Weathering one of the most acrimonious elections in U.S. history can be hard on health. Fortunately, functional medicine offers some strategies to help take the edge off.

Prolonged heightened stress, fear, anger, and negativity have been shown to harmfully impact the body in the following ways:

Raises inflammation. Heightened stress and negativity can inflame joints, cause skin breakouts, disrupt brain function, upset the stomach, provoke respiratory problems, and trigger headaches.

Triggers anxiety, depression, and/or insomnia. People have lost sleep and become anxious and depressed this election year. Chronic stress keeps the central nervous system in a heightened state, chipping away at your health.

Causes stomach aches and abdominal symptoms. Chronic stress ravages the gut, predisposing one to pain, inflammation, and digestive upsets.

Tightens muscles. Chronic stress keeps the body in fight-or-flight, with the muscles constantly tense.
Imbalances hormones. Stress hormones can devastate the delicate balance of hormones in both women and men. This can impact menstrual cycles, libido, and the brain.

Causes brain fog and memory loss. Because chronic stress and negativity are so inflammatory, the brain may become inflamed as well. Common symptoms of brain inflammation are brain fog, depression, and memory loss.

Weakens or over stimulates immunity. Chronic stress weakens the immune system so that you’re more susceptible to illness. It can also over stimulate it so that autoimmune conditions flare up.

Promotes high blood pressure and respiratory stress. Chronic stress constricts the blood vessels, raises blood pressure, and inflames respiratory conditions.

Encourage addiction and bad habits. Chronic stress makes people more prone to addictive behaviors.

Healthy ways to buffer the effects of election stress
Stress is a normal function that serves a survival purpose. The trick is to rebound from it appropriately.
Although it’s tempting to mix a drink or pop a Xanax, aim for functional medicine tips that ease election anxiety and support your health:

Take an adrenal adaptogen supplement. These herbs help buffer the body and brain during stress. Examples include ginseng, ashwagandha, holy basil, rhodiola, eleuthero, and pantethine.

Connect with others. Seek out like-minded friends and do something fun. Positive socialization  is a well-documented health booster.

Release feel-good hormones through exercise. Exercise can’t be beat in the face of chronic stress and negativity. It floods your body with feel-good hormones that improve health and brain function. Just be careful not to overdo it, over exercising stresses and inflames the body.

Find unidentified causes of stress. Much of our stress today comes from factors we’re not even aware of. Unstable blood sugar is the most common.  Unidentified food sensitivities, such as to gluten or dairy, is also common. Chemical sensitivities, anemia, unmanaged autoimmunity, leaky gut, and infections are examples of health issues that keep one in a state of chronic stress.

Practice positivity. Although it’s important to allow and process any negative emotions, at some point it’s vital to practice positivity, something science shows is vital to good health.
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By taking better care of your health and managing how outside events affect you, you have a better chance of having a more positive impact on your own life and the people around you. 

Turns out gluten isn’t the only culprit when it comes to an immune reaction to wheat.
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New research suggests non-gluten proteins are also a source of those immune reactions to wheat.

Wheat proteins called ATIs also trigger reactions
The new suspects are a family of proteins called amylase-trypsin inhibitors, or ATIs.

​While they make up only four percent of the proteins in wheat, ATIs can trigger powerful immune reactions that can spread from the gut to other tissues in the body, such as the lymph nodes, kidneys, spleen, and even the brain.

ATIs are also shown to inflame pre-existing chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, non-alcohol fatty liver disease, lupus, and inflammatory bowel disease. And, ultimately, ATIs contribute to the development of gluten sensitivity.

At this time, it’s not entirely clear how much of a role ATI proteins play compared to gluten. We know from the work of Aristo Vojdani, PhD that people with symptoms of gluten sensitivity have been shown to react to several different types of gluten, as well as lectins and agglutinin.

The evolution of understanding wheat sensitivity
It used to be celiac disease was the only recognized immune reaction to wheat. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that affects a small percent of the population and requires medically invasive diagnostic criteria. Only more recently has mainstream medicine begun to accept non-celiac gluten sensitivity. Newer research, the sheer volume of gluten-sensitive patients, and the explosion of the gluten-free market has made gluten sensitivity impossible to deny.

For decades patients who tested negative for celiac disease or even gluten sensitivity (standard testing is severely limited) have been told “It’s all in your head.” Today, the scientific legitimacy of an immune reaction to wheat is growing.

Likewise, a growing number of doctors are more willing to offer a diagnosis of gluten sensitivity and effective treatment strategies.

Gluten reactions occur in brain and elsewhere
Symptoms of gluten sensitivity can include digestive issues such as abdominal pain and symptoms similar to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). However, common symptoms not related to the gut include headaches, joint pain, eczema, brain fog, and a number of dysfunctions related to the brain and nervous system.

These symptoms improve quickly on a gluten-free diet for many.

Research on wheat immune sensitivity continues
Research continues and in the future, it may be your doctor recommends an “ATI-free” diet instead of a gluten-free diet for wheat sensitivity.
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Either way, if you react to gluten, avoiding it is the best choice for your long-term health.

If you have concerns about reactions to gluten, contact my office, 503-636-2734.  Functional medicine has effective protocols to assess, diagnose, and manage gluten sensitivity.