Autoimmune disease: Today?s greatest health challenge
By Dr. Allan Sachs 12:03 p.m. EDT June 15, 2014
The complex issue of autoimmune diseases poses some of our greatest health challenges. Part One of this series will provide a basic understanding of the roles the immune system is meant to play and what ultimately defines autoimmunity. Part Two will seek to explain some of the ways autoimmune diseases might develop and how we might seek to prevent or reduce the impact of these conditions.
If it hasn?t already happened, it is very likely that you, or someone close to you, will be diagnosed as having an autoimmune disease. What distinguishes this very broad and diverse group of illnesses is that for one or more reasons, our own immune systems, which are designed to protect the body from foreign invasion, fails to identify some of our own bodies? tissue as ?self,? but rather considers it as if it were a foreigner worthy of attack. Which of our tissues is deemed the enemy determines the nature of the illness...
