Common Cause of Autoimmune Diseases
- Friday, November 28, 2008, 15:19
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”Only recently have we begun thinking of autoimmune diseases as a consortium, a related group of conditions that have many features in common,” said Noel R. Rose, a professor at Johns Hopkins and head of the American Autoimmune Disease Association. ”By focusing on these common elements, we’ve advanced our understanding.” NY Times, June 9, 2001
The evidence supporting an Autoimmune Disease “Common Cause” Hypothesis is extensive. The “Common Cause” Hypothesis predicts that many devastating autoimmune diseases have a single cause. The evidence in favor of the Hypothesis is extensive and compelling, including:
It has been known for years that patients with an autoimmune disease are more likely to have a relative with an autoimmune disease, but not necessarily the same disease.
Approximately 15% of all autoimmune patients have two autoimmune diseases and the
typical family with one affected adult will have greater than 40% chance of another
adult member having an autoimmune affliction.
Large genetic studies repeatedly find that autoimmune diseases can be linked to the same region of a chromosome as genes involved in training the immune system to identify “self” tissue.
It is common for one identical human twin to have an autoimmune disease and 60 – 70% of the time for their sibling not to have this condition – in fact there are many documented cases in which twins express two different autoimmune diseases!
Doctors have become aware that those who suffer from one autoimmune disease are at increased risk of contracting another. Moreover, researchers have seen that a generalized predisposition toward autoimmunity may run in families, with one person suffering from, say, lupus, another from rheumatoid arthritis, a third from Graves’ disease. nowing this kinship pattern may help a doctor more quickly diagnose an autoimmune condition.
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GRAIN FREE SPECIFIC CARBOHYDATE DIET A LIFESAVER!!
As I have read through this website, I have not found any references at all to the amazing impact that diet has on autoimmune disorders. I have Henoch Schonlein Purpura, a type of autoimmune vasculitis, and have almost completely eliminated my symptoms by removing complex carbohydates from my diet. This diet is knows as the SPECIFIC CARBOHYDRATE DIET and is well researched and resources are readily available.
I am a nurse as well as a life coach and it is my pleasure to support people with health challenges to find the triggers in their diet and to successfully remove them. The results have been life changing for me and my family as well as the clients I have worked with for the last 25 years. If you are curious and want to explore this idea more, check out my blog at http://blog.dynamicchoices.ca and my website at http://www.dynamicchoices.ca My email address is margaret@dynamicchoices.ca
Margaret Evans R.N., B.Sc.N., C.P.C.C. Registered nurse and Certified Professional Life Coach.
The second most common autoimmune disease is SJOGREN’S SYNDROME and is rarely reported on in the medical news community. This is a tragedy as 3 to 4 million Americans have it, 90 percent women of all ethnicities, and it is often MISDIAGNOSED. It’s time to put more public focus on this disease that doctors rarely suspect let alone test for. And 30 to 40 percent of the time, blood tests are negative for Sjogren’s. You must have a lip biopsy by an oral surgeon for definitive diagnosis.
I have ankylosing spondylitis and its common twin ulcerative colitis. Both of them extremely severe. I was also diagnosed with enteropathic spondyloarthropathy last years. At this moment I am having a flare up of spondylitis and am lying in bed paralysed in fear to move and feel extreme severe pain.
I am a naturopathic nutrition student studying at CNM and one of my lecturers told me that the cause of auto immunity is often leaky gut. Refined carbs find there way past the mucosal membrane and somehow into the blood ( i cant remember how) and then the body attacks them. Then memory lymphocytes search for them and find the carbs in tissues, so attack them…
I seriously am considering taking out all refinded carbs…
Just found out that John’s Hopkins has an autoimmune research center. In the many months of looking for a doctor/department/clinic who would see me, undiagnosed but told it was autoimmune and referred to Hopkins, not once was I made aware of the research center. I was shockingly denied at the connective tissue and rheumatology clinics and bounced to secondary issues in my visits to Hopkins. Dr. Rose must be an amazing person. Look into this if you have a need or interest. Indeed, in families it is often a fruit basket of different auto-immune disorders such as cousins with either Still’s or MS and then another with diabetes. Onward! We need more than blanket immuno-suppressives that cause tremendous damage to the host.