What Is an Autoimmune Disease?

In this video, Barbara Grubbs, a nurse practitioner explains what autoimmune diseases are. Autoimmune diseases occur when the immune system attacks the body’s healthy cells causing a host of issues. Right now, there is no known cause or cure for these diseases.

Find out more about how the body’s cells are affected by lupus. 

Barbara starts by talking about some of the connective tissue diseases that you may have heard of, such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma. Barbara explains what connective tissue is and how the immune system attacks it in autoimmune disease patients.

She goes on to detail other autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, Crohn’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, and some diseases which are commonly thought to be autoimmune diseases but aren’t such as HIV and Epstein Barr virus.

Check out 11 signs that could mean you have lupus. 

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