Why Does My Immune System Attack Itself in Autoimmune Disorder?

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Ana Maria Orbai, M. D. , M. H. S.

Autoimmune illness affects around 80% of the 23.5 million Americans who have it. If you are one of the millions of women impacted by these disorders, which include lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and thyroid disease, you may wonder why your immune system is attacking itself.

Ana Maria Orbai, M.D., M.H.S., is a rheumatologist at the Arthritis Center at Johns Hopkins. Rheumatologists are specialists in the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal and autoimmune illnesses (rheumatic disease). Orbai describes numerous hypotheses about the causes of autoimmune disease, such as infection, tissue damage, and heredity.

The Relationship Between Women and Autoimmune Disease

Doctors are uncertain as to why autoimmune illness occurs or why women are impacted more than males. Higher amounts of hormones in women, particularly during reproductive years, may increase their susceptibility to autoimmune illnesses, according to one idea.

However, Orbai emphasizes that this theory has not yet been validated and that several genetic and environmental factors influence autoimmunity. Researchers cannot conclusively explain why more women than males suffer these disorders.

The Function of Infection and Illness

Autoimmune illness arises when the immune system, the body's natural defenses, attacks the body's own healthy tissue. Researchers have numerous hypotheses as to why this occurs.

When the body detects a virus or infection as a threat, the immune system activates and attacks it. The term for this is immunological response. Sometimes, this response includes healthy cells and tissues, resulting in an autoimmune illness.

Numerous researchers believe that this is the source of rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory illness that targets the joints. It is also typical for patients with strep throat to develop psoriasis, an autoimmune illness characterized by thick, scaly skin patches.

Other forms of autoimmune disease may result from the body's attempt to combat cancer cells. Orbai refers to scleroderma, a disorder that causes skin and connective tissue thickening. She explains that it is believed that when the immune system eliminates cancer, there is a residual inflammatory reaction as a result of the fight. Researchers from Johns Hopkins examined people who got both scleroderma and cancer in an effort to elucidate this association.

The Damage Hypothesis

Injuries may play a role in certain types of inflammatory illness, such as psoriatic arthritis, which affects the joints of certain psoriasis patients.

Tendons, which connect muscle to bone, are susceptible to damage in high-stress areas of the body, according to research. This leads to an immunological reaction. For instance, the runner's heel is a region where the muscle constantly pulls on the bone to generate movement.

Orbai states that repetitive stress can expose tissue that ordinarily would not be in contact with blood cells. When this tissue becomes exposed, a tiny wound results. Blood cells attempt to mend it, but an aberrant immune reaction produces joint and tendon inflammation.

Orbai is careful to note out that while there is some evidence to support these hypotheses, scientists have not conclusively demonstrated that they are the causes of autoimmune disease.

Genetic Threat

Despite the fact that it is evident that genetics have a role in autoimmune illness, experts still do not fully comprehend how. For instance, having a relative with lupus or multiple sclerosis (MS) increases your risk of developing these conditions. Multiple members of some families are affected by various autoimmune disorders. Nevertheless, genetics alone are insufficient to produce autoimmune illness.

Orbai asserts that while genes are significant, they are not everything. You can have family members with lupus or multiple sclerosis without ever contracting the disease yourself. Even if you test positive for lupus-specific DNA, you may not have lupus.

It is likely that autoimmunity is caused by the immune system's capacity to deal with stress. According to Orbai, this is an area of extensive investigation. When does the stress on your body exceed the ability of your immune system to handle it? If we knew this, it could be the key to averting the development of autoimmune illness.