Genetics of Automune Diseases - What Kind of Benefits Could That Bring?

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At the moment, there aren't any cures or preventative measures for automune diseases. Do you think some of this work could change that? We certainly hope so. The things that the genetic allows us to study are those events happen right at the time that the disease develops. And that if we can understand what's going wrong at the point of diseased development, then it may well be possible,. in families where many people are affected by a particular disease, to actually start thinking about, could we intervene at aprevent level to try and reduce their chance of getting an auto-disease.

Could the food we eat and the air we breathe be damaging our immune systems? The number of people with autoimmune diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to type 1 diabetes, began to increase around 40 years ago in the west. Now, some are also emerging in countries that had never seen the diseases before. In this episode from January 2022, Ian Sample speaks to the genetic scientist and consultant gastroenterologist James Lee about how this points to what western lifestyles might be doing to our health, and how genetics could reveal exactly how our immune systems are malfunctioning. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod