Autoimmune diseases – Micro-immunotherapy

Autoimmunity And Its Causes

What Are Autoimmune Diseases?

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Autoimmune diseases result from a malfunction of the immune system which causes it to attack the body’s own healthy tissue, leading to chronic inflammatory reactions and subsequent cellular and tissue damage.

Autoimmune diseases are among the most common chronic diseases and are constantly increasing.

They affect around 3-8% of the world population and constitute the third most common group of diseases in terms of morbidity and mortality in industrialised countries, after cancer and cardiovascular diseases. They largely affect women, who account for about 75% of those affected.

Currently, about 100 different autoimmune diseases have been identified. A distinction is made between organ-specific and systemic autoimmune diseases. In the first case, the immune system selectively attacks a specific organ, such as the thyroid, the nerves or the intestine.

In the latter, it attacks the whole system, i.e. different organs, and causes a systemic autoimmune disease that is not organ-specific. Examples are rheumatoid arthritis and lupus erythematosus.

What Causes Autoimmune Diseases?

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The causes of the immune imbalance involved in autoimmune diseases are multiple and complex and have not yet been conclusively researched. It is assumed that both genetic predisposition and environmental and lifestyle factors play a role. Diseases often occur at very eventful times in life, and many patients are between 20 and 50 years of age. Chronic exposure to viruses may also be a co-trigger.

Most Common Autoimmune Diseases

Type 1 Diabetes

People with type 1 diabetes produce little or no insulin due to an autoimmune reaction. Type 1 diabetes occurs in 5-10% of all cases of diabetes. It usually appears in childhood or adolescence.

Psoriasis

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease that is usually characterised by the appearance of thick patches of skin that flake off (peel off in white scales).

Graves’ Disease

In affected individuals, 1% of the population, mostly women, antibodies attack the thyroid gland, which secretes and regulates hormones.

Celiac Disease

In people with coeliac disease, the ingestion of gluten causes an abnormal immune response in the small intestine, resulting in inflammation and damage to the intestinal wall. The prevalence ranges from about 1 in 100 to 1 in 300 people in Caucasian populations, while people of Asian or African descent are less affected.

Sjögren’s Syndrome

The manifestations of Sjögren’s syndrome are related to the infiltration of certain glands by lymphocytes, causing a decrease in their secretion. Sjögren’s syndrome affects just under one in 10,000 adults. Women are 10 times more affected than men.

Ankylosing Spondylitis

Ankylosing spondylitis is a rheumatic disease that mainly affects the spine and lower back, and is most common in healthy men between the ages of 15 and 40, where it is three times more common. Ankylosing spondylitis is estimated to affect 1 in 500 to 1 in 100 people.

Multiple Sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis is a disease that affects the central nervous system, particularly the brain, optic nerves and spinal cord. The immune system of people with MS destroys the myelin (a kind of insulation for the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord), which impairs the ability of different parts of the nervous system to communicate with each other. It is estimated that, on average, 1 in 1,000 people have multiple sclerosis, but the prevalence varies between countries. Northern countries are the most affected. Women are twice as affected as men.

Rheumatoid Arthritis

Rheumatoid arthritis is an inflammatory disease that causes several joints to swell and become painful. Rheumatoid arthritis affects 0.25% of the general population, and women are three times more likely than men to have it.

Lupus

Lupus is a chronic autoimmune disease that can affect many parts of the body, including the joints, skin, kidneys and heart. This is why it is called disseminated or systemic lupus. Lupus mainly affects women (about 9 times more than men) between 15 and 40 years of age.

Crohn’s Disease

Crohn’s disease is a chronic inflammatory disease of the digestive system.

Complementary Micro-Immunotherapy For Autoimmune Diseases

Each autoimmune disease has its own specific treatment. There are treatments to control the symptoms of the disease:

Analgesics for pain
Anti-inflammatories for functional joint discomfort
Replacement drugs to normalise endocrine disorders (insulin for diabetes, thyroxine for hypothyroidism, etc.), etc.

In the last twenty years, thanks to advances in biotechnology, biotherapies have been developed: they offer a better control of symptoms and risks of injury. They are generally used in cases of severe disease.

However, an integrative treatment strategy that takes into account the person and his or her whole being, intervening at different levels after considering the various factors involved in disease development, can be of interest to treat autoimmune diseases. Assessing the intestinal microbiota, for example, can help to fine-tune the therapeutic strategy.

A common condition associated to autoimmune diseases is leaky gut syndrome, which causes certain harmful substances to cross the intestinal barrier and reach the surrounding structures, where they put the immune system on alert. This then easily leads to an overreaction of the immune system and its disruption. Intestinal cleansing, a change of diet (fresh, not processed products, as little sugar as possible, no gluten) and the rebuilding of a balanced intestinal flora are the prerequisites for an effective therapy.

In addition, antiviral check-ups allow for detection of certain latent viruses or viral reactivations that may play a role in the development of autoimmune diseases.

Finally, exposure to environmental toxins and heavy metals may also play a role in the development of autoimmune diseases and should be taken into account in diagnosis and therapy.

Treatment Options for Autoimmune Diseases

Micro-immunotherapy works its effect through low doses of immunomodulatory substances such as cytokines. These are the same substances that the immune system uses to function and maintain its balance.

In the treatment of autoimmune diseases, micro-immunotherapy acts directly on the immune imbalance, aiming to exert a regulatory and anti-inflammatory action

Micro-immunotherapy is very well tolerated by patients and can easily be used in addition to other treatments. Its immunoregulatory action is: