinical improvement accompanied, over a 3-month
period, by a progressive decrease in the need for thyroid and adrenal replacement
therapies. After 6 months, serum EmA became negative and after 12 months a new
jejunal biopsy showed complete mucosal recovery. After 18 months on
gluten-free diet, the anti-thyroid antibodies titre decreased significantly, and we
could discontinue thyroid substitutive therapy. This case emphasizes the
association between autoimmune polyglandular disease and CD; the precocious
identification of these cases is clinically relevant not only for the high risk of
complications (e.g. lymphoma) inherent to untreated CD, but also because CD is one
of the causes for the failure of substitute hormonal therapy in patients with
autoimmune thyroid disease.

Publication Types:
Case Reports

PMID: 10401714 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]