Autoimmune Diseases - is Endometriosis one of them

There has been much speculation as to whether Endometriosis is an autoimmune disease, so lets look briefly at the different ways the immune system can be impaired or fail:

Autoimmune disease

The term "autoimmune disease" refers to a varied group of more than 80 serious, chronic illnesses that involve almost every human organ system. It includes diseases of the nervous, gastrointestinal, and endocrine systems as well as skin and other connective tissues, eyes, blood, and blood vessel. In all of these diseases, the underlying problem is similar--the body's immune system becomes misdirected, attacking the very organs it was designed to protect.

Many individual autoimmune diseases are rare, as there are many different types of autoimmune diseases. But as a group, however, they afflict millions of people. Most autoimmune diseases strike women more often than men, particularly affecting women of working age and during their childbearing years.

For reasons which are not understood, about 75 percent of autoimmune diseases occur in women, most frequently during the childbearing years. Hormones are thought to play a role, because some autoimmune illnesses occur more frequently after menopause, others suddenly improve during pregnancy, with flare-ups occurring after delivery, while still others will get worse during pregnancy. Autoimmune diseases also seem to have a genetic component, but, mysteriously, they can cluster in families as different illnesses. For example, a mother may have lupus; her daughter, diabetes; her grandmother, rheumatoid arthritis. Research is shedding light on genetic as well as hormonal and environmental risk factors that contribute to the causes of these diseases.

Autoimmune Reactions

Autoimmune reactions can be triggered in several ways:

• A substance in the body that is normally strictly contained in a specific area (and thus is hidden from the immune system) is released into the general circulation. For example, the fluid in the eyeball is normally contained within the eyeball's chambers. If a blow to the eye releases this fluid into the bloodstream, the immune system may react against it.
• A normal body substance is altered. For example, viruses, drugs, sunlight, or radiation may change a protein's structure in a way that makes it seem foreign.
• The immune system responds to a foreign substance that is similar in appearance to a natural body substance and inadvertently targets the body substance as well as the foreign substance.
• Something malfunctions in the cells that control antibody production. For example, cancerous B lymphocytes may produce abnormal antibodies that attack red blood cells.

Immune Deficiency Disease

What is an immune deficiency disease?

When part of the immune system is either absent or is not working properly, an immune deficiency disease may result. An immune deficiency disease may be caused either by an inborn defect in the cells of the immune system or an external environmental factor may damage the immune system.

There are two types of Immune Deficiency Disease - Primary and Secondary.

Primary immune deficiency diseases are disorders in which part of the body's immune system is missing or does not function properly. They are caused by intrinsic or genetic defects in the immune system.

Secondary immune deficiency diseases are those in which the immune system is compromised by factors outside the immune system, such as viruses or chemotherapy, toxins and pollution.

Looking at the information above, it is difficult to determine whether Endometriosis is an Autoimmune disease or a Secondary Immune Deficiency disease. These two malfunctions of the immune system appear to have very similar traits - the immune system is impaired or compromised over time. With Primary Immune Deficiency disease, this is a situation in which the individual is born with the problem and is commonly inherited.

Is Endometriosis a condition where the immune system is attacking the self! It seems true that an autoimmune reaction is taking place, when particles of the body are found in areas where they should not be i.e. the endometrium. But in the case of Endometriosis, the immune system should be attacking those stray cells, but it is not clearing up the stray cells completely. It is left unchecked, which is why these stray cells go on to develop into Endometriosis.

In women who do not have Endometriosis, but who do have stray endometrial cells in the pelvic cavity, these stray cells are cleaned up by the immune system. It has been noted that a very high percentage of women do have retrograde menstruation which will contain endometrial cells, but because their immune system is functioning properly, then this debris is destroyed and not left in the pelvic cavity to go on and develop into Endometriosis.

My own feelings are that Endometriosis is a Secondary Immune Deficiency disease, which is triggered by outside factors like toxins, dioxins and excess estrogens in the body. I doubt if we will ever find out which one of these is the culprit, and maybe its due to a cocktail of things that is compromising the immune system; but considering so many women with Endometriosis suffer from other serious health problems in tandem with their endo, then it seems logical to assume that a compromised immune system is the root cause.

This is a very difficult subject to gets to grips with as the immune system is such a complex system, and when it goes wrong the processes seem just as complicated. I have found a lot of information about Autoimmune diseases, but little in the way of hard facts about Immune Deficiency diseases. They are obviously different, but the end results seem very similar to me.

If you wish to find out more about Autoimmune diseases here is a very good article which describes the whole subject in an easy to read manner.


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