Auto Immune Disease

Brain diseases affecting more people and starting earlier than ever before

Professor Colin Pritchard's latest research published in Public Health journal has found that the sharp rise of dementia and other neurological deaths in people under 74 cannot be put down to the fact that we are living longer ...

Health created May 10, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Researchers identify a promising target for multiple sclerosis treatments

A team of basic and clinical scientists led by the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre's (CRCHUM) Dr. Nathalie Arbour has opened the door to significantly improved treatments for the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis ...

Immunology created Mar 19, 2013 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Auto-immune disease: The viral route is confirmed

Why would our immune system turn against our own cells? This is the question that the combined Inserm/CNRS/ Pierre and Marie Curie University/Association Institut de Myologie have strived to answer in their "Therapies for ...

Neuroscience created Dec 19, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

The role of the innate immune cells in the development of type 1 diabetes

Julien Diana and Yannick Simoni of the "Immune Mechanisms in Type 1 Diabetes," Inserm/Université Paris Descartes, directed by Agnès Lehuen, have just published the results of their work on type 1 diabetes in the Nature Me ...

Diabetes created Dec 19, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

New point of focus found for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases

Scientists affiliated with VIB and UGent have discovered a mechanism used by the protein A20 to combat inflammation. This could be a very important point of focus in the search for a treatment for autoimmune diseases such ...

Arthritis & Rheumatism created Oct 09, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Identifying the key genes to infection resistance

Manning the gates of our immune system are toll-like receptors (TLR)—tiny hairs that stick out of the cell membrane, recognize foreign bodies, and rally an organism's defense mechanisms. The molecular building ...

Immunology created Sep 17, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Vasculitis related genes cause inflammation of blood vessels

(Medical Xpress) -- Medical Scientists at Trinity College Dublin in a pan-European collaborative study have discovered genes that contribute to the condition vasculitis, causing the inflammation of blood vessels. The findings ...

Inflammatory disorders created Aug 02, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Mechanistic insights into Old English plants

Often lacking in natural product drug discovery are ‘mechanistic insights’; that is, insights into the events at the molecular level that are behind any effects that plant compounds have on cells ...

Medications created Jul 10, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Why belly fat isn't all bad: Fatty membrane helps regulate immune system

A fatty membrane in the belly called the omentum has until recently been considered somewhat like the appendix -- it didn't seem to serve much purpose.

Immunology created Jun 06, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Injection offers hope for treating auto-immune disease

Australian researchers have uncovered a potential new way to regulate the body’s natural immune response, offering hope of a simple and effective treatment for auto-immune diseases.

Immunology created May 31, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Nature reports on unapproved stem-cell therapies in China

(Phys.org) -- A report in the journal Nature on the extent of unapproved stem-cell treatments in China has found that the practice is still widespread and is attracting thousands of medical tourists to the country.

Health created Apr 12, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Estrogen is responsible for slow wound healing in women

Estrogen causes wounds in women to heal slower than in men - who have lower levels of estrogen - says a new study published in the April 2012 issue of the FASEB Journal. In the report, scientists from the University of Californ ...

Medical research created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Depression could be evolutionary byproduct of immune system

Depression is common enough – afflicting one in ten adults in the United States – that it seems the possibility of depression must be "hard-wired" into our brains. This has led biologists to propose several theories ...

Psychology & Psychiatry created Mar 01, 2012 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (10) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

New strategies for treatment of infectious diseases

The immune system protects from infections by detecting and eliminating invading pathogens. These two strategies form the basis of conventional clinical approaches in the fight against infectious diseases. ...

Immunology created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

SIV infection may lead to increase in immune-suppressive Treg cells

Tissue in monkeys infected with a close relative of HIV can ramp up production of a type of T cell that actually weakens the body's attack against the invading virus. The discovery, in lymph nodes draining the intestinal ...

Immunology created Feb 14, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0


Autoimmune diseases arise from an inappropriate immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body. In other words, the immune system mistakes some part of the body as a pathogen and attacks its own cells. This may be restricted to certain organs (e.g. in autoimmune thyroiditis) or involve a particular tissue in different places (e.g. Goodpasture's disease which may affect the basement membrane in both the lung and the kidney). The treatment of autoimmune diseases is typically with immunosuppression—medication which decreases the immune response.

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