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What Are Autoimmune Diseases?
The word "auto" is the Greek word for self. The immune system is a complicated network of cells and cell components (called molecules) that normally work to defend the body and eliminate infections caused by bacteria, viruses, and other invading microbes. If a person has an autoimmune disease, the immune system mistakenly attacks self, targeting the cells, tissues, and organs of a person's own body. A collection of immune system cells and molecules at a target site is broadly referred to as inflammation.
There are many different autoimmune diseases, and they can each affect the body in different ways. For example, the autoimmune reaction is directed against the brain in multiple sclerosis and the gut in Crohn's disease. In other autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus), affected tissues and organs may vary among individuals with the same disease. One person with lupus may have affected skin and joints whereas another may have affected skin, kidney, and lungs. Ultimately, damage to certain tissues by the immune system may be permanent, as with destruction of insulin-producing cells of the pancreas in Type 1 diabetes mellitus.
What Are the Causes of Autoimmune Diseases? Are they contagious? No autoimmune disease has ever been shown to be contagious or "catching." Autoimmune diseases do not spread to other people like infections. They are not related to AIDS, nor are they a type of cancer.
Are they inherited? The genes people inherit contribute to their susceptibility for developing an autoimmune disease. Certain diseases such as psoriasis can occur among several members of the same family. This suggests that a specific gene or set of genes predisposes a family member to psoriasis. In addition, individual family members with autoimmune diseases may inherit and share a set of abnormal genes, although they may develop different autoimmune diseases. For example, one first cousin may have lupus, another may have dermatomyositis, and one of their mothers may have rheumatoid arthritis.
Who Is Affected by Autoimmune Diseases? Many of the autoimmune diseases are rare. As a group, however, autoimmune diseases afflict millions of Americans. Most autoimmune diseases strike women more often than men; in particular, they affect women of working age and during their childbearing years.
Some autoimmune diseases occur more frequently in certain minority populations. For example, lupus is more common in African-American and Hispanic women than in Caucasian women of European ancestry. Rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma affect a higher percentage of residents in some Native American communities than in the general U.S. population. Thus, the social, economic, and health impact from autoimmune diseases is far-reaching and extends not only to family but also to employers, co-workers, and friends.
Hashimoto's thyroiditis
Also referred to as autoimmune thyroiditis and chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, is a chronic inflammatory glandular autoimmune disease. An autoimmune reaction to proteins in the thyroid is the underlying cause of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. There is evidence of a genetic predisposition in the development of Hashimoto's thyroiditis. It is not uncommon for persons with autoimmune thyroid disease to have other coinciding autoimmune disorders. Approximately 25 percent of patients with Hashimoto's may develop pernicious anemia, diabetes, adrenal insufficiency, or other autoimmune diseases.
Another thyroid related autoimmune disease is Graves' disease. The disease process can eventually destroy the thyroid, resulting in hypothyroidism; but usually the person has an enlarged thyroid gland with normal or mildly abnormal thyroid function tests. Persons with Hashimoto's thyroiditis have autoantibodies against several different proteins in their thyroid gland. A family history of thyroid disease is not unusual.
Although men and women of any age can develop this disease, it is most common in women between the ages of 30 or 50 where the ratio of female to male is fifty to one.
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