Feature Channels: Autoimmune Diseases

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Debilitating. Destructive. Life-altering. These are just a few words used to describe autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases affect women 8 times more often than men, with lupus being one of the most disruptive. Lupus is a disease that occurs when a person’s immune system attacks its own tissues and organs instead of attacking foreign invaders such as common viruses and bacteria. Lupus often results in wide-spread inflammation, pain, swelling and organ/tissue damage throughout the body.

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50:1, 9:1, 2:1 these are just some ratios of autoimmune disease disparities between women and men. The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) hosted the Capitol Hill briefing, The War Within: Women and Autoimmunity, on Tuesday, October 11 to address these concerns. The briefing featured two panelists who spoke about autoimmune diseases in women, and the efforts needed to advance the understanding and treatment of these often serious conditions.

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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scientists investigate a gene that appears to protect against rheumatoid arthritis. The research could inform future treatment approaches.

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Most of the time, the immune system is the body’s protector. But in autoimmune diseases, the immune system does an about face, turning on the body and attacking normal cells. A major discovery by La Jolla Institute scientist Amnon Altman, Ph.D., and his colleagues, of a previously unknown molecular interaction that is essential for T lymphocyte activation, could have major implications for stopping this aberrant immune system behavior and the accompanying undesirable immune responses that cause autoimmune diseases and allergies.

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Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown that close supervision by rheumatologists and the use of immunosuppressant drugs improve the survival of lupus patients with end-stage kidney disease—a finding that could reverse long-standing clinical practice. Their study appeared in the September 1 online edition of the Journal of Rheumatology.

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University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have revealed the genetic underpinnings of cells – called Foxp3-expressing regulatory T cells or Tregs – that can prevent the immune response from turning cannibalistic.

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Scientists have identified a surprising new role for a new type of T cell in the immune system: some of them can be activated by nerves to make a neurotransmitter (acetylcholine) that blocks inflammation. The discovery of these T cells is novel and suggests that it may be possible to treat inflammation and autoimmune diseases by targeting the nerves and the T cells.

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Scientists have deciphered the genome of a bacterium implicated as a key player in regulating the immune system of mice. The genomic analysis provides the first glimpse of its unusually sparse genetic blueprint and offers hints about how it may activate a powerful immune response that protects mice from infection but also spurs harmful inflammation.

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Leading investigators in the field of lupus research will present their findings at an upcoming scientific conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the Kirkland Scholar Program at Hospital for Special Surgery.

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While for years scientists have noted an association between levels of vitamin D in a person’s body and the person’s ability to resist or minimize the effects of multiple sclerosis (MS), the mechanism involved has not been established. However new research by Sylvia Christakos, Ph.D., of UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School (principal investigator) Sneha Joshi (first author, a UMDNJ Ph.D. student), and colleagues (including co-investigator Lawrence Steinman, MD, of Stanford University) appears to have uncovered that process.

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Autoimmune disease is a leading cause of chronic illness in the U.S. and, in fact, is a top 10 killer of women under the age of 65. Fifty million Americans in the U.S. have an autoimmune disease. That’s right up there with cancer and heart disease, and many of these diseases are on the rise. The Kardashian, Braxton, and Gaga stories help to spotlight the best identifier of risk for autoimmune diseases--family history.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigators have identified a signaling molecule that functions like a factory supervisor to ensure that the right mix of specialized T cells is available to fight infections and guard against autoimmune disease.

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A discovery by University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers about a how a common cell pathway that helps regulate cell survival and production is turned on could lead to new treatments for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

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In a study that included nearly 14,000 patients with rheumatoid arthritis or psoriasis, the use of certain disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs was found to lower the risk of diabetes, according to a study in the June 22/29 issue of JAMA.

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In the first study investigating the cause of a little-understood condition called chronic ulcerative stomatitis (CUS), researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine provide evidence that an autoimmune response contributes to the painful oral disease, supporting the classification of CUS as an autoimmune disease.

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The American College of Rheumatology has developed new guidelines for starting and monitoring treatments for children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. These are the first JIA guidelines endorsed by the ACR, with the goal of broad acceptance within the rheumatology community.

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Spondyloarthritis (SpA) is a group of inflammatory conditions causing spine and joint pain and deformity, mostly in young men. Important updates on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of SpA are presented in the April issue of The American Journal of the Medical Sciences (AJMS), official journal of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

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Any possible pain relief that marijuana has for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) may be outweighed by the drug’s apparent negative effect on thinking skills, according to research published in the March 29, 2011, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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An estimated 50 million adults in the United States suffer from arthritis. According to the Centers for Disease Control, one of the best ways to combat the onset of arthritis as well as to control pain and improve function is through exercise. Loyola Center for Fitness expert gives tips for getting started.

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Once a medical rarity in children, inflammatory bowel disease today is increasingly common in kids, but many of them may not be diagnosed in a timely manner, according to experts from the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center at Johns Hopkins Children’s.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently recommends regular follow-up magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans for women with silicone breast implants. But a new review shows significant flaws in the evidence supporting this recommendation, reports the March issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

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People with type 1 diabetes, whose insulin-producing cells have been destroyed by the body’s own immune system, are particularly vulnerable to a form of inflammatory heart disease caused by a different autoimmune reaction. Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center now have revealed the exact target of this other onslaught.

