The immune system is a complicated network of cells and molecules that normally work to defend the body and eliminate infections caused by bacteria, viruses, and other invading microbes. In an autoimmune disease, the immune system mistakenly identifies a person's body as an enemy and attacks.
There are many autoimmune diseases, each affecting the body in different ways. For example, the autoimmune reaction is directed against the brain in multiple sclerosis and against the small intestine in Crohn's disease. In other autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, the most common form of lupus), the affected tissues and organs vary among individuals with the same disease. One person with lupus will have affected skin and joints, and another will have affected skin, kidney, and lungs. Damage to certain tissues by the immune system can be permanent, as with destruction of insulin-producing cells of the pancreas in Type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Who Is Affected by Autoimmune Diseases?
Many autoimmune diseases are rare. As a group, however, autoimmune diseases afflict millions of Americans. Autoimmune diseases strike women more often than they do 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 (hardening of the skin and other soft tissue) affect a higher percentage of residents in some Native American communities than in the general U.S. population.
Examples of Autoimmune Diseases:
(Listed by the Main Target Organ)
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Nervous System:
- Multiple sclerosis
- Myasthenia gravis
- Autoimmune neuropathies such as Guillain-Barré
- Autoimmune uveitis
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Gastrointestinal System:
- Crohn's Disease
- Ulcerative colitis
- Primary biliary cirrhosis
- Autoimmune hepatitis
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Blood:
- Autoimmune hemolytic anemia
- Pernicious anemia
- Autoimmune thrombocytopenia
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Endocrine Glands:
- Type 1 or immune-mediated diabetes mellitus
- Hashimoto's thyroiditis
- Grave's Disease
- Autoimmune oophoritis and orchitis
- Autoimmune disease of the adrenal gland
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Blood Vessels:
- Temporal arteritis
- Anti-phospholipid syndrome
- Vasculitides such as Wegener's granulomatosis
- Behcet's disease
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Multiple Organs Including the Musculoskeletal System:*
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Systemic lupus erythematosus
- Scleroderma
- Polymyositis, dermatomyositis
- Spondyloarthropathies such as ankylosing spondylitis
- Sjogren's syndrome
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Skin:
- Psoriasis
- Dermatitis herpetiformis
- Pemphigus vulgaris
- Vitiligo
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| *These diseases are also called connective tissue (muscle, skeleton, tendons, fascia, etc.) diseases. |
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