risk of autoimmune diseases.

[stikker]

Interesting article. Wegener's not mentioned but what else is new.

1 in 12 Women Will Have Autoimmune Disease (http://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/news/20110110/1-in-12-women-will-have-autoimmune-disease)
stikker

[Sangye]

Holy cow, those numbers are awful. :sad:

[elephant]

Yes, I believe because I'm the 12 one in my group of friends. :)

[Terri]

I know of 4 people just in my work area. One has MS another has thyroid and graves disease, another with various blood disorders and then I have the WG

[dunkie2202]

wow Terri that is one unlucky work area.........

[chrisTIn@]

The chance that women get rheumatoid Arthritis is twice as high as the chance that men get it, according to this article.
'Wegeners'-patients are equally affected, according to the latest insights. The chances to get it, are the same for men and women.

[Sangye]

Most autoimmune diseases affect women more than men. Wegs is odd, as it's equally distributed.

[ScreaminMeanie]

The ratios of "normal" to "affected by AI" people that I know are about right according to that article. I know two people with RA, two with MS, and two with psioritic arthritis.

[drz]

In a diabetes support forum someone started a thread on how many had other autoimmune disorders in their family history and and many people posted a history of parents and grand parents with other autoimmune disorders which one reader suggested indicated a possibility that autoimmune disorders tend to have some common thread in genetics.

[NicShaf]

My husband was telling me about this article last night, 1 in 12 are scary numbers.

I am interested in the family history of autoimmune disorders. I was just diagnosed with Wegs, and my dad also has an autoimmune disorder. He was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis about 10 years ago. I haven't found any research that supports autoimmune disorders running in families or some people having a predisposition to them, but it is interesting that others have a family history. My doc seemed surprised that a father and daughter would both have autoimmunes, and somewhat rare ones...but I guess this was before I found out that 1 in 12 people get them...;)

[Sangye]

Some AI diseases often have a family history, like RA. Others don't. Holistic physicians theorize that AI diseases sometimes run in families not because of a gene but because of shared habits, toxic exposure, diets, etc....

[drz]

What I found interesting about the article they neglected to omit what is probably one of the most common ones--diabetes.

John Hopkins posted this on diabetes.

Definition: Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (type 1) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease of the pancreas, resulting in a lack of insulin.

Description: Insulin is produced in the pancreas by beta cells of the islets of Langerhans. The main source of energy for all cells and especially for brain cells is glucose. Insulin is necessary for glucose to get into cells and be used for energy production. After eating, the glucose level in blood rises, which leads to insulin being released from the pancreas. In a person with IMDM, beta cells of Langerhans are damaged by autoimmune inflammation, leading to an insufficiency of insulin. The glucose level in blood rises and cells do not have enough energy for metabolism.

[gurinbasra]

Astma is also an AI and anyone having any kind of allergy, so, it's no wonder the stats are so high. I was told that AI diseases are genetic but specifically naming them like Wegener's aren't and some like Lupus are - yeh I'm confused! We need some statistics on statistics!
Gurinder

[Sangye]

Asthma is not an autoimmune disease. It's a chronic inflammatory disease.

AI diseases are not necessarily genetic. Even those that occur more frequently in families might not have a genetic tendency but rather an environmental one. An example of this would be a farming family that has high exposure to toxins via pesticides, fertilizers, etc... On the other hand, often what is inherited is not the autoimmune disease but a precursor condition. Celiac disease (gluten intolerance) is often a precursor condition to various AI diseases like Crohn's, RA, etc.... In this case various family members would have gluten intolerance which, when left untreated, dysregulates the immune system and an AI disease process begins. So it looks like they share genes for AI disease when they really only share genes for gluten intolerance.