In the last two years, I’ve noticed that autoimmune diseases (AD’s) are affecting people I know and I’ve read their incidence is increasing in the United States. I’m concerned why so many people are getting these diseases, how these various forms are connected and how nutrition and lifestyle can prevent and heal them. Below are facts cited (in italics) from the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, Inc. (AARD).
( https://www.aarda.org/autoimmune-information/autoimmune-statistics/ )
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates up to 23.5* million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease and that the prevalence is rising. We at AARDA say that 50 million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease. Why the difference? The NIH numbers only include 24 diseases for which good epidemiology studies were available.
• Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 more diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and often life-threatening.
• Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age.
• Commonly used immunosuppressant treatments lead to devastating long-term side effects.
Patients face critical obstacles in diagnosis and treatment.
• Symptoms cross many specialties and can affect all body organs.
• Medical education provides minimal learning about autoimmune disease.
• Specialists are generally unaware of interrelationships among the different autoimmune diseases or advances in treatment outside their own specialty area.
• Initial symptoms are often intermittent and unspecific until the disease becomes acute.
• Research is generally disease-specific and limited in scope. More information-sharing and crossover among research projects on different autoimmune diseases is needed.
• According to the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Women’s Health, autoimmune disease and disorders ranked #1 in a top ten list of most popular health topics requested by callers to the National Women’s Health Information Center.
Autoimmunity is not yet considered a category of disease by most doctors, perhaps because it affects so many organ systems and so many doctors are specialists. Research is beginning to show that various autoimmune conditions (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, MS, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and many others) are related because they are caused by a similar abnormal reaction of the immune system toward the body. In order to effectively treat these diseases, we need to look at causes, rather than just the symptoms.
AD’s tend to run in families, but they often show up as different conditions. It appears that there can be genetic susceptibility and then there are environmental factors that turn on the “switch.” The mother in a family may have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, while a daughter has alopecia and a cousin has Crohn’s disease. Genetics may account for about 50 percent of the risk that someone will get an AD. Then there are environmental triggers that are not well known or understood.
Here’s a list of the many autoimmune diseases: http://autoimmunediseaselist.com/a-to-z.php
Women and AD’s
Women account for about 75 percent of all AD’s and this may be because immune responses in females are generally stronger than in males. When young women report symptoms, doctors often don’t take them seriously and think the woman is a complainer, being over reactive or emotional.
In one AARDA survey, they found that it takes most autoimmune patients up to four and a half years and nearly five doctors before receiving a proper autoimmune disease diagnosis. One must wonder if a thorough family health background check and open mind would cut this process in half.
Clearly, the entire population needs to learn more about AD’s since they are so prevalent. If one is not affecting you, it is very likely someone you know is suffering the effects of one now. My next blog will deal with how patients have used self-care to reduce or eliminate symptoms of autoimmune conditions.
Health Idealist 