Last week, you talked about secretory IgA and why it’s the last marker to normalize after treatment, but what I still don’t understand is why it’s sometimes very low or very high, and both abnormalities seem to indicate inflammation/pathology, but there doesn’t seem to be a more specific or consistent reason for this abnormality in one direction or the other. In last week’s gut case studies that Chris presented, the sIgA was almost always abnormal, but sometimes low and sometimes high. Why is this?

Dr. Amy Nett:  This is a great question. At this point, I don’t think we know why sometimes it’s high and sometimes it’s low. It’s basically a marker, it’s an indicator that there is gut dysfunction and/or that there’s an immune imbalance, but I don’t think we know why specifically it would be high or low. I use the secretory IgA as being out of range. I just say it’s out of range; therefore, it’s indicating that there’s a gut issue, an HPA axis issue with a cortisol-type issue. Or if it’s low, then that’s the one case where it’s going to be the genetic low production of IgA, but that’s incredibly, incredibly rare.

Great question. I don’t know. I haven’t seen research on it, so I don’t have a good answer for you. I wish I did. Yeah, just use it being out of range as an indication that something’s going on. I hope that answers it as best I could.