Autoimmune Diseases
An autoimmune disease is a condition in which your immune system mistakenly attacks your body, leading to inflammation, cell injury, or a functional disturbance with clinical manifestations.
Autoimmune disorder symptoms are initially nonspecific, and include malaise and fatigue, low-grade fevers, aches, and pains. Due to this vagueness, patients are frequently diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after they become weak and unable to function normally, making the onset of the disease difficult to pinpoint, and the possible triggers uncertain.
There are more than 100 autoimmune diseases that affect a wide range of body parts. Some of the most common autoimmune diseases include:
- Type 1 diabetes– The immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.
- Rheumatoid arthritis– The immune system attacks the joints.
- Inflammatory bowel disease– Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis are diseases in which the immune system attacks the lining of the intestinal wall.
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis– Deficiency of thyroid hormones production
- Celiac disease– Inflammation of the small intestine caused by foods containing gluten
- Lupus– with antibodies attacking multiple organs– the skin, joints, kidneys, brain, lungs
Diagnosing an autoimmune disease involves identifying which antibodies your body is producing. Autoimmunity develops over time, and preclinical antibodies precede disease by many years, but can be detected by serum levels. Autoimmune disorders are facilitated by genetic predisposition, environmental triggers, such as unhealthy food choices, toxins, drugs, infections, overconsumption of alcoholic beverages, mental stress, and damage to the intestinal wall function (“leaky gut”).