Large-scale study reveals that 1 in 10 people may suffer from autoimmune disease



Autoimmune diseases are diseases in which the normal function of the immune system, which is supposed to respond to infections, is disrupted and mistakenly attacks normal cells in the body. More than one type is known. A large study of 22 million people found that autoimmune diseases are not per person for about 1 in 10 people in the population.

Incidence, prevalence, and co-occurrence of autoimmune disorders over time and by age, sex, and socioeconomic status: a population-based cohort study of 22 million individuals in the UK - The Lancet
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00457-9

University of Glasgow - University news - Large-scale study reveals autoimmune disorders now affect around one in ten
https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_952084_en.html

Over the past several decades, it has been reported one after another that the number of patients with some autoimmune diseases has increased, and among experts it is said that 'some common environmental factors and changes in lifestyle have increased the overall incidence of autoimmune diseases.' is also rising.”

However, it is often difficult to identify the exact cause of autoimmune diseases, and research on whether it is due to an inborn genetic predisposition or other factors has not made much progress.



To address this conundrum, the study, published June 3, 2023 in the medical journal The Lancet, involved researchers from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, University College London in the United Kingdom, the University of Glasgow and Imperial College London. , Cardiff University, Leicester University, and Oxford University, bringing together experts in various fields such as immunology and endocrinology. Using the anonymized data of about 22 million people recorded in electronic medical records in the UK, we verified the trends in the number of patients with autoimmune diseases and the factors behind the increase and decrease.

The study found that 978,872 of the 22,009,375 participants were diagnosed with at least one autoimmune disease between January 1, 2000 and June 30, 2019. I was. The gender ratio of patients was 63.9% female and 36.1% male.

Many autoimmune diseases showed an increasing tendency during the period, and the most notable increase was

celiac disease , in which gluten contained in wheat causes an immune reaction in the digestive system, and inflammation in the lacrimal and salivary glands. Sjögren's syndrome , in which symptoms such as dry eyes and dry mouth appear, and Basedow's disease , in which the thyroid gland, which controls metabolism, is stimulated by an immune response and secretes excessive thyroid hormones. On the other hand, the incidence of Hashimoto's disease , in which thyroid cells are destroyed by an immune reaction, and pernicious anemia caused by an autoimmune disease, was greatly reduced.



In addition, the combined incidence of the 19 most common autoimmune diseases was 10.2% of the total during the survey period, specifically 1,912,200 women (13.1%) and 668,264 men (7.4%). was shown to be affected. This percentage was higher than estimates derived from previous studies, which were often small in sample size and targeted autoimmune diseases.

The study also found that there are socioeconomic, regional and seasonal differences in several autoimmune diseases. For example, childhood-onset type 1 diabetes was more often diagnosed in the winter, while

vitiligo was more often diagnosed in the summer. Since these differences are unlikely to be caused by genetic differences, avoidable risk factors such as smoking, obesity and stress may be involved in the development of some autoimmune diseases.



Also, autoimmune diseases tend to cluster in the same people, meaning that people who develop one autoimmune disease are more likely to develop a second one than those who do not. was also confirmed. These findings are expected to provide clues for investigating common causes hidden in multiple different autoimmune diseases.

'Some autoimmune diseases tend to occur more frequently than chance or intensified testing alone can explain,' said lead author Natalie Konrad of the Catholic University of Leuven. This may mean that several autoimmune diseases share common risk factors, such as genetic predisposition and environmental triggers.'

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