About AutoImmune Disorders

The Immune System is a multi scale system that involves genes, molecules, cells and organs that incorporate specificity, inducibility and adaptation.  When functioning optimally a healthy immune system can quickly distinguish between our own healthy tissue (and proteins) and external pathogens, such as viruses, bacteria, fungis and parasites.  But for some people, the immune system fails causing Immune Dysfunction.
 
Immune Dysfunction falls into three broad categories: Immune Deficiencies, Immune Hypersensitivities, and Auto Immunity.

Immune deficiencies occur when one or more of the components of the immune system become inactive, this leaving your body immunocompromised. In this state the ability of the immune system to respond to pathogens becomes diminished and you are at greater risk of infection and some cancers. Immune deficiencies are more common in both the young (as they grow their immune system) and the elderly (as their immune system slows from around 50 years old) and while immune deficiencies can be inherited, they are mostly ‘acquired’. AIDS and some types of cancers fall within acquired immunodeficiency.

Immune hypersensitivities occur when an immune response damages the body's own tissues and are divided into four types.
Type I hypersensitivity: causes an immediate or anaphylactic reaction, often associated with allergy.
Type 2 hypersensitivity: is mediated by immune antibodies called IgE (immune proteins), these antibodies trigger an in house response of antibodies towards the antigen.
Type 3 hypersensitivity: occurs when antibodies bind to antigens on the patient's own cells, marking them for destruction.
Type 4 hypersensitivity: (also known as cell-mediated or delayed type hypersensitivity) usually takes days or weeks to develop. Type IV reactions are involved in many autoimmune and infectious diseases.

Auto Immunity occurs by an overactive immune response, triggering an 'automatically turned on' response.  Cells called T lymphocytes normally help fight against infection and other material foreign to the body ("non-self"). However certain rogue cells called "autoreactive T lymphocytes" respond to the body's own tissues and organs as if they were foreign. That is they lose "tolerance" to the body's own cells and tissues, switching and staying on in 'automatic' response.  Usually the body destroys such cells soon after the immune system makes them, but when such auto-reactive T lymphocytes evade elimination and mature they can cause serious inflammation and disease.

From the American Auto Immune Related Diseases Association (www.aarda.org),  the term “autoimmune disease” refers to a varied group of illnesses that involve almost every human organ system.  From diseases of the Nervous System (Brain, Nerves, Spinal Cord and Muscles, such as MS and Myelin Glycoprotein disease), the Gastrointestinal System such as Celiac disease, Inflammatory Bowel disease, Crohns disease and Ulcerative colitis. The Endocrine system such as Graves, Hashimotos, Type 1 diabetes, Addisons, to the organs of the skin such as Scleroderma, the thyroid such as Hashimotos Thyroidism, the bones such as Rheumatoid Arthritis/Ankylosing spondylitis/Fibromyalgia, the pancreas such as Diabetes Type 1,  the liver such as AutoImmune hepatitis, and body tissues such as Lupus, RA and Churg-Strass syndrome.

At this stage there is no cure for Autoimmune Disorders, but the symptoms are commonly treated with immunosuppressives — that decreases the immune response. There are 100 recognised Auto Immune diseases, some rare and some common.  But today’s doctors and scientists also have a more sophisticated understanding of how the immune system can go awry. One of the top experts in the field is Alessio Fasano, MD, the director of the Center for Celiac Research & Treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston.  Decades of research led him to deduce that every autoimmune disease has three basic ingredients: a genetic predisposition, an environmental trigger, and a leaky gut.

Closer to the source ... is Donna Jackson Nakazawa,  an American award winning science journalist, and public speaker.  She ALSO has Guillain-Barre syndrome, an Autoimmune disorder.  In her second book, 'The Autoimmune Epidemic' (Touchstone, 2009) her description is similar whilst the foreword in her book written by Md, PhD Douglas Kerr adds yet more insight into this disorder.

Kerr states: "Our wonderfully complex immune system can successfully protect our bodies while recognising and eliminating billions of distinct infections with which we come in contact.  When functioning well, our increasingly sophisticated immune system immediately recognizes a virus or bacteria (antigens) that has gotten into our body and initiates a spirited and robust attack on the invader.  Firstly the macrophages (white cells of the tissues) and antibodies in our skin and mucous membranes digest the foreign antigens, while the antibodies are giant sweepers and trap any antigens that got away.  If the invader breaks through that barrier of protection then our bodies produce lymphocytes (B and T cells) that are programmed to kill the invading antigen.  But this precisely choreographed dance between the immune system and the tissues it is designed to protect goes badly awry in autoimmune diseases.  In such diseases, the immune system's B and T cells mistake 'self' from invader and sadly attack the very tissues it was designed to protect.  But what triggers autoimmunity to occur? Throughout human history our exposure to such myriad infectious agents have triggered an evolutionary (in speed and sophistication) arms race." (Kerr, p. xvi)

Australian GP, Dr Carol Hungerford, as described in her book: 'Good Health in the 21st Century' (Hungerford, C. Dr., Scribe, 2006) states "The job of the immune system is to stand between us and ill-health.   Generally there are 3 immune mal-adaptations: Immune Deficiency, Immune Hypersensitivity and Auto Immune disorders.  Both Hypersensitivity and Autoimmune disorders represent immune dysfunction, in particular dysfunction of T-cell responses, resulting in the immune system not recognising 'self' from 'non-self', and then sets to work attacking (it)self”.

Hungerford (C,2006) goes on to suggest many factors affect the development of Autoimmune disorders, those being: bacterial, genetics, heavy metal poisoning, synthetic chemicals, medications, trace element deficiency, vitamin deficiencies, leaky gut syndrome and genetic malfunctions which usually present in 80% more women than men, and often activate (kick in) around age 40 yrs old.

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