Apart from knowing symptoms of autoimmune disease, individuals should know the risk factors. The risk factors depend on a number of things. They are mentioned below.
Gender: A few autoimmune diseases like arthritis and multiple sclerosis (MS) occur more in females than males, whereas diseases like Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and Sjogren’s syndrome have 95% female patients. Overall, 78% of people affected by autoimmune diseases are female.
A few factors in females differ from males, like additional X chromosomes, certain hormonal changes, immune responses, effects of environmental changes, organ vulnerability, and reproductive function, which might be responsible for the prevalence of higher chances of autoimmune diseases.
- Obesity: Obese people are at high risk of developing autoimmune diseases like psoriatic and rheumatic arthritis. This health condition threatens a healthy immune system and sends an individual’s body to a chronic state of low-grade inflammation.
- Medication: Before taking any medication for blood pressure, antibiotics or statins, individuals should check its side effects and talk to their healthcare provider. Sometimes, side effects of medications lead to the development of these diseases.
- Smoking and exposure to toxins: Smoking cigarettes results in cancer and results in cardiovascular diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other autoimmune diseases. When an individual burns tobacco, thousands of toxic chemicals are produced with it.
Besides, exposure to other harmful toxins like ultraviolet radiation, air pollutants, organic solvents, etc., also leads to autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis.
- Infections: Infections arise when certain viruses interact with an individual’s genetics using various mechanisms. One such example is an infectious microorganism which is a bacteria called Group A Streptococcus- and it can trigger heart, brain and joint-related autoimmune diseases.