Autoimmune Disease: Is There a Cure?

Autoimmune disease is a result of the failure of the immune system to recognize a part of the body as itself.  In a response against its own cells and tissues, the immune system destroys these parts of the body as if they were a foreign invader or some sort of pathogen.  Autoimmune diseases can affect connective tissue, nerves, joints, muscles, glands, digestive system, and just about any other tissue or organ in the body.  Statistically, most autoimmune diseases occur in women, primarily during childbearing years.  Genetic factors have a strong influence on who will and will not potentially develop an autoimmune disease.

Autoimmune diseases generally occur as a result of an immune system imbalance.  When portions of the immune system become out of balance, one part of the immune system becomes dominant as compared with another part.  In autoimmune disorders, the Th1 / Th2 balance has been disrupted, with the Th1 response becoming very dominant, and, in comparison, the Th2 response becoming relatively depressed.  The Th1 dominance, in conjunction with other factors, leads to the immune system components attacking the body’s tissues as if they were a foreign invader.  Autoimmune diseases generally require both a genetic and environmental factor to be expressed.  Often referred to as the family of inflammatory disorders, the list of diseases that have an autoimmune basis is constantly expanding.  The following is a partial list of diseases that have an autoimmune component.

Addison’s disease
Alopecia Areata
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Autoimmune Hemolytic Anemia
Antiphospholipid syndrome
Aplastic Anemia
Bursitis
Chronic active hepatitis
Celiac disease
Crohn’s disease
Diabetes Mellitus Type 1
Eczema
Goodpasture’s syndrome
Graves’s disease
Guillain-Barré syndrome
Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis
Hypoparathyroidism
Iritis
Kawasaki’s disease
Multiple Sclerosis
Myasthenia Gravis
Pemphigus
Pernicious Anemia
Polymyalgia Rheumatica
Psoriatic arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid fever
Sjögren’s syndrome
Systemic Lupus Erythematosus
Ulcerative Colitis
Wegener’s granulomatosis

Autoimmunity cannot be contained.  When an autoimmune disease is diagnosed, other autoimmune diseases are often found present in varying degrees.  The autoimmune diagnosis most commonly is assigned the title of the disease that has the most readily obvious signs and symptoms.  Grave’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis are autoimmune disorders that appear to share the same mechanism of pathogenesis.  A significant co-occurrence of Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune thyroid condition, can be found in patients with either Multiple Sclerosis or Grave’s disease.  Other concurrent autoimmune processes that may be present, such as eczema or hypothyroidism, often take a back seat and are usually dismissed as unrelated conditions by the medical doctor and referred out to the appropriate specialist.  The patient with rheumatoid arthritis, eczema, and hypothyroidism ends up seeing a rheumatologist, dermatologist, and endocrinologist.  These practitioners are all treating different symptoms of the same autoimmune process, but none are addressing the root cause of the disease.  Medical treatment of the inflammatory aspect of autoimmune disease typically consists of anti-inflammatory medications, pain medication, steroids, hormones, and many other medications targeted toward symptomatic relief.  Hypothyroidism would be treated with a synthetic thyroid hormone, and the eczema would typically be treated by topical steroid creams.  If the root cause was addressed, all autoimmunity would cease, and the related conditions, which were seemingly unrelated, would all subsequently disappear.  The need for these medications prescribed for treatment of the symptoms would also disappear.

In many diseases that have a partial genetic basis, an environmental factor must also be present in order for expression of the disease to occur.  Autoimmune disease is no exception.  This can be seen in families where everyone has inherited the genes linked to the disease, but not everyone contracts the disease.  While genetics cannot be controlled, environmental factors leading to the expression of the disease can be controlled to a great degree.  If the environmental factors can be identified and controlled, the disease process can be avoided.

Identifying some environmental factors involved in autoimmune disease requires specialized tests.   In addition, certain lifestyle issues are almost always present in persons who contract autoimmune disease.  Once identified, avoiding the specific causative factors associated with autoimmune disease and a change of certain lifestyle factors will lead to the remission of the disease.  The environmental factors leading to autoimmune disease are discussed in the book Why Am I Sick? And What To Do About It , available on Amazon today.  If you or a family member has a genetic predisposition to autoimmune disease, this book is a must-read.  Not only will you learn how to reverse autoimmune disease, but avoid autoimmune issues even if genetic factors are present.