Autoimmune Disease
An autoimmune diagnosis is serious. It is also more changeable than most people are told.
In rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, psoriatic arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, and the others, the immune system has turned on the body's own tissue. Medication can quiet it. So, to a real degree, can what you eat, how you sleep, and how much stress you carry. Changing how you eat and live can mean fewer flares, less pain, and in many cases a lower dose of medication, or even none.
Book a Consultation →What drives the immune system up, and what brings it down.
Autoimmune disease has a genetic side you cannot change and an environmental side you can. The gut is the biggest part of that environment. Most of the immune system lives along the intestinal wall, and what passes through it every day, including food, bacteria, and the products of digestion, sets the immune system's tone. A diet high in animal fat and processed food tends to raise it. A diet built on whole plant foods and fiber tends to lower it. Poor sleep and chronic stress push it up as well.
None of this replaces your rheumatologist, neurologist, or gastroenterologist. It works alongside them. When the immune system is calmer, the drugs have less to do, and that is when doses can come down, carefully, with your specialist's agreement.
What the research shows
The best-studied disease is rheumatoid arthritis.
In a randomized Norwegian trial, people with rheumatoid arthritis did a short supervised fast and then ate a gluten-free vegan diet, later a lacto-vegetarian one, for a year. After four weeks they had fewer tender and swollen joints, less pain, shorter morning stiffness, better grip strength, and lower inflammatory markers than the control group, and the benefit was still there at twelve months (Kjeldsen-Kragh, Lancet 1991). Two years on, the responders were still eating that way and still better (follow-up).
More recently, the Dutch Plants for Joints trial combined a whole-food plant-based diet, regular exercise, and sleep and stress coaching in a 16-week group program. Disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis fell by about as much as a medication typically achieves. In the two-year extension, 44% of those on antirheumatic drugs reduced or stopped them, working with their rheumatologist (Wagenaar, 2025).
For multiple sclerosis, the evidence is more modest. A randomized trial of a very-low-fat plant-based diet in relapsing-remitting MS found no change in MRI lesions or relapse rate over a year. It did find less fatigue, lower weight, and better cholesterol and insulin, and fatigue is one of the symptoms people with MS mind most (Yadav, 2016). A follow-up trial with a less strict low-fat diet found the same improvement in fatigue (Yadav, 2023).
In practice, for most autoimmune conditions I start with a whole-food plant-based diet, often with a short period in which oils, gluten, and a few other common triggers are removed and then added back one at a time so you can see what your body does with each. It is the approach behind programs like Clint Paddison's for rheumatoid arthritis. Many people see a difference in pain and stiffness within the first two weeks, and that is worth finding out.
How it works
Three steps.
Book a consultation
We meet by video for an hour. I go through your diagnosis, your medications, your labs, and how you actually live.
Get a plan
You leave with a written plan: a starting diet, a reintroduction schedule, sleep and movement that suit an inflamed body, and which labs we will watch.
Follow up
We check in regularly. Any change in medication goes through your specialist, never on your own.
From the medical literature
Cases doctors have written up.
Behind every trial are real people. Here are a few whose doctors wrote up what happened.
A woman with psoriatic arthritis since 2003, with a strong family history of rheumatoid arthritis, was managed for years on methotrexate. In 2018 she adopted a whole-food plant-based diet with no added salt, oil, or sugar, and was tapered off methotrexate. Fewer than 2% of psoriatic arthritis patients ever stop medication because of remission.
Am J Lifestyle Med, 2021 · Read the reportIn the Norwegian fasting-and-vegetarian-diet trial, patients who responded to the diet were re-examined two years after it began. Every responder was still eating that way, and the improvement had held.
Kjeldsen-Kragh et al., follow-up study · Read the summaryTwo years after the Plants for Joints program, 17 of the rheumatoid arthritis participants on antirheumatic drugs had reduced or stopped them under their rheumatologist's supervision, with disease activity still improved.
Wagenaar et al., 2025 · Read the reportWhat is possible
What most people can expect.
Joint pain and stiffness often change within two to four weeks of a strict dietary start. Inflammatory markers follow. Energy improves as sleep and diet do.
Some people reach remission off medication. More reach a lower dose and a steadier life. We measure as we go, so you can see your own progress.
Ways to work together
Ways to work together.
First Visit
A one-hour first visit by video.
$45.000 CLP · US$50
Plan of 5 Follow-Ups
Five 30-minute follow-up visits after your first visit, while you make the big changes.
$105.000 CLP · US$115
Follow-Up Visit
A 30-minute check-in to review progress and labs.
$25.000 CLP · US$30
Group Program
Small online groups working through the same changes together.
Video visits for patients located in Chile. Booking and payment through Encuadrado.
Video visits for patients located in Chile. Booking and payment through Encuadrado.