Antigen-Specific Immunotherapy to Treat Autoimmune Disease

Autoimmunity as a term covers a broad range of ways in which the immune system can run awry to attack healthy tissues. It bears some semblance to cancer in that an autoimmune disorder can occur at any age, there are many, many different types, and the details of the biochemistry involved are enormously complex and comparatively poorly understood. There is no good consensus on why some of the most common autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis occur, for example, and the most successful of presently available treatments focus on suppressing the activities of the malfunctioning immune system in as targeted a way as possible rather than addressing the root causes of that malfunction - as the root causes are not yet well enough categorized to identify a point of action. A number of named autoimmune disorders are diagnoses of exclusion: you have the condition because you show some of a grab bag of unpleasant symptoms yet all of the tests for other named autoimmune conditions come back negative. There tend to be no reliable treatments in those cases. Some autoimmune diseases are not age-related at all, but others are, beyond the assurance of "live long enough and something will go wrong," that is. Certainly the immune system as a whole deteriorates and malfunctions in other characteristic ways with advancing age, becoming increasingly ineffective yet constantly active to generating increased and harmful levels of chronic inflammation. Some researchers have made inroads in...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs