Autoimmune diseases arise from an overactive immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body. In other words, the body actually attacks its own cells. The immune system mistakes some part of the body as a pathogen and attacks it. This may be restricted to certain organ s (e.g. in chagas disease) 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.

There is an on-going discussion about when a disease should be considered autoimmune, leading to different criteria such as Witebsky's postulates.

Name:	Accepted/suspected	Hypersensitivity	Autoantibody
	Achlorhydra Autoimmune Active Chronic Hepatitis
	Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis
Acute hemorrhagic leukoencephalitis
Addison's Disease
Agammaglobulinemia
Alopecia areata	Accepted			T-cells
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Ankylosing Spondylitis	Accepted
Anti-GBM/TBM Nephritis
Antiphospholipid syndrome
Antisynthetase syndrome
Arthritis	Sometimes
Atopic allergy
Atopic Dermatitis
Autoimmune Aplastic Anemia
Autoimmune cardiomyopathy	Accepted
Autoimmune hemolytic anemia	Accepted	II
Autoimmune hepatitis	Accepted
Autoimmune inner ear disease	Accepted
Autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome	Accepted
Autoimmune peripheral neuropathy	Accepted
Autoimmune pancreatitis	Accepted
Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome Types I, II, & III	Accepted	Unknown or Multiple
Autoimmune progesterone dermatitis	Accepted
Autoimmune thrombocytopenic purpura	Accepted
Autoimmune uveitis	Accepted
Balo disease/Balo concentric sclerosis
Bechets Syndrome
Berger's disease
Bickerstaff's encephalitis
Blau syndrome
Bullous Pemphigoid
Castleman's disease
Chagas disease	Suspected
Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome
Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy
Chronic recurrent multifocal ostomyelitis
Chronic lyme disease	Suspected
Suspected		anti-elastin, Abys against epithelial cells
Churg-Strauss syndrome
Cicatricial Pemphigoid
Coeliac Disease	Accepted
Cogan syndrome
Cold agglutinin disease	Accepted	II
Complement component 2 deficiency
Cranial arteritis
CREST syndrome
Crohns Disease (one of two types of idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease "IBD")	Accepted	IV
Cushing's Syndrome
Cutaneous leukocytoclastic angiitis
Dego's disease
Dercum's disease	Suspected
Dermatitis herpetiformis
Dermatomyositis	Accepted
Diabetes mellitus type 1	Accepted	IV
Diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis
Dressler's syndrome
Discoid lupus erythematosus
Eczema
Endometriosis	Suspected
Enthesitis-related arthritis
Eosinophilic fasciitis	Accepted
Epidermolysis bullosa acquisita
Erythema nodosum
Essential mixed cryoglobulinemia
Evan's syndrome
Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
Fibromyalgia	Suspected
Fibromyositis
Fibrosing aveolitis
Gastritis
Gastrointestinal pemphigoid	Accepted
Giant cell arteritis
Glomerulonephritis	Sometimes
Goodpasture's syndrome	Accepted	II	Anti-Basement Membrane Collagen Type IV Protein
Graves' disease	Accepted	II
Guillain-Barr?? syndrome (GBS)	Accepted	IV	Anti-ganglioside antibodies|Anti-ganglioside
Hashimoto's encephalitis	Accepted	IV
Hashimoto's thyroiditis	Accepted	IV
Haemolytic anaemia
Henoch-Schonlein purpura
Herpes gestationis
Hidradenitis suppurativa	Suspected
Hughes syndrome (See Antiphospholipid syndrome)
Hypogammaglobulinemia
Idiopathic Inflammatory Demyelinating Diseases
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (See Autoimmune thrombocytopenic purpura)	Accepted	II
IgA nephropathy (Also Berger's disease)
Inclusion body myositis
Inflammatory demyelinating polyneuopathy
Interstitial cystitis	Suspected
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)	Suspected
Juvenile idiopathic arthritis
Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis
Kawasaki's Disease	Suspected
Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome
Leukocytoclastic vasculitis
Lichen planus
Lichen sclerosus
Linear IgA disease (LAD)
Lou Gehrig's Disease (Also Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis)
Lupoid hepatitis
Lupus erythematosus	Accepted	III
Majeed syndrome
M??ni??re's disease
Microscopic polyangiitis
Miller-Fisher syndrome	Accepted
Mixed Connective Tissue Disease	Accepted
Morphea	Suspected
Mucha-Habermann disease
Muckle???Wells syndrome
Multiple Myeloma
Multiple Sclerosis	Suspected
Myasthenia gravis	Accepted	II
Myositis
Narcolepsy	Accepted
Neuromyelitis optica (Also Devic's Disease)
Neuromyotonia	Suspected
Occular cicatricial pemphigoid
Opsoclonus myoclonus syndrome	Suspected
Ord thyroiditis
Palindromic rheumatism
PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcus)
Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration
Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)	Sometimes(?)
Parry Romberg syndrome
Parsonnage-Turner syndrome
Pars planitis
Pemphigus
Pemphigus vulgaris	Accepted	II	Anti-Desmogein 3
Pernicious anaemia	Accepted	II
Perivenous encephalomyelitis
POEMS syndrome
Polyarteritis nodosa
Polymyalgia rheumatica
Polymyositis	Accepted
Primary biliary cirrhosis	Accepted		Anti-p62 antibodies|Anti-p62, Anti-sp100 antibodies|Anti-sp100, Anti-Mitochontrial(M@) antibodys|Anti-Mitochondrial(M2)
Primary sclerosing cholangitis
Progressive inflammatory neuropathy	Suspected
Psoriasis	Accepted			T-cells
Psoriatic Arthritis	Accepted
Pyoderma gangrenosum
Pure red cell aplasia
Rasmussen's encephalitis
Raynaud phenomenon
Relapsing polychondritis	Accepted
Reiter's syndrome
Restless leg syndrome	Suspected
Retroperitoneal fibrosis
Rheumatoid arthritis	Accepted	III	Rheumatoid factor, Anti-MCV
Rheumatoid fever
Sarcoidosis	Suspected
Schizophrenia	Suspected
Schmidt syndrome
Schnitzler syndrome
Scleritis
Scleroderma	Suspected		Anti-topoisomerase antibodies|Anti-topoisomerase
Sj??gren's syndrome	Accepted
Spondyloarthropathy
Sticky blood syndrome
Still's Disease
Stiff person syndrome	Suspected
Subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE)
Susac's syndrome
Sweet syndrome
Sydenham Chorea
Sympathetic ophthalmia
Takayasu's arteritis
Temporal arteritis (also known as "giant cell arteritis")	Accepted	IV
Tolosa-Hunt syndrome
Transverse Myelitis
Ulcerative Colitis (one of two types of idiopathic inflammatory bowel disease "IBD")	Accepted	IV
Undifferentiated connective tissue disease
Undifferentiated spondyloarthropathy
Vasculitis	Accepted	III
Vitiligo	Suspected
Wegener's granulomatosis	Accepted		Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody|Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic(cANCA)
Wilson's syndrome
Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome

In both autoimmune and inflammatory diseases the condition arises through aberrant reactions of the human adaptive or innate immune systems. In autoimmunity, the patient???s immune system is activated against the body's own proteins. In inflammatory diseases, it is the overreaction of the immune system, and its subsequent downstream signaling (TNF, IFN, etc), which causes problems.

A substantial minority of the population suffers from these diseases, which are often chronic, debilitating, and life-threatening. There are more than eighty illnesses caused by autoimmunity. It has been estimated that autoimmune diseases are among the ten leading causes of death among women in all age groups up to 65 years.

Currently, a considerable amount of research is being conducted into treatment of these conditions. According to a report from Frost & Sullivan, the total payouts by an alliance of leading pharmaceutical companies for drug discovery contract research in the autoimmune/inflammation segment from 1997 to 2002 totaled $489.8 million, where Eli Lilly, Suntory, Procter & Gamble, Encysive, and Novartis together account for 98.6 percent of payouts by that alliance.

Symptoms of Autoimmune Disease:

The symptoms of autoimmune disease vary depending on the disease as well as the person???s immune system. Common symptoms include:

Inflammation, fatigue, dizziness, malaise, elevated fever and high body temperature, extreme sensitivity to cold in the hands and feet, weakness and stiffness in muscles and joints, weight changes, digestive or gastrointestinal problems, low or high blood pressure, irritability, anxiety, or depression, infertility or reduced sex drive (low libido), blood sugar changes, and depending on the type of autoimmune disease, an increase in the size of an organ or tissue or, the destruction of an organ or tissue can result.

• Autoimmunity

• Systemic autoimmune diseases

• Immune-mediated disease

• The Autoimmunity Blog

• Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Industrial Learning Unit on Chemgaroo

• Autoimmunity ??? an Introduction Industrial Learning Unit on Chemgaroo

• LDN Research Trust A UK based charity raising awareness of the potential usage of LDN as a treatment for Auto-immune diseases

• Links to pictures of Autoimmune Diseases (Hardin MD) at University of Iowa