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Increasing Awareness of Autoimmune Diseases and Immune-Mediated Disorders
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When someone has an autoimmune disease, the individual suffers from a disease in which that person's own immune system somehow turns against her or him. In the case of an autoimmune disease, the trigger for the disease rests inside, not outside, the patient's own body. For example, something can go awry with the organs, cells, antibodies, or other parts of the immune system that can trigger a disease process.
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When someone has an immune-mediated disorder, the individual suffers from a disorder in which an outside-the-body factor creates an insult or injury to the body's immune system and triggers a health problem. For example, an outside influence such as a virus, infection, toxic chemical, or transplanted organ can be introduced into the body and compromise the body's immune system, setting in motion a short-term, periodic, or perhaps chronic or even ultimately fatal health problem. Once this health problem is initiated, it is regulated, or mediated, by the body's immune system.
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Examples of Immune-Mediated Disorders:
- Cancer
- Allergy/Asthma
- Infectious diseases
- Immune deficiency
- Transplant rejection
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Examples of Autoimmune Diseases:
- Myasthenia Gravis
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
- Type I Diabetes (formerly known as "Juvenile Diabetes")
- Lupus Erythematosus
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Guillain-Barré Syndrome
- Sjörgren's Syndrome
- Crohn's Disease
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