Can Autoimmune Disease Be Reversed?
Can autoimmune disease be reversed? The answer depends partly on what we mean by “reversed.”
Some autoimmune diseases can enter remission, meaning symptoms and disease activity become greatly reduced or disappear. Remission is not necessarily a cure, and the disease can return.
Researchers are exploring whether diet, gut health, metabolic health, nutrient status, exercise, sleep, and stress can influence autoimmune disease. The evidence varies considerably.
The more useful question may be: which diseases, which patients, which interventions—and how reliably?
What Does Remission Mean?
Remission means that signs and symptoms of disease have greatly diminished or disappeared. Depending on the disease, it may be measured through symptoms, laboratory tests, imaging, or other measures of disease activity.
Remission can result from medication, lifestyle changes, the natural course of the disease, or a combination of factors. Because “reversal” can imply that the disease has been permanently eliminated, remission is usually the more accurate term.
Evidence That Lifestyle Can Matter
Lifestyle can influence autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, although the evidence differs considerably by condition.
Dietary changes have improved symptoms or disease activity in some studies. Exercise can improve fatigue and physical function, while weight loss, adequate sleep, and correcting nutrient deficiencies may also help.
Research by Terry Wahls and colleagues in multiple sclerosis, for example, has found improvements in fatigue and quality of life following intensive dietary interventions. These findings are encouraging but do not demonstrate reversal of the disease.
Overall, meaningful improvement is possible, but evidence does not establish that lifestyle can routinely reverse autoimmune disease.
Conventional Treatment & Remission
Treatment varies by disease and may include anti-inflammatory drugs, immune-modifying medications, biologic therapies, hormone replacement, or other treatments.
Modern therapies have made remission or very low disease activity achievable for many people with conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease and can help prevent permanent damage.
An important question is whether diet and lifestyle can help produce or maintain remission, usually alongside appropriate medical treatment.
The Functional Medicine View
Susan Blum, Mark Hyman, and Datis Kharrazian emphasize potentially modifiable factors such as diet, the gut microbiome, nutrient deficiencies, stress, environmental exposures, and metabolic health. Terry Wahls has developed a related lifestyle approach for multiple sclerosis.
Some patients report substantial improvement, and individual components of these approaches have scientific support. But evidence that a complete functional-medicine program reliably produces remission remains limited.
Trying It—and Measuring the Results
One practical approach is to make safe, sustainable changes and measure what happens.
Depending on the disease, progress can be followed through symptoms, physical function, medication requirements, laboratory tests, imaging, or established measures of disease activity.
Autoimmune diseases can naturally improve and worsen, so improvement does not necessarily prove why an intervention worked. But carefully monitored experimentation can help determine whether an approach appears useful for an individual.
Key Takeaways
Remission is possible in many autoimmune diseases, but it is not necessarily a cure.
Conventional treatments can produce remission and help prevent permanent damage.
Diet and lifestyle can sometimes improve symptoms and measures of disease activity.
Functional medicine emphasizes potentially modifiable factors such as diet, gut health, nutrient status, stress, and metabolic health.
Claims that autoimmune disease can routinely be “reversed” have not been established.
The useful question may be: What can someone do to improve the chances of remission and long-term health?
Learn More
A rheumatologist’s guide to understanding autoimmune disease, treatment options, and evidence-based strategies for improving health.
A functional-medicine approach focused on diet, gut health, stress, environmental factors, and other possible contributors to immune dysfunction.
Research
A 2025 systematic review examining whether autoimmune diseases can sometimes achieve sustained remission or a “functional cure.”
A 2026 review examining whether autoimmune disease might eventually be cured rather than controlled—and why the answer is likely to differ among diseases.
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