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Lead investigator Jane Salmon, M.D., a rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery, and colleagues uncovered genetic mutations in women with the autoimmune diseases associated with increased risk of preeclampsia, as well as in patients with preeclampsia who did not have an autoimmune disease.

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Scientists have identified genetic errors in women with autoimmune diseases that increase the risk of preeclampsia, a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs in 10 percent of all pregnancies.

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A new report by the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA) examining the economic impact of autoimmune disease (AD) on Americans, their families and the United States was released today at a congressional briefing as part of AARDA’s 2011 National Autoimmune Diseases Awareness Month activities.

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FDA approval of Benlysta for lupus brings hope to the millions of Americans who suffer from many of the over 100 other autoimmune diseases that are awaiting new treatments.

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Scientists have blocked harmful immune cells from entering the brain in mice with a condition similar to multiple sclerosis (MS). The disease is believed to be caused by immune cells that enter the brain and damage myelin, an insulating material on the branches of neurons that conduct nerve impulses.

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Reporting in Nature, scientists from Thomas Jefferson University have determined that a single protein called FADD controls multiple cell death pathways, a discovery that could lead to better, more targeted autoimmune disease and cancer drugs.

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The American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association Inc. (AARDA) has unveiled a multi-media public service/awareness campaign titled “We are 50 Million” to herald March 2011 as National Autoimmune Diseases Awareness Month.

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Researchers at North Carolina State University have discovered that the placentas of women who suffer preeclampsia during pregnancy have an overabundance of a gene associated with the regulation of the body’s immune system.

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A prototype drug already shown to hold promise for treating autoimmune disorders like lupus, arthritis and psoriasis halts established graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) in mouse models of bone marrow transplantation, research at the University of Michigan and the University of Florida shows.

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The American Thoracic Society has released a new official clinical policy statement on the treatment of fungal infections in adult pulmonary and critical care patients. The statement replaces ATS guidelines published in 1988, and takes into account new medications and treatment approaches, as well as provides an overview of emerging fungi.

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For media covering the new IOM guidelines on vitamin D, several experts - including researchers, clinicians and nutritionists - at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) are available for comment.

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Moderate to severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may be an auto-immunity problem, according to researchers in Spain, who studied the presence of auto-antibodies in patients with COPD and compared them to levels of control subjects. They found that a significant number of patients with COPD had significant levels of auto-antibodies circulating in their blood, about 5 to 10 times the level in controls.

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A pediatric immunologist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia collaborated with European gene therapy researchers who achieved marked clinical improvements in two children with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome.

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Hospital for Special Surgery physicians who focus on lupus, scleroderma and related conditions are traveling from New York City to Atlanta this week to share their recent findings at the 74th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.

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Today, individuals with lupus nephritis benefit from better treatments than a decade ago, according to a review appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The article suggests that patients with the disease can now live full lives without suffering from many treatment-related side effects that plagued them in the past. In the future, patients will likely experience additional benefits from treatment strategies currently being explored in clinical trials.

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New understanding could lead to novel therapies for addressing autoimmune disease and organ transplant rejection without nonspecific suppression of the immune system.

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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists uncover a novel pathway for regulating T lymphocytes that play very different roles in inflammation.

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Emmy-nominated actress, Kellie Martin, star of “ER,” “Life Goes On” and the summer NBC movie “The Jensen Project” will be a featured speaker at “The Global State of Autoimmunity” conference hosted by the NGO Health Committee with the United Nations (UN) in partnership with the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, Inc. (AARDA) on Friday, September 24, 2010.

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UCLA researchers have found that a variation in a gene on the sex chromosome X may enhance an immune response that leads to lupus in men.

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Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found a new mechanism that explains how certain immune cells are activated to create protective antibodies against infections or pathological antibodies such as those present in autoimmune diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

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Patients with a certain type of scleroderma may get cancer and scleroderma simultaneously, Johns Hopkins researchers have found, suggesting that in some diseases, autoimmunity and cancer may be linked.

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A team of Columbia-led investigators has uncovered eight genes that underpin alopecia areata, one of the most common causes of hair loss, as reported in a paper in the July 1 issue of Nature. This discovery may soon lead to new treatments for the 5.3 million Americans suffering from hair loss caused by alopecia areata.

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Member of National Alopecia Areata Foundation Scientific Advisory Council answers key questions on one of the most prevalent autoimmune diseases.

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The Lady Gaga story underlines an important message for millions of other Americans who have a history of autoimmune disease in their families, according to the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association (AARDA). “Lupus is one of more than 100 autoimmune diseases and these diseases cluster in families which means that having a family member with lupus could mean you are at increased risk for lupus and other autoimmune diseases,” explained Virginia T. Ladd, AARDA President and Executive Director. Does that mean that Lady Gaga is at risk for more than lupus?

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The SisSLE (Sisters of Women with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus) research study is looking for sisters: one with a diagnosis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease and one (or more) who does not have lupus.

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Simple urine tests for four proteins might be able to detect early kidney disease in people with lupus, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in an animal study.

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Investigators have identified a new disease mechanism and therapeutic approach for a type of advanced kidney disease that is a common cause of complications in patients with lupus.

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Individuals with a history of lupus who receive a kidney transplant rarely develop the serious inflammatory condition lupus nephritis in their new organ, according to a paper being presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s 42nd Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in San Diego, CA. The findings indicate that having lupus should not keep individuals from seeking a kidney transplant if they need one.