One in ten people have an autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis or type 1 diabetes.
- There are more than 80 autoimmune diseases identified.
- They affect one in ten people, mostly women.
- A person with one autoimmune disease is more likely to develop another, compared to people without it.
Our immune system protects us: it fights against viruses or bacteria that cause disease. But sometimes it malfunctions and attacks our own organism. This is then referred to as an autoimmune disease. It is accepted that more and more people are affected, but scientific evidence is lacking. In Tea LancetBelgian researchers bring news: according to their conclusions, nearly one person in ten suffers from an autoimmune disease.
Autoimmune disease: what is it?
“Autoimmune diseases form a group in which we find diseases as different as type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or Crohn’s disease.developed Inserm. They all correspond to chronic diseases triggered by the body’s loss of immunological tolerance to its own constituents..” The immune system will then attack the healthy cells of the body. In total, there are more than 80 autoimmune diseases.
One in ten people is affected by at least one autoimmune disease
In this new research, Belgian scientists focused on 19 common autoimmune diseases. They worked on anonymised health data of 22 million people living in the UK. “Our aim was to study the incidence and prevalence of 19 of the most common autoimmune diseases in the UK, to assess trends over time and by sex, age, socio-economic status, season and region“, note the authors. They found that these autoimmune diseases affect approximately 10% of the population, 13% of women and 7% of men.”This is higher than previous estimates, which ranged from 3-9% and were often based on smaller sample sizes and included fewer autoimmune diseases.“, they observe.
Autoimmune disease: common risk factors between certain pathologies?
The researchers also found great disparities both socio-economic and geographical. According to them, this could reveal the involvement of potentially modifiable risk factors such as smoking, obesity or stress. Finally, their research has confirmed that in some cases, a person with one autoimmune disease is more likely to develop a second one compared to an unaffected person. “This could mean that some autoimmune diseases share common risk factors, such as genetic predispositions or environmental triggers.says Dr. Nathalie Conrad, lead author of the study. This was particularly visible among rheumatic diseases and endocrine diseases.” For the authors, it is “crucial to increase research efforts to understand the underlying causes of these pathologies”, because identifying the risk factors will make it possible to develop prevention methods.
