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]